...and the Start of Something New

 A natural continuation from the last post. I think this one will be shorter though.

So, since about Oct/Nov last year, I've been interviewing for new jobs along with my co-worker ??. My ideal thing was to get into research, as that's always kind of been my dream though I was also considering doing my own startup with ??. To make a long story short, I got a research job at ?? but got rejected from research at ?? (which was my top choice as the area of research is very aligned with my interests). This definitely stung a little bit, because I got so close for the latter, even at the reference check stage. There wasn't really a great explanation for why I didn't get it, I suspect one of my references wasn't strong enough or I just didn't have the experience they were looking for (phd + multiple papers) - or both. Hopefully I can apply again to ?? in the future, there were some promising signs with the manager there.

Anyway, I should remember to be grateful, since even having 1 of these 2 opportunities is quite rare and probably something I don't even deserve. So I decided to accept the one at ??. I don't know how it'll turn out and I definitely have a lot of imposter syndrome before my first day tomorrow. I need to wake up at 7am ish but it's almost midnight here and I'm just blogging away frantically. I think it's important to record my thoughts in an unbiased way before I truly start.

Because it's been so long to start something new, I wanted to reflect back on a post from 2016 when I started my previous job. It's funny because, in my last post, I probably seemed very confident that ?? (my previous job) was the right place to be and it worked out so well. But I was definitely uncertain back in the day, as I said:

Well I guess it feels more real now. As I told desda today, I actually feel excited about something for the first time in a long time. I feel a sort of new energy here - the energy that comes with a new beginning and a clean slate. I feel motivated and I'm actually excited to go out and meet new people. I'm excited that my place seems really cool and that, despite her mood swings, that my mom is here to help me.

That being said some parts of it still don't feel real. There's times when I look out my window and think I'm still in Toronto and then it takes a second for my brain to process that I'm actually 2000 miles away. But, it's OK. There are times when I have an overwhelming feeling of existential dread when I think of Monday and my upcoming job and worry about why I didn't just choose to go to grad school and maybe this is all wrong.. But that's OK too.

There are times when I miss my friends in Windsor and Toronto but I realize that everyone has to move on. Even C is going off to university and you shouldn't stay in a place just expecting things will always be the same or because you are content there. My biggest hope is that I continue to grow and learn while I'm here.

Relative to this change, my upcoming job is not a big transition - I'm still living in the same place and the distance to work is relatively the same. I still am worried about if I'm doing the right thing - if my time would be better spent doing a startup or just writing. But, here I am. I'm worried if lightning won't strike twice - if my upcoming job won't be as fun or lucrative as my 9 year stint at ??. But maybe that's fine. I believe an important skill in life is understanding when something isn't working and having the agency to change it.

So, how exactly do I feel on the eve of starting something new? Excited, but scared. Worried that the WLB will be a grind and that I won't be as smart as my peers. Worried that I won't be able to maintain some of my existing hobbies like badminton, creative writing etc. Nonetheless, I should be optimistic about the work I'm doing and the chance to learn from some very smart people - just like I said back in 2016. Let me have the strength to take it for what it is and take away the good things from it while leaving the bad.

I hope also that it gives me the confidence and agency to eventually do my startup. I want to just do fundamental research on how to create intelligence and I hope this helps set me down this path. I hope the culture isn't toxic, while I'm not exactly looking for new friends, I hope I can build new relationships.

The End of an Era

 So, today I quit my job that I've been at for almost 9 years - it's been a wild ride but also a very rewarding one (both financially and social). However, when it came time to say goodbye, I realized that I had likely been here at least 1-2 years too long. This seems to be a common theme in my life, that I'll hold on to things for much longer than I should, just because they were once a good thing.

That being said, this is undoubtedly the best gig I've ever had (and maybe ever will have). In terms of culture and social life, it was really unmatched. I spent most of my 20's at ?? and honestly met some people I think I'll consider lifelong friends. I moved across the country (and even from a different one) and somehow had the courage to take a chance on something new.

The strangest part is that this whole journey started off because I was having a dinner with some undergrad friends, about 1 year after we graduated, and one of them highly recommended interviewing at ??. I didn't think much of it at the time, I had only heard of this company in passing. But I figured - why not take a chance? I had just gotten rejected from Google/Twitter/Meta etc. and was probably feeling quite depressed. I even messed up on one of the interviews but, somehow, ended up getting an offer. And, really, that changed the course of my life.

