RAMBLY CATCHUP

Hello friends!

This is my fourth attempt at sitting to write send out this newsletter. I wrote most of it at the beginning of July with the hopes of it being the first of two I would send this month. I wanted to also share my intent to return to writing every other week as part of my RDO Fridays. But life has been so busy that every time I sit or even think about sitting to work on this, my mind wanders off and fixates on a second then third then fourth task. Before I know, the 20 minutes, the hour, the day and night, and eventually the week are up. It’s July 31 now and I’m at And Destroy, a coffee shop in Glassell Park, to write and send this out. I think the simplest thing I can do right now is just share updates.
Let’s do this in the form of Then, Now, Next.

On February 27, I proposed to Julianne on our 5th anniversary. This was perhaps one of the happiest days of my life to date. Up in the Hakone Mountains, I proposed in front of the a tori gate and then spent the day basking in the post engagement glow. We’re now in wedding planning season which we’re realizing is going to be quite eventful with all our cultural traditions.

A few days after the proposal, I suited up to run and complete the Tokyo Marathon! This was an event months in the making having previously documented my injury struggles. There were points throughout the holiday season when I didn’t think I’d be able to complete the race, but thanks to my coach, my PTs, my family, and a lot of patience, I was able to train for it adequately enough to race. January and February are my biggest running months ever having hit over 100 miles each of those months with my peak week hitting 40 miles - nuts. I have since been on a racing sabbatical - using the time to fully recover and feel good about my body. My long term goals are to run healthy and consistently so my short term goal is to hit 1000 miles this calendar year. As of July 12, I’m at 534, so right about on track to hit it! (Update, I’m now at 540 on July 31 so less so untrack to hit it. Oops)

From January through June, I participated in the Coro California Climate Resilience Leadership Network Fellowship. This was a leadership program with other professionals in the Los Angeles area where we focused on addressing adaptive challenges. A lot of problems we deal with at work or in climate spaces are technical meaning they have technical answers (doesn’t mean it’s easy, but you can get to an answer), but there are a lot of problems that are adaptive with no clear answer so we spend time learning about our leadership styles and how to listen, and how to manage and tell better stories and mapping the fully problem space with all stakeholders etc.

Other smaller, but still very important things that I’ve been involved with/organizing for:

• Hosted events like Lightning Talks and a panel for Climate Week with Urban Environmentalists

• Hosted an Earth Day Gear Swap with Lombardy Run Club

• Canvassed for candidates like Nithya Raman for City of LA Mayor and Estuardo Mariegos for CD9 in Los Angeles. Tons of doors knocked and great conversations with residents about their issues

• I became a lead with the DSA-LA’s Climate Justice Committee focusing on our metro bathrooms campaign.

• I was involved with the endorsement process for two of my organizations for the Primaries in Los Angeles

• I went to my first every World Cup game live thanks to my friend Zach!

July has been all about moving; finding the most ideal new apartment, leaving Pasadena, and starting new routines. This has been the first time I’ve moved unprompted - no new job or school or annual preplanned college dorm moveout. Julianne and I finally settled on an apartment in Glassell Park, a hilly and hip neighborhood in Northeast LA. Using cool tools like close.city and extremely detailed spreadsheet which had a column measuring the ratio of laundry machines to units, we settled here which from one POV, the most spatially perfect, and from another, the least disruptive to normal activities. The hardest part honestly wasn’t the big bad move itself, which took about four hours to clear large furniture from mine and Julianne’s apartments, rather the following two weeks we spent emptying the smaller and seemingly endless items we’ve gathered over the years. I cannot wait to be settled. I see why folks have housewarming parties three months after moving in.

The upcoming few months have even more balls for me to juggle. I’ll be hosting another lighting talk event with Urban Environmentalists, and I’m in midst of planning my 10-year high school reunion. Wild how time flies. I could’ve only imagined how these ten years would’ve unfolded but I’m to be here and able to reiminisce. After, we’ll be having an engagment party for our closest family and friends. Then here in LA, we’ve got a general election coming up and it’ll be my first time actually able to vote for City of LA Mayor (I’ve been in Pasadena). And finally, planning a wedding! Crazy.

I’ve yet to mention the books I’ve been reading...and to be honest, I haven’t been reading much. I’ve started about 25 books and finished maybe a dozen of them and I really only enjoyed two of them, one being The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins. If you have any recommendations that are good for getting out of a slump (so ideally short, punchy, or inspiring), please share with me!

Okay, I think that gets you mostly caught up with my life. My ideal would be to return to biweekly writing for the rest of the year and hopefully more topical writing in addition to personal reflections. We’ll see.

Thanks for rambling with me,
Awoe