Category: Personal

Personal

Reflecting on 2021

| E. Sosa

Change, lots of change this year. This year can be summed up in that quote from Han. There were a lot of moving pieces in my life, and some of those changes will carry on aftershocks into 2022, but I am ready for them.

Biggest change of all, I finally did it, I moved out of Utah. By the time I wrote my 2020 reflection I already knew I was leaving Utah, I had picked the move out date in November, I just didn’t tell anyone outside of my immediate family because of how COVID changes everything. Nothing is guaranteed, and if anything that was exacerbated even further in 2021.

Moving brought a lot of unwanted changes, good and bad. I can go on and on about what was good and bad, but I am going to keep it short and sweet. A co-worker asked me one day when I moved here what is worse than I expected, and better than expected in SF. When he asked me, I had only been here a few weeks, so my answer was not accurate. A few months later I reached out and said hey I lied here are the real answers:

  • Worse than expected from the move to SF? The noise of a bustling city. My room is right in the front of the building of a corner street that isn’t too busy, but at 6 am you’ve got the garbage truck rolling in, street cleaners after, and upstairs neighbors walking around. So I am abruptly waken up everyday except Sundays.
  • Better than expected from the move to SF? How much I missed living near the ocean in a coastal city. I grew up my whole life near iconic water fronts. Northeast Jersey has arguably one of the most beautiful cityscape waterfronts in the US, and Santo Domingo is home to the first European establishment in the Americas.

This year was definitely better than 2020 for me, but not as productive. I ended up dropping out of my master’s program, not reading as much, and not blogging as much as I did in 2020. However, this was my most active year by far, I feel in great physical shape, been eating just as healthy as I did in 2020, and have been meeting lots of great people out here in the bay. I do have a plan for turning around the reading and blogging, but school, I am done with that for now. I need a break, a well deserved break, I want to focus on my overall mental and body strength and build those up even more.

Here’s to 2022!

Highlights

  • Memorable Moment: My trip to New Jersey in May 2021. I always love going back to NJ, someday I might even end up living there or in NYC in the future, who knows. But I got to see my family, all of them, for the first time since the pandemic began, and also got to see my father, who I hadn’t seen in over six years (longest we’ve gone).
  • Worse moment: When I discovered Champ had an infected dog bite
  • Song of the year: Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton
  • Most Laughs: Karaoke with my friends from Utah in SF — specially the videos afterwards
  • 2021 in one word: Change
2021 Highlights
Personal, Travel

Getting into Backpacking

| E. Sosa

As weird as it may sound, I first found out about backpacking through the movie Wild. My first time backpacking was one for the books. Outside of what I saw in the movie, I had zero knowledge of the activity. I went to REI to buy and rent shit on my own. My first trip was to Havasupai–a Native American Reservation in the west side of the Grand Canyon.

The trek to the Havasupai campground is a 10 mile downhill hike. I made all the rookie mistakes you could make during this trip. I packed clothes for several days, entire loafs of bread, with your regular bottles of peanut butter and jelly, and if that was not enough I brought several items to make pancakes in the morning (SMH). I was smart about my sleeping gear. A friend lend me a backpacking hammock, and I rented a lightweight sleeping pad and bag from REI. I felt my over-weight, over-packed backpack about 5 or 10 minutes into my trek. Heading out of this canyon I cheated because going in was brutal for me; I ended up getting the worse blisters you could imagine, and could not imagine having to do the trek, the uphill trek, so I took a helicopter ride out. First thing I did was book a nice hotel suite in Vegas, and made dinner reservations at one of my favorite steakhouses in town.

Here’s a picture of me and massively overpacked backpack… Wish I would’ve taken a pic of the full backpack.

After this trip you’d think I’d be done with backpacking… Nope! This really got me going, and left me wanting more. Luckily some of the folks in the group I was in knew quite a bit about backpacking, so I picked their brains for as much as I could. This trip happened in the summer of 2018, and I knew I wasn’t going to get into this in the fall with how things were in my life by then.

Fast forward to Spring 2019 and I was poised to overturn every rookie mistake I made. Signed up for a few REI classes, joined several subreddits, revisited the notes taken from my backpacking friends and this pic sums up the results:

Looking at lot better this time… No crazy items over my head, and a much more appropriate gearset at a reasonable weight.

This picture was taken in the San Rafael Swell in southern Utah. Unfortunately was not able to test out all of my new gear during this trip because me and my friend got lost and couldn’t meetup with a group we were supposed to. Luckily my friend and I ran into someone from that trip (whom we did not get to meet during that trip). He invited me to go to Grand Gulch in Bears Ears National Monument. This was the ultimate test them all trip. Three Days, Two nights, and roughly 35 miles to go through. Guess what? I kicked ass during that trip. That then opened the flood gates and in 2019 I backpacked the following:

  • Coyote Gulch in Escalante National Monument
  • Uintas National Forest
  • Cirque of the Towers in Wind Rivers, WY
  • Maroon Bells Loop in Aspen, CO
  • Small Portions of the PCT in Oregon

It also opened the flood gates to many camping trips that happened that summer and fall. Since then I have continued to backpack and also brought along a new friend with me:

TL;DR Went to Havasupai for my first trip where I brought too much shit I didn’t need or use. Got help, adjusted my gear, and have been backpacking lots since.