It's hard to understate the ramifications that some seemingly small choices can have in your overall life. If one interview had gone differently - maybe if I had just written one or two incorrect lines of code - then my whole life could have been different (and likely, much worse). The consequences of such seemingly little moments almost make things seem overwhelming at times when you try to analyze it. Maybe that's why people like S (my current gf...maybe) seem to believe so much in fate and that some things are just meant to be. It's simpler that way, though I'm not sure I believe it in myself - I think that everything that's possible to exist will exist (but this is a topic for another time). 

Anyway, the journey had a lot of ups and down but it was definitely the right place for me to thrive and grow as an engineer. I had autonomy but also felt supported by my peers/manager and somehow became like an "expert" in the small-ish domain I work in. I was able to go to conferences, complete a MS at my dream school and, as mentioned, make a tight-knit group of friends. 

Nonetheless, I think the pandemic changed most things. While I was happy to have the flexibility of remote work, it definitely made my motivation wane. In fact, for the past 2-3 years, I feel like I've been mostly just coasting (though others would say I'm working hard) while exploring other ideas. But now it's time to embark on a new adventure  - more details in my next blog post on that.

I had a lot of farewell parties this last week and realized that, as I said in the intro paragraph, that the culture that I loved so much just didn't really exist anymore with remote work. There wasn't any in-person gatherings and the work itself was just starting to get stale due to more politics (despite the fact that I got promoted multiple times). In fact, A and J mentioned that being back in the office was like a "time capsule" for a type of workplace that was long gone and would never return. The office might have looked the same, frozen in the amber, but we had all changed.

Anyway,  life is short and I realized that it was probably time to explore something new - but I only had the clarity that I should have done that at the point of finally leaving. Nonetheless, as ?? said, it still takes a lot of courage to leave what was essentially a seven figure job with good WLB. But, I believe that life isn't about just having an easy, consistent road and just "surviving". The point of life is to do strive to do something great and live up to your potential.

So, as I wrap up this chapter in my life, I am filled with a feeling of gratefulness. It was a great time for what it was, far better than I ever could have expected. But I need to remind myself to stay motivated, don't full into a lull just because things seem cushy - keep pushing outside of my comfort zone and exploring things that get me closer to my ultimate goal of discovering something about the world.

==

I wanted to also just take this chance to indulge and reflect a bit. I remember not feeling as emotional as I thought I should on my last day - but it seems like this is just a common theme in my life. I just walked out of the office as I had done hundreds of times before (with K) except this time I turned in my badge. Maybe I can't just grasp the importance of the situation until it really happens - or maybe I'm just an unemotional person by nature who wishes I could feel more. It seems like I've echoed this sentiment in past blog posts about moving in 2016:

Initially, I felt as if my reason for writing this blog was because I needed an emotional outlet after quitting my job and contemplating all the changes on the horizon. However, the reality is that I don't really feel emotional about it at all. In fact, like most large changes in life, it feels kind of surreal. It feels like I'm just on a vacation and that I'll be back to work in a few weeks or even days. I felt stupid when my dad asked me if I was excited about moving and I just shrugged in an ambiguous manner. For me, it's hard to feel excited about the prospective of something until I really get there and see how it is.

Maybe, at my core, I'm just the same person I was 9 years ago. Maybe it's just who I am and there's no point really changing it unless I'm unhappy with this characteristic. I even go further with my observations:

I think the root cause of my disappointment stems from the fact that I thought I'd be more emotional than I really am. Probably one of my flaws is that I'm not emotional enough and to compensate for that I try to inject emotions into situations that I THINK should be emotional instead of letting them arise naturally (like they did in situations related to ???). I suppose there's other explanations about why I don't feel that sad/emotional about leaving too - the most prominent one being that I was just tired of being there so it's almost like a relief. 

I also chastise myself for sitting on the fence and not taking action. While my situation nowadays isn't as similar (because I wasn't actively unhappy), I need to remember to be re-assessing my life and be honest with myself about if I'm on a trajectory that is leading me to where I want to go. At the end of the day, I'm the only one who has to walk in my shoes.

