1/21/2023 Question of the day

International Sweatpants Day: Thanks to Covid, many of us have probably lived in sweatpants for the better part of the last couple of years. If this is true for you, has that experience impacted your choice of "work" clothes? Do you now seek out non-sweatpants trousers that mimic sweatpants, e.g. elasticized/drawstring waistbands, stretchier material, etc.? If Covid didn't really impact your clothing choices, do you wear sweatpants?

The tech industry was on the casual side of business casual well before 2020, and my office outfit used to be comfortable elastic-banded jeans plus a nice top Mondays through Thursdays, and jeans plus a T-shirt on Fridays. The jeans haven't changed, they're still comfortable and I find sweatpants to be itchy. But after a week of working from home, I switched to T-shirts every day.

I still dress up nicer for occasions that feel like they require it. The rare occasions when I get scheduled to participate in a call with a customer, for instance. Although the last time that happened, I was amused to notice that the customer's senior technical person was comfortable being on the call in a T-shirt.

10 months of Chinese to go

This is the first time that what we call Chinese New Year has come around since I learned it is actually called the Spring Festival (春节, Chūn Jié) in China. "New Year" (新年, Xīn Nián) seems to be reserved for the Gregorian calendar.

I have not been keeping up my daily practice very well the last couple weeks, but that's okay because I have two more months than planned. The Chengdu Worldcon has just been rescheduled to October, becoming the third Worldcon out of four in a row to have to change its originally announced dates and either the second or third in that group to change its planned venue, depending on how you want to count venues.