Personal

SLC 2020 Earthquake

| E. Sosa

It was 7:09 am on Wednesday March 18th, 2020. I was still sleeping when all of a sudden I was abruptly woken up by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. It was scary. I was laying in bed, and immediately got up to find cover and hang on. I kept calling Champ to come to me, but the little guy was terrified. He went to a corner of the apartment and just sat there scared. He even peed himself and he has never had an accident as an adult; understandable given he or I have been through something like this. The quake lasted for a good 30 seconds if I’m not mistaking. I was living in one of those newer condos in downtown SLC, so I could feel the whole building sway. Once the earthquake was over I immediately put on some clothes and went outside. Did ya catch the date above? March 2020, what else was happening in March? Hmmmmm….

Right, we’re in the beginning of what was at the time a scary new coronavirus spreading! As soon as I exited my building I saw everyone was distancing and just scared because of what just happened. Right across the street there was a park with a big soccer field, so I went there to go wait things out a bit. Luckily we ran into Champ’s best friend so I just let the two of them play out there while I contacted my family and friends.

It was safe to go back in, but unfortunately the power was out and not coming back until 10p that day; I found it weird Rocky Mountain gave us a specific time. So I decided to go to my company’s office; it was going to be empty anyways, and empty it was. I did bring Champ with me because he was frighten. The aftershocks were scaring him and we had more than 50 aftershocks 2 hours after the quake, I couldn’t leave him home alone without power. In the office one of the Security Guards saw him, but gave me a pass saying “I didn’t see a dog here;” thankful for that. Afterwards I went to my sisters place to wait for the power to come back, and right when the clock struck 10p lo and behold the power was back.

What’s the moral of the story? 2020 was weird. This was just one of those weird moments I went through. I’ll never forget how this felt, or Champs’ reaction to the quake; he looked so innocent and scared, I can tell he even felt guilty for the accident, but I wasn’t going to get mad at him for it. Whenever we ran into our next quake, hopefully we’re prepared.

TL;DR Scary quake, Champ peed himself, and this all happened with the coronavirus started spreading.

Personal

My Spotify Playlists

| E. Sosa

Ever since the pandemic began I’ve been working on various Spotify playlists. I’ve been going down memory lane for quite some time.

Playlists:

2000s

I wanted to compose a playlist of my favorite songs in the decade of 2000-2009. Songs in this playlist remind me of specific moments in my life. This decade was and remains the most consequential one for me.

Relaxing

I love this playlist. Whenever I am studying, want to chill, or just need something in the background, this is my go to.

Workout

I started building this one before the pandemic began. I’ve been working out on and off, sort of like blogging, but recently it has taken off and does not show signs of slowing down. This playlist helps get in the zone.

F**k you

I was angry for a good chunk of 2020. So my anger inspired me to get a playlist I could listen to. I really shouldn’t be feeding my anger, and should be looking for ways out of it, but f**k it. I also use this playlist sometimes to workout; just so that I can get a bit more angry.

Jazz it up

My go-to studying playlist. There’s just something about Jazz that really gets me to focus and does not become a distraction.

Ratata

What’s a list of playlist without one to dance to. Ratata is a Dominican word, it’s closest equivalent would be it’s lit, or dope. In any case, it’s a good playlist to dance, clean your house, or if you just want to listen to some good music.

Personal

Idiosyncrasy – How are you?

| E. Sosa

I have a pet peeve that I consider it to be a idiosyncrasy of our midwestern and/or western American society. Whenever I walk in somewhere and I’m greeted by the employee, or I am walking by someone and they say to me “Hi, how are you?” I’m not referring to the one that’s genuine, I am referring to that robotic and repetitive one some people have. You’re rarely or ever going to hear this in the North East cities.

My first job was Cashier at McDonalds in downtown Paterson. That McDonalds is probably the busiest one in the entire city; specially on days where they’re special events going on in downtown. Anyways I like how straight to the point we were, it was something like “Welcome to McD, what can I get for you?” When I moved to Utah, one of my first jobs here was Supervisor at Carl’s Jr. A burger fast food joint that is mostly out here in the western states. At Carl’s Jr. we had to greet customer “Hi, how are you today?” Why? In all honesty I did not care for the emotional or mental wellbeing of the customers, nor did they come to Carl’s Jr. for a wellbeing checkup; they came here to eat! All I cared for was making sure I got their order right, which would led to the customer being satisficed on the way out. Some customers were cut off guard by me asking them how are they? Most answered, “fine, or good” and went straight to their order. They all knew I didn’t care how were they, so why bother asking it? It’s all business at the end of the day.

Anyways, continuing my rant. Same goes for those folks who you’re walking by and say hi to, and they ask “how are you,” but in a fast and not genuine way. This annoys me, can’t we just stick to hello, I know you just said how are you because it’s programmed in your brain to say it.

There, got that out of my system.

TL;DR You want to annoy me? Ask me how I am doing in a non-genuine way, or better yet, say have a nice day like how Carlin does in the video below.