In retrospect, it would have been better to not sit on the fence. I think the whole crux of what I did incorrectly was not taking enough initiative. When you are feeling unhappy or apathetic about your job for a long enough period of time then the onus is really on you to change it (this is probably true about most situations in life). The flaw in my thinking was that I thought by just going with the flow that things would somehow get better - but if you never try to change direction you'll always just get swept away by the current (wao such analogy). What I'm saying is that as soon as I really realized there was an issue in how I felt about my current role I should have DONE something - whether it was seriously consider internal transfers, apply more aggressively for jobs or just quit and go back to school. I shouldn't have sat on the fence and essentially not make much progress for 7-8 months.

Lastly, I want to end with some thoughts that I echoed before (it's nice to see I'm consistent in this way), in that it's not worth grinding unless you're doing something truly interesting. I would rather work 60 hours a week on something I'm passionate about than be a 9-5 NPC who just goes to the bar after work.

....but I also don't think it's worth spending your time on something you aren't driven to do or that's helping you reach where you want to be. I know some, maybe even most, individuals are fine with having satisfactory performance on a 9-5 job and then spending their leisure time at a bar/gym or whatever. But I've never really been a part of that school of thought. I believe that if you're going to do something for 40+ hours a week then it had better damn well be interesting to you or develop your skills in some way. Maybe that's idealistic especially since most jobs tend to get mundane or only train you for a specific role but that's why you need to "Keep looking, don't settle" (as Steve Jobs said in his Stanford commencement speech).

That's all for now. Here's to a future and a new role that I hope I can be proud of.

==

That's it for the post. Here's an assortment of memories from each year for bookkeeping purposes (but it's probably not that useful to anyone but me...):

2016 - moved to ??, nervous about starting job. Met ?? at work and launched first experiments about location stuff

2017 - Applied to do MS at ??, thought about leaving to go to more research oriented company. Asked ?? out and got rejected which felt cringe but whatever

2018 - Probably stressful with work and school, but made some successful experiments and helped ?? write the first paper. Got promo

2019 - Ventured out and explored more research on my own - launched E and was the first successful demonstration of that type of ML model at the company.

2020 - Wrote paper about E and covid hit, but got promo again. Layoffs and IPO (emotional rollercoaster for sure)

2021 - F leaves and nothing much happens, mostly coasting and thinking about post-covid life. Graduate from ?? and start doing research with ??

2022 - Start working on Shead experiments and they seem to be promising

2023 - Continue working on Shead experiments and getting more interested in work again

2024 - Apply for final promo and get rejected. Start applying for other jobs and thinking about what's next

2025 - Write Shead paper + blog post. Leave after bonus.

It feels weird to condense 9 years of life into a few short sentences on a page - but how else can I distill these years into what they truly represent? In the next post, I'll go back actually reflect more before starting on my latest journey.

Birthdays and Deathdays

    Continuing the long sequence of posts I make before a big transition in my life, I wanted to share a memory that happened during my time when I was back home.

    I guess I'm no stranger to ruminating on death and what seems to be the finiteness of our existence here. Assuming there's nothing really "out there" after death then it is true what Macbeth says - we have just a moment on the stage before our time is up. I had these thoughts in the back of my mind during my dad's 70th birthday especially in the sense that, practically speaking, I probably don't have that much time left with him.

    I think he's had a pretty good life though, all things considered. He's worked hard to support our family and, even had some rough times where he lost his job, but ultimately ended up in a pretty good place. That being said, the memory I want to record is when we all went out for his birthday dinner (which felt awkward btw, I don't think our general extended family gets along well...but that's another issue) and got home to my parents place. We had some cake for a bit and then my brother and my sister both ended up leaving with their S.O's and it was just me, parents and grandma alone.

    I suppose I realized it then that I felt kind of sad. I'm not sure I really cared about having a family of my own, I thought mine was alright, but it was sad to see my brother and sister leave to go back to their own homes (not that they have a true "family" yet). It made me realize that the days when we were younger and all kind of stayed together with our parents were over and not coming back. Even a few Christmas' ago, we'd all just hangout back at home and play video games together - but someone my siblings have chosen to move on.

