15 February 2016

The First Day

I used to keep a journal, almost daily. For more than a decade I had a digital journal, locked behind anonymity and passwords. Then, maybe four years ago, I stopped. As with everything, it was a trickle at first, and then I found myself updating life by the quarter: January through March, followed by April through June, etc. Or I'd backdate, and capture the general occurrences, but lose the day to day interactions.

Enter Day One, a Mac and iOS journaling app. My friend Brandon introduced to me late last year and since November I've basically been able to maintain a daily log of events. It's all a part of my efforts to re-enter the writing world. Step one: It doesn't matter what I'm writing as along I'm sitting down at the computer putting some words out. That was my thinking anyway.

Ironically, the only reason I've been able to keep up with Day One is that it's available on my iPhone. Plus, it's pretty. And there's a part of met that likes to not miss a day as the entries pile up. Basically I just log what I did that day, who I saw, anyone I talked to, real boring mundane stuff. But now that I'm back in the habit, I'm hoping to start real journaling again, about feelings and thoughts, and that kind of thing.

Wish me luck. If you're wishing you could keep a journal but could never make it happen, pay the money for Day One. It's worth it and it'll make you feel accomplished at the end of each day. Update: A new version of Day One came out, the oddly named Day One 2. This is a full rebuild, and is half price at $4.99 for iOS and $19.99 for Mac. I've found that the program works best with both pieces, however pricey.

Ideally I'd have separate journals for daily stuff, private life stuff, a creative journal, and a work journal, but that's just too many. I'm gonna try to make more full fledged entries and try to encompass everything in one. Keeping up with your life is a job in and of itself isn't it?

Along with starting to keep a journal again, I've started reading Heidi Julavits' The Folded Clock: A Diary, also a recommend from a friend. I paid a whopping $14.99 for the Kindle version, which was greater than the price of the paperback. So far it's been great and I highly recommend.

02 February 2016

Backwards, Forwards


So there's a new jonyang.org. Or rather, there's a new site that jonyang.org forwards to. Before it used to come here to this very Blogspot, but now it goes to a Tumblr. The basic motivation is that I’m trying to streamline my online presences and I wanted a forward facing site that wasn’t directly my blogger. So yeah, jonyang.org now redirects to jonyangorg.tumblr.com. Note my super cute Chanrio avatar!

Also, no new posts are going up there, but there is a new newsletter available for infrequent updates: jonyangorg Tiny Letter.

I had been hoping to revamp everything and do away with “jayang” altogether, replacing public usernames with the more available and visually appealing “jonyangorg.” But that could require a little too much work since I’ve committed to “jayang(21)” for too many things already. In the past, “jonyangorg” was personal and “jayang” was public but now I’m hoping for “jonyangorg” to be public and “jonwow” to be personal. If all this stuff sounds meaningless to you, you’re probably right, but I’ve seriously devoted lots of thought to this topic recently.

There’s nothing I like better than busy work that results in nothing productive so I may still redo everything to fall along the org and wow naming conventions anyway. Godspeed.

Along with that, I’ve been mildly seriously contemplating a name change. When George went in for her married name change, she was told that her first name actually wasn’t “Georgette.” Shock! Instead our legal names are still our Chinese names and she would have to file to change her first name along with her last. Well, that means I’m not even a “Jonathan” on anything official.

With the association of “George and Jon” likely to be further and further removed from my life, I feel like I have this golden opportunity to rename myself. The power of a memorable can’t be estimated. There is no mistaking “Wait, which Choncy is that?” There’s only one Choncy. That’s I want, unmistakeable identification.

If I’m to make my way in this world, I’ll need a more unique name. Something that will stick with people. Everyone has like five Jons in their life. (Not to mention there’s a L.A. based grocery chain named “JONS.”) In addition, I’m sick of fending off the more Google-able actors, ophthalmologists, kinetic companies, and infrastructure managers that push me down on Internet searches. There are too many “Jon Yangs” in the world and maybe it’ll be easier for me to achieve localized fame if I can just become a different person.

It would still be nice to have some consistency though, so I wanted something that would still start with J and would be unisex. Unhelpful polls of my peers have produced this list: Jorge (haha, um, no), Jamie, Jinx, Justice, or my camp name Juicebox. You should see the eye rolls when I suggest “Jessie.” So far my only preferred option is “Jamie."

A list of famous and relevant Jamies: Lannister, Chung, Foxx, Lee Curtis, King, Lynn Spears.

The bad news is “Jamie Yang” doesn't really get much further up on the uniqname scale. Nor does “Jami Young” or its alternatives. Back to the drawing board I guess. For now I’ll just remain as the same regular person you’ve come to know and love. Name change pending.