rfong's past two years

A quick overview of my recent best life; primarily an exercise in furiously leveling up my skills at outdoorsing, circus arts discipline, community organizing, and micro-publishing. Subsequently, adapting my best life to COVID-19 lockdown-associated difficulties.

## Recurring commitments * **MIT Admissions - Chair of Engineering Advisory Board**: Lead volunteer coordinator and alum reviewer for MIT undergraduate applicants' [Maker Portfolios](https://mitadmissions.org/apply/firstyear/portfolios-additional-material/). I also remotely recruit, train, and support new reviewers, and constantly R&D ways to improve our process. Have committed several weeks out of every year since 2014. * **Living my best life (and writing about it)**: I've written a number of [blog posts](https://rhetoricize.medium.com/table-of-contents-77c710ba0c4) about my approaches. I also spent four months synthesizing [a mental health resource hub](https://innerdemons.me) at the beginning of lockdown. * **Outdoorsing**: Got empowered by [NOLS wilderness first aid certification](https://www.nols.edu/en/wilderness-medicine/courses/get-certified/) in 2018, recently started solo backpacking and planning group trips. I've also gotten deep into hammock backpacking DIY culture. * **Aerial silks training**: Intense biweekly training on aerial silks for almost a year before my studio closed due to lockdown. Currently on hold. ## "Content" * **Blogging + writing**: I run a newsletter, a small [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/skollipsism), and several too many blogs where I unpack [technical deep dives](https://rhetoricize.medium.com/) and updates about various categories of projects I've been working on. * **Graphic design + hand lettering**: I sell designs in [my Redbubble shop](https://www.redbubble.com/people/skollipsism/shop). * **Zines + how-to**: I publish some of my zines and how-to guides on [Gumroad](https://gumroad.com/skollipsism), and have tabled at [East Bay Alternative Book & Zine Fest](https://www.eastbayalternativebookandzinefest.com/). I particularly enjoy that the zine scene is highly inclusive of minority viewpoints that are typically oppressed or filtered by mainstream publishers. My zine collective: [Distractibility Cartographers](http://distractibility.github.io/). ## Travel & events I have a discerning appreciation for [Type II fun](https://www.rei.com/blog/climb/fun-scale), serendipity, subalpine backcountry lakes, and avoiding tourist crowds. I also frequently teach at or co-organize community events.

## Community * **Flow arts**: I teach at flow arts skillshare festivals and also co-organize [Dart Democracy](https://www.facebook.com/events/372014323915102/), an annual rope dart retreat with workshops and performances. I co-choreographed a partner rope dart performance with [Dresden Blue](https://www.facebook.com/dresdenbluefire/) for [Flow Show SF](https://www.facebook.com/TheFlowShowSF/) that we were unfortunately unable to perform due to the onset of lockdown. * **Co-living & intentional community**: I do a lot of communication, home improvement projects, [culinary experiments](https://www.instagram.com/persimmonevangelist/), gardening, potlucking, and occasional muraling in my co-living spaces. I frequently organized physical gatherings before lockdown, and now organize virtual gatherings. I have spent a lot of time testing ergonomics to facilitate authentic connection. * [**Recurse Center**](https://recurse.com), 2020 Mini 2 batch. Reconnected with the joy of computing through explorations in functional programming and linguistics. [My blog posts about attending RC](https://rfong.github.io/rflog/tag/recurse-center/). ## Just because * **Sourdough**: I've been baking bread for 10 years and analytically making proper sourdough for 2 years. I baked and ate approximately 35 lbs of sourdough during the first month of lockdown. Here's a [blog post I wrote](https://medium.com/@rhetoricize/the-five-stages-of-bread-effort-1190cd8b2d97) on some of the many different ways to get started with bread, sorted by difficulty. * **Puzzles + linguistics**: I greatly enjoy training for [MIT Mystery Hunt](https://www.mit.edu/~puzzle/) in the off season, doing [NACLO linguistics puzzles](https://www.nacloweb.org/practice.php), studying and practicing Japanese, and occasionally studying [conlangs](https://conlang.org/). * **Music**: I come from a formal classical piano background, but have been learning a bit of jazz piano, violin fiddling, and basic guitar in my spare time. * **Mongolian archery**: I started learning traditional barebow archery with an Asiatic horsebow during lockdown. * **Photography**: Demiprofessional portrait/action photographer & event videographer. [Flickr](http://flickr.com/rfong), [Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/rfong), [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4tvqX_IXAo6m17NKZC-0bQ).