San Jose Municipal Rose Garden

Free things to do are probably one of the best things in life. For my grandma's birthday, I took her to the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden and fell in love with some of the roses with unique colors.

Trying my hand at photoshop...
The roses were originally purple!

I think roses need to be at least two colors to be considered legitimate.

Polka dot roses?! So beautiful

I love my grandma! (:

I think it's definitely worth checking out, although it's not like you can spend hours of your day here, you can still be amazed by how many different kinds of roses there are and enjoy the sunshine.

Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator

About a month ago, I decided to get rid of my Facebook newsfeed. I was inspired by a friend who had done so by "unsubscribing" to each one of his friends manually. I looked at my list of 990 "friends" and realized that it was an impossible process. Instead, I decided to google "how to get rid of facebook newsfeed" and this chrome extension came up called Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator. Not only does it wipe out the newsfeed, it also gives you a productivity quote to keep you going! It looks like this; 

Why did I decide to get rid of my Facebook newsfeed? Well, I realized that all I was doing was wasting time and experiencing a ridiculous amount of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Facebook is for socializing, but all I was doing was looking at other people's lives, a placebo for real connections that I could maintain through technology.

Stephen Fry once said that "Technology is a mirror." for the skills and interests you have in real life and that only the intelligent can actually use technology to enhance their lives. For the rest of us, it actually has a negative impact on our ability to develop. I see this as mostly true, and I literally don't have the ability to not scroll through my newsfeed when it is offered to me. Subconsciously, I just fall into it and waste a lot of time. Now that I don't have it, I can focus on real communication on Facebook such as messaging or wall posts - I still get notifications that pertain to me, but don't have to look at things that have nothing to do with me at all.

I feel like there is a slight tradeoff because sometimes you don't know when a friend is in town, or miss a good opportunity to join an organization, but this literally happens so infrequently that it the time I save from not mindlessly scrolling through pictures completely outweighs, at least so far.

Getting rid of Facebook Newsfeed is I guess a "radical decision" nowadays, but it one that has really worked out for me. Now when I realize something is bothering me or making me waste time, instead of curbing the habit, it is better for me to completely eradicate it instead.

Turn Off Pageview Stats!

I've finally found a perfect place in my life for blogging. It is for those moments in between what belongs in my personal journal (which I write by hand every few days) and formal essay writing. It documents experiences and things to remember, but doesn't include the clutter of specific names and ongoing internal struggles. The ideas here are more complete than my journal, but less formally written than essays.

That being said, I would like to develop an intrinsically motivated blogging habit, and I find my stats of pageviews very distracting! I realized that many bloggers become successful not because they wanted to become famous as a goal, but because they simply enjoyed the act of blogging. I find that this constant pageview stat blocks me from enjoying the act of blogging in itself and I should at least have the option to not look at it if I don't want to. I blog for myself, not for pageviews or others.

Like, obviously, people can say, "Just don't pay attention to it." "Stop looking at it." But it's always this huge image of it every time I try to write a new post on my blog! How am I supposed to not look at it at all? Feed into my counterproductive interests, present in human nature?

So, I have asked a question on Google Product Forums about a way to turn pageviews off and you can find the link here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/how-do-i/c1Wt4RHQ_2A

I would really appreciate your support if you can help make turning off these stats possible in any way!