    I'm not sure how I feel about my own feelings - it seems like (as I've observed many times before) like an inability for me to move on and embrace change. But do I really need to? I'm not sure why people want to go out and start their own families if their current one is fine. I'd be OK with having a causal S.O. in my life but I don't really care about starting my own family or having kids. In my view, the only thing could possibly matter in life is having a positive impact on society and/or discovering some kind of knowledge (in fundamental sciences, for example). Having kids just kicks the can down the road, though it would make sense if you yourself did not have many opportunities (as my parents did). However, I think most of my peers in this generation had any opportunity available to them as they wanted - so why just pass the buck down to our potential offspring? We have the chance to do something great now, so why shy away from doing it?

    Maybe this all sounds selfish, and, that might be right. Maybe you can do something great and also have kids (though this seems questionable). I just never thought that much about optimizing just for going out and seeking other people to be around - maybe I've been lucky to just have formed genuine relationships without trying that much. Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh to judge others. At the end of the day, getting through this existence is hard, and we probably need to feel some connection to others to get through it all. It's just sad that the nature of family relationships will inevitably change as time goes on.

Life of a Gamer

 This past February, I went to a big smash bros tournament down in ??. This is something I've been doing for a few years now but I don't think I've blogged about it before - which is a bit weird since it is a decent part of my social life / hobbies for the past 4-5 years.

Maybe it's because I'm subconsciously embarrassed by it? Playing a Nintendo game competitively in your late 20's / early 30's does seem cringe on the surface. But my rebuttal would be that 1.) who cares about other people think about you? 2.) I'm not dedicating enormous amounts of time to it anyway and 3.) it's fun and gives me a way to socialize with friends so get off my back and stop judging me.

Anyway, I do think that I've legitimately tapered off how much time I play in the past 1-2 years - it's mostly just to unwind at night or something to do when hanging out with friends. But why did I even get into it to begin with? I think I've always enjoyed fighting games because they seem very "pure" - there's no 'grinding' or 'levels' as such - it's just your skills vs your opponents and you both have the same set of tools. It requires mental fortitude and creativity so I've always found it enjoyable.

It's not like I've had much success overall though - last year's tourney I managed to beat someone who was almost top 100 in the world and made a few upset threads on reddit and youtube videos. That was probably the pinnacle of my video game career. Sometimes I wonder if my time would have been better spent doing other things - like studying AI stuff or exercising. I guess playing badminton (or any sport) is similar to playing fighting games except you get the added benefit of free exercise which is always good.

Not sure what else there is to say, I'm probably downplaying things cause I'm embarrassed about it still in some way. But I want to at least record the ways in which I spent my time while I'm here - I think, honestly, playing Smash has been a mostly positive thing! It helped me connect and form deeper friends with some people at work (J and P) along with sometimes giving me events to attend on the weekends instead of sulking at home. So, I think it has (had?) a role to play in my life just like everything else and I'm glad it's something I pursued. Like I've said in other posts, sometimes life is too short to judge the consequences of our actions or see the "full path" in just the short-term. Unless something is clearly bad for you (doing drugs, getting fat etc.) then you should always be humble about estimating what the final impact of some decision on your life will be.

Book Review: A Bend in the River

 So this is my second V.S. Naipul book and it definitely lived up to expectations - I might even like it better than A House for Mr. Biswas.  I think I just really loved the setting - I love books where you can learn about a certain time period in history and it's just like a slice of life. I love the "big story" (colonialism and how small tribes are being replaced by modern society) along with the contrast of the "small story" (about Salim and his life in the town).

There's probably so many details I could talk about, but it doesn't quite seem worth it to go into all of them now. Just know that the whole package is definitely worth it - I also liked how the ending was pretty melancholy. I was telling S this the other day but I don't like books with overly happy endings or endings where every detail needs to spelled out to the reader (or viewer, if it's a movie). I feel like media nowadays just needs to spoon feeds every detail in order to make sure people get the message. But Naipul seems to have a higher standard for the reader and I appreciate that.

If I had to think of one theme that stands out to me, it's definitely the theme of change and how the "bush people" are slowly getting replaced by a more modern society. But it's also the idea that there's ebbs and flows - during this period of upheaval, there's many rebellions and other significant events but the point is to just look at the overall trajectory and believe in the process Of course, you always have to know when you to get out, as in the famous quote:

“A businessman is someone who buys at ten and is happy to get out at twelve. The other kind of man buys at ten, sees it rise to eighteen and does nothing. He is waiting for it to get to twenty. The beauty of numbers. When it drops to ten again he waits for it to get back to eighteen. When it drops to two he waits for it to get back to ten. Well, it gets back there. But he has wasted a quarter of his life. And all he's got out of his money is a little mathematical excitement.”

