"You can get what you want or you can just get old" - End of Summer 2024 Updates

[Title stolen from an interesting post an "acquaintance" made recently: https://mindslice.substack.com/p/you-can-get-what-you-want-or-you]

Once again, it's been longer than I would have liked since my previous update but I suppose it's also because life has been busy. As I've said before, out of all the reasons to procrastinate on blogging (aiming for once a month), this is probably one of the better ones since it means I'm out there living life in some sense. Anyway, let's get into it.

Upon reading my previous blog, I think it's only fair to say that the first major update is that I didn't get promo. However, I had almost forgotten about it by the time of writing this and, it's funny to look back and see how important I thought it was just a few months ago. I think A and I had it right at work where we recognized that whether we got it or not would just be a "temporary" spike of happiness/sadness and then we'd move on. The truth is that, it doesn't affect my overall macroscopic situation - I'm still not really doing what I want full-time and whether I have a bigger title or not won't change that. That being said, I can't deny that it would be "nice" to have recognition for the work I've done and to get some more clout but I recognize it's just like a vanity thing so it's probably best to just move on. It is funny though to see how what's important in life can go in and out of fashion so quickly though...

The other major update was going on a family vacation which was...eventful, to say the least. In terms of bags being lost, fights between mom/brother/sister/dad and a lot of hectic travelling, it's definitely something I don't want to do again. I appreciate the effort my brother put into doing it though but I just feel like it's not worth it for the whole family to be together like this or, at the very least, for such a long time (even it was just a week - maybe a weekend would be better next time!).  As I was telling K (Toronto girl who's doing PhD at UCSF), I feel like whenever I'm back home I miss the bay area and whenever I'm in bay area I miss home. Maybe that's a good thing because it shows that I'm happy with my life in both places. Anyway, the point is, lately when I've been at home I don't really feel that happy - it's more stressful to see family drama play out when I want to just spend quality time with mom/dad/sister and/or focus on my own hobbies. I also miss the consistent routine of the gym or even cooking my own food to be honest.

Though one "funny" anecdotal (more like a cautionary tale) is how close I was cutting leaving this time. My flight was at 5am and I literally had to stay up to 3am cleaning (right before my airport pickup was scheduled) because I had A & K (from work) over to play Cuphead and chat. While it was undoubtedly fun, I feel like sometimes I procrastinate and just schedule work/hangouts to fill up the free time I have before a deadline. Anyway, this is probably just a reminder to give myself more buffer time in the future.

Of course, the big elephant in the room is what do I want to do with my life going forward? As I alluded to above, I feel like I'm still not spending the majority of my day in the way that I want. I'm not able to really do research on the topics I'm interested in full-time (such as brain inspired A.I. models) and my day job involves less real "engineering" than ever before. I did make some progress towards this such as formally creating a company with C and starting to do some preliminary work but I feel like progress has been slower than I wanted and life is short. I plan to apply to research jobs again at the end of this year though and hopefully that will give me more clarify on how to make a decision. Though I recognize that sometimes the "idea" of doing research (or being a researcher) is much more appealing than the day-to-day job but I still think it's important to be motivated by what you "identify" yourself as in terms of your day job.

I suppose I also feel unfulfilled because even some of my more "creative" hobbies (mainly writing) have fallen to the wayside. I haven't forgotten about my high school story and the edits I want to do but it feels difficult to find the time - I feel that most of my free intellectual bandwidth has been focused on research/startup stuff and the creative side is kind of being neglected. I guess that's another reason why I felt somewhat bitter about my family vacation - it was one of the few weeks off I had in the entire year and I would have probably liked to have spent it writing or doing research about topics I'm interested in. I know that's somewhat idealistic though, maybe I would have just been playing smash or wasting time in other ways. Also, the time I have to spend with family is finite, given that my parents are getting old soo...maybe I shouldn't judge things too harshly.

The dual elephant in the room is S. Or rather, the lack of things going on with S. I feel like her silence has almost made me want her more (probably a bad trait I have in general), but I'm pretty sure it's just because she's busy and/or doesn't care (not that she's specifically playing hard to get or whatever). I'm not sure how I really feel about it all - I don't want to be clingy but I'd also really like some clarity in this situation. I will say that I thought we had a pretty genuine connection but somehow maybe I'm just falling into the same trap as with other girls I've crushed on in the past (ie. building our connection up more in my head than it was in reality just because we had a few nice moments). It does feel sad when I think about it though, but I've just pushed it to the back of my mind for now. What else can I really do? In some ways, maybe I haven't matured as much as I think but I believe I should give myself credit for not allowing it to dictate my daily emotions that much (compared to previous posts about HG which were cringe in retrospective...)

