Why am I staying? Why am I staying? Part II

"White Mustang" by Lana del Rey - probably one of my favourite songs of all time ever, omg. 

On the subject of strength and power - and in the vein of strong and powerful women - Lana in the White Mustang video is pretty much as strong and powerful as it gets.

Just a clip of Lana del Rey in the White Mustang video.

I like the way that she looks strong and powerful - and believe me, she is, and especially in the rest of the video. She really shows it and portrays it. But I like the way that she is soft and gentle as well. She always manages to be calm somehow and to be modest. 

I want to be a bit more like her in my engineering journey. Calm, grounded, down to earth. I've had my first phase of mega super excitement and I still love it. Of course I still love it - I can't love it any less. How could I. But Jack Kornfield wrote a book called: "After the ecstasy, the laundry."

Or to misquote my meditation journey: "After the journey TO software engineering begins, the journey IN software engineering begins." After the ecstasy, the laundry.

After the raving of being discovered as a software engineer and of having gotten started, the morning routine of authentication every morning begins. And there is nothing wrong with that. And I love it. But it requires a bit of grounding and getting used to.

After the ecstatic nature of having been put onto my dream path so quickly after having discovered it, comes the reality of there are bugs to fix - keeping grounded - keeping focused - keeping on top of all of my tickets and making sure they are organised - and making sure that I am pulling changes from main correctly - um yeah - that was a big thing this week.

I have big goals for 2024

I am currently doing an apprenticeship through work and that is due to last probably til the end of 2024. I have big goals around finishing this and I want to make sure that I stay focused on this and I complete this.

Revising DERs

No quotes allowed. Only my interpretations.

We are going to need to change the way that we think about electricity and the grid. The way that we are using electricity is changing and therefore we are going to have to change the way that we think about it too.

The demand on electricity is increasing - we are going to need it more and more. 

The way we are using it is changing, and this is going to lead us to need it more and more. 

All of our EVs and heat pumps and the shift over time to our electric showers and heaters and so on - this is going to require more electricity and place more pressure on our grid. But the supply of our electricity is getting riskier - we want to use more and more renewables but renewables are weather dependant. And we are introducing more and more batteries to the grid and stuff. But the author seems to be making the case in this article that supply is getting less and less certain. 

And with the rapid rise and introduction of DERs and battery storage solutions into the grid system and as part of the grid and therefore as something the grid relies on, then this supply could indeed get more shaky.

And so we need to adapt our usage - and our timings of things - to the way demand works - oh no sorry. What she is really saying is that our main renewable power sources may be unreliable sometimes and that we need to bring battery storage and DER grid solutions to the table if we want to really be able to rely on our renewable energy home transition. And that is it. Thanks.

Because...

Oh go on then. Fine.

EVs and DERs will be able to act as battery storage systems for the grid. Not only will they be able to fuel homes when electricity is more expensive and to be used in homes when the supply in the grid is low - they will also be able to feed it back into the grid when the supply is really low and when the demand is badly needed - and even be able to earn their owners some money along the way, I suppose.

Focus

It is really very clear to me that I have to and I want to focus.

I want to get up in the morning so I can make sure that I have enough time to do the Wim Hof breathing as that makes all the difference and allows me to stay calm and focused during the colossal challenges that I face as an early career change engineer in a start up.

And I want to arrive at work in lots of good time as well so I can really set myself up for success for the day and focus