Kish’s Blog

The most basic form of this idea is the question of how to make it easy for yourself to do something. This is an important question, because when we are trying to grow, a way that we can accomplish that is by changing  our actions and reactions. Almost all of the time, I will have some sort of mental or emotional block around making those changes, and even if I didn't, because of the inertia of my normal ways of being, making these changes necessarily takes effort. An idea that has been useful for me in this domain for several years has been the one of affordances, from design. An affordance is a "quality or property of an object that...makes clear how it can or should be used." [1]  One of the canonical examples of affordances is a door knob—the shape of a well-designed door knob affords turning. By clarifying the ways to use an object through intuitive design, an affordance makes it easy to interact with the object in the intended way. Similarly, we can create affordanc

I was reflecting on my 2020 resolutions, as well as some of the other lifestyle changes I made in my life during this year, and thought it would be nice to share my progress and my reflections on my blog 😊 For reference, here were my three New Year's resolutions for 2020: No substance use (including caffeine 😮) I've deleted the Facebook and Instagram apps from my phone, and would like to transition into checking social media platforms around once per week instead of multiple times a day.  Month-long challenges. (For instance, in January I went the month without wearing makeup or applying heat to my hair.) The other two big changes that I made this year that weren't tied into my resolutions were becoming a vegetarian and limiting my online shopping, both of which I will also be reflecting on at the end! No substance use I would say that this was the biggest change that I made this year. I decided to make this resolution over the circling retreat I attended over the new ye

I imagine this list would probably be different if we hadn't been quarantining for the past 9 months, but regardless, here are some of my favorite things in Pittsburgh (having lived here for the past 16 months). Food Everyday Noodles - love their Taiwanese style sesame cold noodles and egg yolk buns! Salem's Market and Grill - their fries are  a must !!! Also highly recommend the baklava with pistachios :) Mercurio's Pizza - I used to be OBSESSED with this place, but the last time I went the pizza wasn't as good as I had remembered, so take this with a grain of salt. Would always get their margherita! Pizzeria Davide - also a very good pizza place. I had a couple slices fresh when I visited Pittsburgh last summer, but since then have also had it via delivery a few times.  Pamela's Diner - you have to try their hotcakes! Very delicious and unique, a bit greasy though so be cautious not to go overboard. Coffee shops Zeke's Coffee in East Liberty - this was super c