I feel like there's another message I need to articulate, but I'm not doing a good job overall - I want to say it's just about the theme of also "dealing" with change itself. Sometimes the main character meets people, has affairs and then they drift apart (sometimes abruptly) while things continue to change. Life is a river and sometimes we can do nothing else but acknowledge that we are just being sweep along by the current, a swirling mass of forces and choices made long ago, over which we have no control.

Anyway, read the book. Would highly recommend it and I believe it made me think a lot too - but I suppose I wouldn't say it affected my thinking personally in a profound (that is, compared to Stoner or even Rob Peace as in my previous post). Sooo... maybe no book can truly be perfect, I guess :)

Book Review: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

 I have two days to make 5-6 posts I've had in my backlog for a while before I embark on a new adventure in life. So...let's get to it :)

One of the books that N recommended me to read over the break was "The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace" or just "Rob Peace" as the movie is titled. It tells the (real) story of a talented black kid who grows up in rough circumstances but eventually manages to go to Yale. However, he falls back into the wrong crowd and/or makes wrong decisions and his life doesn't end so well (as you could have figured from the title).

I have two main feelings about this book and, honestly, it made think a lot about things. Mostly about the craft and the external circumstances surrounding even writing a book like this though. Specifically, the book was authored by Rob's affluent (and white) college roommate but yet discusses a lot of topics about "black" culture and it seems inauthentic in a sense. Furthermore, there's the meta-issue of the book being a springboard for the author's career (as his previous works do not seem successful) so, in some sense, it's like the (white) author is profiting over the story of his black college roommate. I don't mean profiting financially as he claims all proceeds to the book went to charity but rather in the sense of "reputation". If the only "success" you can claim is from re-iterating the story of a friend, then is that really being honest with yourself? Lastly, and this is perhaps me being petty, it doesn't like like the author and Rob were that close to begin with. His friends from the "hood" (ie. the Burger Boyz) seemed to be much closer with him but yet (in the real world) they seem to not benefit at all from the success of the book - they aren't involved in the movie premiere and I don't get the sense any money went to them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that when you write a book about a real person who was alive relatively recently, it's not easy to separate the art from the artist or it's material impact on the world. My most cynical interpretation is that the book almost seems like a vanity project, like the only good story the author had was by recounting a story of someone he knew who actually had an interesting life.

Anyway, to give credit where it's due, the book is well-written and has interesting themes overall. The main themes to me are about escaping the realities of your past (ie. the environment you grew up on) and how some mistakes are more costly than others. I think, as the author notes, Rob made some mistakes (just like we all do) but because of his circumstances (ie. being involved in the drug trade) they were just much more costly than the average stupid choices made by young adults.

Beyond that though, I would say that I feel less charitable towards Rob than perhaps the reader is supposed to feel. I empathize with his rough circumstances but, at the same time, it's clear he wasn't self aware enough to recognize his own issues. There's a lot of "toxic masculinity" (I hate to use that word unironically) that I think seeped into him from the black community which seems to be portrayed in how he never confides in anyone (even his so called "friends") and tries to be a nice guy and support women in his life without asking for things in return. But this need to support the women in his life at any costs (especially his "mom") leads him to do stupid things - even when his mom claims near the end of the book that she doesn't even need money much anymore. He doesn't listen to others really, and just seems to keep a one-track mind on what he mistakenly believes are his responsibility as a son (or a man overall) and I truly think that leads to his downfall.

Overall, it's a good book but it made me think more about society and my life overall rather than just appreciating the craft. It's a good reminder to me that we should be self-aware and realize when we are just being sucked back in the emotional trauma we might have suffered in our past - or else we'll be doomed to keep repeating it. 

Oh yeah, I guess another nice moment is that I watched the movie with my dad afterwards. I appreciate that he took the time to watch it with me, and I think I'll miss moments like this when he's no longer here. It felt a bit awkward to discuss with him after, so we didn't really do it much, though I would have liked to it. I do remember him saying it was "very deep" though and also mentioning something about how "you can be very smart but just make a few wrong decisions and that's it..." so I think he got the overall message.