[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!
No comments:
Post a Comment