December 2020. As my venus fly trap goes into dormancy, I poke fun at our other accidental traps.

The whole September I was quite overwhelmed with work and life. I remember that in September "The Social Dilemma" came out. I don't remember a lot more weirdly.

In October I managed to take two weeks off! Visited the Isle of Wight for the first time to celebrate my birthday. Last week I took some time off to study for my "Life in the UK" exam. I also took an English exam. And I passed both!! Now I have the basics to begin the process to apply for British citizenship.

Time is still blur. Some days are particularly hard. It is what it is.

Bookmarks related to tech or web development:

• Web accessibility checklist by Bruce Lawson.
• Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet by Tanya Basuarchive.
• Dyslexia friendly style guide by The British Dyslexia Association.
• Magnet Fingers by Charlotte Dann.
• SVG Line animation by Thea.
• A11y Coffee.
• Pocket pattern.
• How to make your VSCode sparkle by Monica Powell.
• How to audit your website on a budget.
• "Telling people to delete Facebook won’t fix the internet" by Adi Robertson.
• "How CSS Perspective Works" by Amit Sheen.
• "A framework for focusing your learning goals" by Sally Lait.
• "Tips on Making Sure Hidden Content is Accessible (or Not!)" by Scott Vinkle.
• Thread on Algorithms and Black Faces.
• "Data Privacy Exhaustion Is Real" by Simon Pitt.
• "Writing even more CSS with Accessibility in Mind, Part 2: Respecting user preferences" by Manuel Matuzovic.
• "The most useful accessibility testing tools and techniques" by Artem Sapegin.
• You've heard of tax havens. After Brexit, the UK could become a 'data haven' by Carissa Véliz.
• "Honor the ADA: Avoid Web Accessibility Quick-Fix Overlays".
• "Portals and giant carousels" by Jeremy Keith.
• "Why I Don’t Have Time For Your Coding Challenge" by Michelle Barker.

Other bookmarks:

• "Pom-poms and pig's bladders: the traditions of Germany's Black Forest – in pictures" by Mee-Lai Stone.
• "Candy-coloured photographs of LA's glorious hidden beauty by George Byrne" written by Katy Cowan.
• "Parents Got More Time Off. Then the Backlash Started." by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Sheera Frenkel.
• "How not to be an alien" By Frank Trentmann.
• Brexit/Ireland/Trade thread.
• "How Photo Retouching Worked Before Photoshop" by Jocelyn Sears.
• "Japan’s Lost Generation Is Still Jobless and Living With Their Parents" by Yoshiaki Nohara.
• "You Don’t Batch Cook When You’re Suicidal" by Jack.
• "The Overwhelming Racism Of COVID Coverage" by Indi Samarajiva.
• Buying Myself Back by Emily Ratajkowski.

When my Smashing Magazine article went live a couple of months ago a small discussion happened regarding my choice of words where I said I could have a  “one true version” of yourself online.

Behind my two extremes of either silence or self deprecating jokes, is a socially anxious human with baggage. I am not my “true self” online. I wish I was. But this, and I suppose this blog and my current social media activity, is indeed a true version of myself. Without any quote marks. But it is one of the many versions I have and they all have many things in common between them.

Behind “ohhelloana”

A name can be an important part of one's online identity and can be almost anything one chooses to represent themselves.

Quote from the page "name" in the IndieWeb wiki.

Many years ago, I wanted to be online without using my real name as I didn’t feel that it was completely safe for me. Not only that but Ana Rodrigues is a very common name so, in many popular websites, that username was already taken. I always liked speech balloons so this name came from that idea. And it was available almost everywhere! I would then use in the name fields something like “Ana R” in an attempt to deceive search results. It was around 2018 that I began to use the full surname in social media because around that time I began to give a couple of talks in meet-ups.

This domain, where this post lives, became the entry point from social media. When applying for jobs, I would redirect people to a domain that used my then legal name. It would still reference this blog somewhere but I was indeed creating two identities. Even if one of them was very easily discoverable (from my “professional domain” to this one), one would have to put in the effort. So two entry points: one more watered down for job prospects and with information that the recruiter would immediately want but keeping the door open if they wanted to know a bit more about myself as a person.

There were times where I thought I regretted this decision. It crossed my mind that having only one domain to represent me would be the best marketing (this whole sentence is a can of worms). I wondered if ohhelloana.blog was memorable enough. If I have a professional domain to apply for jobs, does this mean that this is my unprofessional domain? I wondered if I should buy all possible TLD combinations to ensure people would land here. In panic, I also bought ohhelloana.dev and anarodrigues.dev as soon as these became available. I wanted to be memorable without having to give up the illusion of privacy and safety that I created many years ago.

Overthinking this whole thing

Anyway, I feel very IndieWeb for having two different domains with two different information goals. Both represent me. I think a lot of people find themselves in this situation and it is a tiny bit harder when they work for the web.

For many of us, who work for the web, our domain is a way to stand out in the job market and, especially for freelancers, a way to secure gigs. A professional identity, a means to reach a goal. Perhaps a place where we can’t relax with ourselves as we become a product to be sold. From my perspective, it looks as if we allow our identity, our whole person, to perhaps glow a bit more in certain social media profiles while we truly constraint ourselves when it comes to our personal websites. It is interesting because in quite a few job interviews, you’re tested if you’re “a culture fit” (which is another can of worms).

This isn’t a criticism. In fact, for many people, this is the ideal and the expected thing. It fits their purpose and what they are comfortable with sharing and it is absolutely fine. It only becomes complicated when that isn’t the case.

The way I identify myself within the IndieWeb community is by this particular domain. I’m happy with that.

