this is: life by Rebecca
foreword
The contents of this page remain largely unchanged from its original state as a way to preserve the voice of my 19-year old self. Any additional comments will be noted in the footnotes.
about this site
Dear Reader,
This portfolio originated in 2016 as part of an insightful class I took - Designing Your Stanford (DYS). It is intended to be a dynamic, interactive, and holistic reflection of myself. This is not a resume. You won’t find all the technical details of my work here; this is deliberate. What I’ve shared here are snapshots of my experiences across all facets of my life to help you (and me) better understand who I am as a person, not just as an engineer, entrepreneur, or an artist. It’s also helped me become more cognizant of all the ways seemingly disparate realms of my interests actually form a cohesive life I’m proud to live.
If you’re curious about the more nitty-gritty details of any work I’ve done, don’t hesitate to reach out. I hope you’ll spend some time learning about my world, and thanks for stopping by! Welcome to my life in motion.
With Love,
Rebecca
behind "this is: life in motion"
One of my favorite experiences from DYS was a field trip we took to the Cantor Arts Museum where we were tasked with roaming the halls, seeking out pieces that spoke to us in some way, sketching them briefly, and then trying to see if there were thematic elements that the pieces we picked shared with each other. At the beginning of the exercise, I was quite skeptical about the value of doing this since I’d never really felt like I “understood” art in art museums (I think they’re cool! I just don’t know how to appreciate all of it), but nonetheless I picked out a few pieces I liked all of different styles, colors, mediums, and subjects. Upon reflection, I realized all my pieces shared a theme suggesting motion or movement. A sculpture hanging from the ceiling. A photo of water running into a tunnel. A spiral staircase. A painting that reminded me of a Rube Goldberg machine. Motion. Yes, I thought. That’s it, that’s me. Life in motion.
This isn’t just to say that I’m just a busy person (though I am). It’s this notion that I move with purpose through my life regardless of the medium or environment I’m in. I’m a doer of stuff. It’s how I understand the world around me. There’s a sense of momentum in the way I dive head first into things. There’s a consistency in the way I work relentlessly on that which I am passionate about. And even as I navigate through a variety of activities, there is a sense of continuity that bridges one aspect of my life to another. This brought me to my symbol, the gyroscope: a device that only provides stability when it is rotating. Without motion, I would be lost. But with it, I am empowered. I eagerly embrace this movement of life, wherever it may take me.
(There’s also a song by OneRepublic that references “life in motion” that I drew inspiration from.)
footnotes
8.14.2023 - Coming back to this project after more than a year since the great refactoring, I’m glad that I can jump back in with ease. Though there are many unwritten stories here, I feel compelled to publish what little I have and use the unfinished ideas as my motivation. In true design thinking style, we must prototype and test. In true startup style, we must build in public. So alas, here we are. Me, sharing my life for the world to see, no matter how embarrasing or cringy or incomplete my words feel.
11.1.2022 - I have fully migrated this site from Weebly to a custom HTML5 site to WordPress and back again. Finding the right setup to host this and make it as uncomplicated as possible for my future self has proven to be a slightly harder challenge than I initially anticipated. I am, however, finally at a place where I feel confident about being able to focus on the storytelling I want to do rather than spending all my time fighting responsive templates. This page now lives as a Jekyll site and each page is written in markdown behind the scenes. I am indebted to @daviddarnes for this Jekyll template. If you find an issue with the site, please let me know!
design details
color palette
icons + Inkscape
fonts: Montserrat (Headers), Roboto Slab (Body)
hosted on: github
generated with: jekyll
deployed with: netlify