Anyway, that's probably all the main updates for now. It's 3am as I sit here in my parents living room while my mom snores away. There's a tranquility about the night that I've always enjoyed. 

Be back next month hopefully!

Mid-Summer Updates

 It's been about two months since my last blog posts and summer seems to be steadily humming along. I got back to ?? about a month ago and feel like I've fallen back into my normal routine (for better or worse).

The big thing that's going on right now is going for promo at work. It's been an exhausting amount of work and, while I initially thought that I didn't care much about it either way, I feel like the effort I put into my actual promo packet has made me feel otherwise. That is, I do care about it more now and, as I write this, I'm staring down the eve of the decision that will happen tomorrow.

I'm still not sure why I care so much. I guess it's mainly just an ego thing, and it could have some small practical benefits later on in life (like saying my title was X). If I don't get it, at least it will act as a catalyst or some justification to just leave - I'd probably free far less guilty about it for sure. If I do get it, I'll probably leave anyway but maybe wait until the end of the year.

I guess the point I'm circling around is that this promo decision or not doesn't really affect my overall plan. Sometimes though, I just feel burnt out. I want to help C do more implementation stuff for our startup but it's hard to find motivation sometimes. Somedays I just feel like I want to play smash, badminton and think about writing. Should I feel guilty about that? Maybe I need some time to just relax too. I do appreciate my friendship with C a lot though, I think it pushes me to take risks and do things I wouldn't do otherwise because I'm too scared - like starting a real company.

Maybe it'd be better to just try to get funding or even quit and work on ?? full-time before I have funding. In particular, I'm worried that this lifestyle of doing startup work on evenings/weekends is burning me out and making me lose motivation for an idea I genuinely thought was interesting. I need to learn how to preserve that motivation, because I think it's really the most important thing I'll have going forward.

I should start writing again though, I think that's something I truly want to do but I just need to make it part of my routine again. I was hoping I would write tonight, but got distracted by random badminton videos and youtube and this blog post. Nonetheless, I am happy with my life right now but worry that, as usual, if I'm just stuck in a local maxima and optimizing for the short-term. We'll see - I think this promo decision will be a key factor in how the rest of the year will play out. But I've already decided I'll quit at the end of the year for the very latest, I know it's time to move on.

What else has been going on in life? There's K, who also goes to badminton and I've gotten quite close with in the past year. Sometimes I think I like her but, other times, I feel like I just want to be her friend and help her get settled in a new place (give her advice etc.). Regardless of my feelings, I'm happy for the community of friends I've built organically via badminton here.

I've been missing S lately too, mainly on the physical intimacy side. It feels weird to say because I thought I didn't care about sex and physical stuff _that_ much but I kind of miss the excitement of seeing her and going on dates, or just hanging out on the couch watching TV. But I also admire that she has her own ambitions - I'll probably message her next month to see where we're both at.

Other than that, there's the usual existential dread of my parents dying, which for some reason I've been focusing on more lately. The fact that there's a likely future where I can't call mom/dad anymore or see them ever again feels hard to comprehend. Death of a loved one feels so far out-of-distribution from my normal experience that I can't even consider how I might feel when/if that happens. But I know it is likely to happen and what scares me is that I have no defense, no way for which I can prepare myself mentally.

I suppose that's it for now. I know this post had a melancholy tone but actually life is quite fine/busy on the whole. There's always worries and uncertainties bubbling beneath the surface but maybe I shouldn't let it bother me too much - as long as I never forget to make progress towards my dreams.

Start of Summer Updates

 So, I'm standing on the precipice and staring down at the start of another summer. I realized I haven't blogged in a few months but, as usual when there's been a lack of updates, it's not because I've been lazy but rather because life has been busy (in a good way). There's lots of updates and thoughts I'd like to get down so let's just get to it.

1.)  I somehow made it back home for the summer, despite a hectic first half of the year. Though I will say the pace of life has slowed down considerably back in SF for the past few months, especially since I made the decision to stop doing research with ??. I was able to get into more of a standard routine such as playing badminton 2x per week along with deepening my friendships with E (designer guy) and J.

2.) Being at home does feel a little strange/sad in some ways. Mainly because, by some strange coincidence, I happened to run into Dez's dad at ?? and I'm still not sure how to feel about it. I know she always said she hated her dad but I did feel sad hearing that she visited home recently and we didn't get a chance to see each other. Maybe it doesn't matter, I'm not quite sure what we'd have to say to each other anyway - but I'd be happy to hear that she's doing well at least and hopefully making progress towards her dreams. 