Lastly, Ana Rodrigues, is legally my old name. I decided to remove a couple of my names and add new ones some time ago. Isn’t that funny?

There’s no conclusion to this post. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. But this is my experience and how I am dealing with it right now.

The highlight of the month was: My article for Smashing Magazine went live!! Please read (and share if you think someone else would like it too)! 🤗

Bookmarks from August

Web development

• System UIcons by Corey Ginnivan.
• Transparent textures by Mike Hearn.
• Debugging HTML With Advanced CSS Selectors by Matthias Ott.
• Multiple drop-shadows on clipped element by Michelle Barker.
• Rainbow color selection by Louis Hoebregts.
• Drop-Shadow: The Underrated CSS Filter by Michelle Barker.
• Build vs Buy: Software Systems at Jurassic Park by Todd Gardner.
• Gradient angles in CSS by Nils Binder.
• Feature flags by Sunil Pai.
• Figuring out how to mark up a figure by Sebastian Greger.
• Convert HTML to Accessible PDF by Nick Colley.
• a11y is web accessibility by Eric W Bailey.
• Generative art by Ilithya.
• a11y-tests.css by Manuel Matuzovic.
• smoothscroll.css by Zach Leatherman.
• The difference between aria-label and aria-labelledby by Léonie Watson.
• Here’s what I didn’t know about “content” by Manuel Matuzovic.
• Incremental progress by Fluffy.
• Spirited Away CSS Illustration by Inès.
• RolandMC-500.css by Sarah Fossheim.
• Web History by Jay Hoffmann.
• Take Me On by Adam Kuhn.

Nice things on personal websites

• Adding Structured Book Data to My Blog Posts by Ana Ulin.
• Gratitude by Amberley Romo.
• My First Homebrew Website Club Meeting by James Gallagher.
• Being OK With Not Being Extraordinary by Tiffany Matthé.
• This website is killing the planet by Steve Messer.
• Personal Portfolio Refresh by Lisi Linhart.

Others

• A Permanent Nightmare’: Pinterest Moderators Fight to Keep Horrifying Content Off the Platform by Sarah Emerson.
• Structural Racism and it's Influence on GPs/Dermatologist by Harriet.
• The Pandemic Isn’t Forcing Moms Out of the Workforce — Dads Are by Jessica Valenti.
• You want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip by Claudia R Schneider.
• Millennials Slammed by Second Financial Crisis Fall Even Further Behind by Janet Adamy.
• The Mesmerizing Geometry of Malaysia’s Most Complex Cakes by Samantha Chong.
• How social justice slideshows took over Instagram by Terry Nguyen.
• Ubisoft's #MeToo Reckoning, Two Months Later by Ethan Gach and Ash Parrish.
• When Polaroid Workers Fought Apartheid by Michael McCanne.
• Facebook algorithm found to 'actively promote' Holocaust denial by Mark Townsend.
• So you want to build antiracist teams? by Erica Stanley.
• A philosopher accused of sexual harassment started a company to advise on business ethics by Olivia Goldhill.
• On all that fuckery by Kat Fukui.
• A Message To TikTok Parents Who Use My Face To Make Their Kids Cry by Melissa Blake.
• Harassers are nice to me, and probably to you by Sarah Milstein.
• Britain can’t afford to miss this chance to clean up the web by Salma Shah. (Note: I didn't actually read this one because I don't have a subscription.)
• Activists and tech companies met to talk about online violence against women: here are the takeaways.
• Unconsenting Media.

Tweets

• What trauma sometimes is.
• Productivity Anxiety by Dani Donovan.
• Google sheets trick.
• On not being social.
• Edinburgh Samoyed Rescue.
• How the email finds me.
• Malicious compliance.
• Relatable alligator.
• On authors.
• Two types of dogs.

And now, in all honesty, my article was indeed the highlight of the month. Mostly because I struggled a lot with my mental health this past month. Maybe it is because I read a lot of unhappy things (my "others" section is nightmare fuel) but I can't help it. I can't just escape. Just a hopeless, powerless and anxious month. Hopefully this September I... feel better.

PS.: I am almost certain I missed some links here of awesome stuff friends did. I'm sorry... My brain isn't fully here recently.

Last week my article for Smashing Magazine went live! I was quite nervous and anxious but... so far nobody yelled at me - which is good! It was my first ever experience writing something slightly serious and going through an editing process.

I really want to be proud of myself: I wrote something in my second language and during a pandemic. I cried a few times because I felt like I couldn't do it but I... pushed through it. I read it so many times that I hated it at some point. Other times I read it and I thought "nice one Ana". Most times, I was so anxious about misrepresenting the IndieWeb community.

I accidentally may have sparked some discussion due to a couple of things I said - especially around identity.

I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online

Everything I wrote was based on me, my interpretation, my experience and how I wish to express myself ✨ on the internet ✨. The community welcomes anything one chooses to represent themselves. Which is interesting to me especially because when I joined the IndieWeb community I was hiding my surname on purpose. I want to reflect a bit more on the "one true version" and read what others have written on the topic before I share how I navigate these waters.

I learned a lot throughout the editing process. Frederick O'Brien really helped me make it much nicer compared to my first draft! The posts in this blog will never be as nice and polished as that one. So don't get used to that tone. Also, for the first time in my life I was asked what is the pronunciation of my last name: it is roo-dree-guhsh (I had to look up) - so thank you Fred!

A big thank you as well to my husband, Hactar friends and friends that read it before I sent it over. And, finally, thank you to everyone who took some minutes to message me, like it or share it. I am still very anxious and I really appreciate all the kindness.