Taking a Break
Tap tap. Is this thing on?
I’m taking a break from work for the next two months. (Well, almost the next two months - I still have to work through 2024-10-25.) During this time, I’ll be (maybe?) blogging more on this page, assuming I get the apparently critical dep vulnerabilities fixed.
Why?
A few reasons. None of them are awful - I’m not full-time taking care of my health (mostly) or a loved one’s; I’m not being asked to take a break for some horrible thing I did at work; I’m not seriously contemplating an exit from Google, where I somehow still get to work on things I love all day.
Mostly, I’m just taking a break because I want to.
Burnout is very common among software developers. I don’t think mine is overly severe, but it’s definitely there: I wake up tired most days, I have to scrape together the energy to finish working later than 4pm. For the last few years, as a lead, I primarily work on things that move really, really slowly, because they’re huge. That’s great, but it definitely leads to a feeling of sameness.
There are also some things in my life that I really want to focus more on, and I’m always too tired to find the time. Like playing with my dog, getting better at my hobbies, getting to know the community around me, keeping my household smooth and stress-free. Once upon a time, Google offered a sabbatical program for employees with a certain length of tenure. This doesn’t exist anymore, but after 8 years (!!) at Google, I’m ready for an extended break.
November and December is, honestly, a great time to do it. Nobody gives a shit in Q4 anyways. Work goes slowly; people are taking vacation. Autumn is the best time for walks and bike rides. I can travel on the train, cold enough that it feels festive, but before threat of winter storms and 18 hour delays. (That happened to me once!) With apologies to my family, I can see them in November, then skip the entire rodeo that is Christmastime travel - instead, I can spend Christmas at home, in peace, snuggled up with my dogs.
What do you even do, with nothing to do for two months?
This part is easy! I’m not one of these people who insists they could never retire because they have nothing to do. I, frankly, cannot wait to be able to retire (current unpaid break notwithstanding). I collect hobbies like they’re going out of fashion. Like many who benefit from ADHD, I don’t always see these hobbies through to the end, but that’s not always because I get bored of them. Sometimes it’s just because I run out of time.
I’ve got a few big goals, a few smaller goals, and a few scheduled plans.
Big Goal #1: Submit the Master Hand Knitter Level 1 Packet
Some folks may know that in 2022 I became incredibly interested in becoming certified as a Master Hand Knitter. In fact, I did great focusing on it for the first few months. I finished about 90% of the packet, completed all the knitting samples, things were great. But I hit a snag (a small one!) and that was enough to derail me.
My first priority is to finish this packet and mail it out. I got my hands on the updated version of the packet this week; next Monday I’ll go through the updated prompt, see what I have done or still need to do, and make a task list to wrap it up. Then I expect I’ll spend most of my days at the library or at my desk at home, knitting and writing and researching.
When I have my project plan figured out, I’m hoping I will remember to post it to this blog for accountability, and in case anybody cares.
Scheduled Thing: Artisan Bread Course at King Arthur in VT
In early November (so, maybe even while I’m still working on the MHK packet) I’ll be taking the Amtrak across the country - longer than I have ridden it so far! - and have enrolled me and my mother in a baking course. It’s at the King Arthur headquarters in Vermont, and so I’ll be in relatively-rural New England at the height of the leaves. I am… very excited.
I’ve taken the Amtrak many times before, but this will be the furthest. The itinerary is as follows:
- Capital Corridor from Santa Clara, CA to Emeryville, CA
- California Zephyr from Emeryville, CA to Chicago, IL
- Lake Shore Limited from Chicago, IL to Sprinfield, MA
It’s not quite all the way coast-to-coast, but Massachusetts kind of counts, right? The California Zephyr is usually about 40 hours (two nights), and the LSL is another overnight, although we leave pretty late at night and arrive in the late morning or afternoon or something. As long as I don’t hit a severe delay, I’ve got a pretty long layover in Chicago, where maybe I’ll get to visit a friend’s new yarn store, or maybe I’ll just eat food and shop irresponsibly in the Loop. Who can say.
I’ll post about the train trip, of course, and hopefully I’ll post about the baking class too. I’m planning on bringing my new Canon R100 and macro lens, so hopefully I can get some lovely baked good pictures while I’m there.
Big Goal #2: Project Planning My Campervan
Some also may know that I own a 1966 Ford Econoline (baby blue) and was once devoting a lot of time to outfitting it to serve as a camper van. This, too, hit a fairly minor snag and derailed my entire planning (thanks, ADHD) except this time it’s also been all wrapped up with guilt, too. I want to revive this project, or at very least get rid of the guilt, so the plan for the camper is something like this:
- Decide whether to continue with the project, or sell the van
- Figure out the insurance, registration, and garaging situation, which is currently causing all the stress
- Price out options for engine swap - fuel-injected gas, or even better, EV
- Figure out how or whether to ship it for such an engine swap
- Chart out other work that still needs to happen to the interior
- Find options for body work to restore the exterior (and fix a leak)
This takes second place to the MHK stuff because I care about it a little bit less, but also because even if I can get only part of this list done, I will still feel better than I did before, which I think will lower my general burnout and anxiety floor.
When I do start planning these things out, I hope to be blogging about it quite a lot, again to keep myself accountable.
Scheduled Thing: Blacksmithing Taster Class at the Crucible
This is a small one, but as a sort-of-anniversary-gift (six years next week) I registered my partner and I for a short, introductory blacksmithing course in Oakland. I’m really looking forward to it - and sort of hoping I don’t love it too much. “This had better not awaken anything in me,” as they say.
Small Stuff
Most of my other goals revolve around having a healthier relationship with my home and hobbies. So, in no particular order:
- Get back in the habit of walking out with Crash in the mornings
- Finish my to-be-read pile (currently around 6 books, but I read the books and the pile never seems to get smaller)
- Deep-clean the house what needs it (my office, the espresso machine, probably the garage)
- Finish some videogames - The Witness, maybe Death Stranding, maybe P3R
- Stop using Arch btw and put vanilla Debian on my home desktop
- Fuck around with Jellyfin on the dance game rig (it can do both!)
- Cook a lot more exciting things
- Take a lot more lovely knitting photos
- Bike everywhere, Caltrain everywhere, BART everywhere
- Sleep more than 7 hours most nights (is such a thing even possible?)
- Avoid getting re-addicted to caffeine :(
I dunno. Lots of things.
ok cool
This blog has an RSS feed link, and I already started sharing it with people at work who are interested in what I’ll be up to, so I’m gonna try and keep it updated.
I meant for this post to be some whole introspective thing about how burnout sucks and everyone should take more breaks, and that’s true, but instead I ended up talking about what I’ll post here later on. Hopefully that’s true too.
See folks next time(?)