3.) I didn't end up seeing S before I left because she ended up bailing on our Friday date somewhat last minute. I'm not sure what to feel about her lately - my feelings have definitely cooled a bit and maybe her's have as well. I didn't want the time commitment of a real relationship but, even by my standards, we haven't actually been spending much time together to be classified as anything really. There's also the question of if she's seeing other people or something as well though I guess technically it's more of an "open" relationship right now. 

I understand that she's probably at a critical "transition" period in her life (going from quitting her job to more of a startup type lifestyle) but, at the same time, is it worth waiting for her to stabilize? Even if I did wait, would she even want something serious? Would I? I feel like if we spent more time together then I'd have a better answer to these questions but it doesn't seem like there's an easy way to make that happen without sounding too clingy/pushy. A part of it is also related to my ego - should I have tried to show more interest or escalate sooner? Would it have changed the course of our relationship if I tried harder to plan dates or something similar? I think if what she says is true (that she's really busy etc.) then trying harder probably would have been the wrong play but who knows. I just hope that we can spend more time together so I can get some closure on how I really feel, because, those few days we spent together in SD after ??'s weddings really did seem special. But maybe I'm just living in the past...it was almost a year ago after all.

4.) The startup stuff with C seems to be moving along smoothly. I feel a bit guilty about it because he seems more invested in the idea than I am despite the fact that, on paper, he should have a lot less free time than I do (given he recently had a baby and all). I think, if I'm being completely honest, I don't really care much about the business/product side of the startup - I'd just like to do cool AI research and collaborate with others. I also worry if this will put a strain on our friendship which, as I've said previously, I've really come to value. Nonetheless, I think doing a startup would be a good "life" experience to say I had so I think I should keep forging ahead - and at least doing the "research" part to help me continue to learn things.

5.) But related to point #4, it feels like there's this lingering question of motivation. Or rather, a lack of motivation. Especially since I've been home for the summer (about two weeks now), it feels difficult to muster up the motivation to really focus on anything. Maybe I'm just burnt out and need some time to relax. Or maybe the current things on my plate just aren't interesting enough - I think I'll need to write more about this at a later date to sort out my thoughts.

6.) In terms of work/career, I'm finally trying to go for promo to ?? level (which is something I'd never thought I'd say). I don't care much about the actual title/salary increase but rather I think it's a good forcing function to help me make a decision. As I told A (from work), I think whether I get it or not will be good motivation for me to leave and move on the next thing in the sense of having no regrets because at least I tried. If I do get it, then it'll be a good idea to stay for 5-6 more months and quit near the end of the year, knowing I hit a significant career milestone. If I don't get it, then I can feel more comfortable leaving knowing that at least I tried and it can serve as motivation to perhaps go to ??, ?? or pursue startup things full-time with C.

7.) I went to NYC this weekend to see a hockey game with my Dad, though it was more for him than it was for me. Nonetheless, it was a really fun experience and I think my Dad seemed really happy about so that made me feel good too - though he's not the easiest person to travel with. Maybe I just felt frustrated because it seemed like he was tired most of the time, but I think I'm being overly harsh - when I'm ~65 or so, I'm sure that walking around NYC at midnight to go back to our hotel would tire me out too. It did make me realize that he's getting up there in age and, honestly, I do think about death quite a lot especially how my parent's death will affect my life. I want to be honest with myself about it because I don't want it to creep up on me, so maybe by acknowledging it now it will help prepare me in some small way. Anyway, the point is, I'm glad I got to share this moment with my Dad while he's still here with me. He's certainly got a lot more mellow/patient (though he still gets anxious sometimes) then when I was a kid - so that's a big improvement I guess. It also reminded me of the times he came with me to Seattle/Sunnyvale when perhaps I was nervous travelling so...yeah idk, I shouldn't forget the good times too.

8.) The last thing is I want to seriously focus again on writing for the summer. I talked to 3 again in my hometown, and it made me more motivated to seriously try to get this story out there. In fact, writing feels like the thing I'm more passionate about right now but somehow I have all these other responsibilities/obligations that it's difficult to find time to focus on it (even though I want to). This is in contrast to startup stuff where lately it's felt a bit more like a chore. I think every summer I go through this phase where I have all these big plans about how productive I'm going to be but then I get annoyed being at home because there's all these distractions. This year, I'm trying to be more chill about it and just embrace the distractions for what they are - ways to spend time with my parents/family. I can always focus more intensely when I go back to bay area, assuming that's still truly what I want to do.

Alright well, that's it for now. I'm sure summer will go by in the blink of an eye but I'll be back to update regardless :)