goal-setting

goals for this semester!

  1. Turn thesis into paper (any kind of paper) !
  2. Work through algs and mle classes
  3. Go sailing a lot, like 20 hrs a week if possible
  4. File a patent application
  5. Finish a side project (ursula)
  6. Blog more

if I have time:

  1. Finish a few projects (couch, pov yoyo, bird cam w/ AI)
  2. Make gifts for friends and family 🙂
  3. Catch up with my advisors
  4. Learn KiCAD
  5. Make yet another portfolio website (maybe make a GUI for one, so I’m motivated to enter in new data)
  6. As part of that, write documentation / blogs too
  7. Draft out more of the Arduino book
  8. Go see friends in nearby cities
  9. Call representative
  10. Help w/ 2nd sensor paper
  11. Pick up some weird hobby again. Sensored menstrual cups?
  12. Manuscript on my Houston work
  13. Set house to be cozy

a story of progress? misc. thoughts on income and stability

past me would laugh at present me’s woes

a bachelor’s from MIT? a doctorate in CS? a whole bathroom to myself? a stable relationship? a job with coworkers who care about me?

past me would have desperately wanted these things and assumed i would be blissfully happy and grateful to have these things, that once i had them i would be set for life.

(i suspect future me will laugh at my present woes too! my parents are healthy, my friends are healthy, i’m healthy)

i guess there are two ways to tell my story,

one where my illness

sent me down a path of compounding opportunity losses. because the trauma of not just the hospitalization but also my interaction with harvard administration, followed by my advisor telling me to apply elsewhere when i did return, set me up for defensiveness and anxiety around interacting with professors (or generally people in positions of power), which made it hard for me to communicate well with others, which meant i stumbled through grad school, which meant i was always in a state of emergency, and on top of covid meant i never had a chance to really learn from other people and have technical mentors and network, which leads to the current situation, where half my friends have no problem with income stability and have people chasing them down and here i struggle to find employment.

and it is almost impossible for me to make up this compounded gap now. i can sense the gulf between my friends and i.

(i’m scared even to type these words out. it still haunts me, the feeling that i need to prove myself to some future manager or else. some nightmare that i never quite emerged from and probably will not until years of stable income)

and the other story of triumph

the other story is i dragged myself out of the terrifying 24/7 nightmare of psychosis, out of the locked psych ward where my goals were to earn points to go on supervised walks outside, through graduate school by sheer stubbornness,

and now have a doctorate from Harvard in computer science, with friends all over the world rooting for me and reaching out to help me up onto my feet.

the misc. thoughts

that i should take ownership of that story and what role *i* played in it.

take ownership of the things i did right and not just what i did wrong. acknowledge that i was born into privileges others do not, but I personally did also have to put in the work to accomplish my degrees and get my jobs

it’s not just the uncontrollable whims of fate that led me to where i am, but that i do have agency in it. fate is a disempowering feeling, but preparing for luck to strike is an empowering feeling.

it was always anxiety about why present me isn’t where i want to be.

but now that i’m not mired in fear (will i never be independent?), it is a little easier to ask where i could be in a few months. then assuming no major disaster strikes, what I can do to get there?

and then check my main assumption, is my life stable such that I will still exist and be okay in a few months?

and yes, I have a more tangible belief now that my job struggles do not have to mean something irrevocably wrong with me or what i’m doin, or how loss compounds so it’s impossible for be to catch up. that one day there could be a job where i feel valued and valuable and respected and mentored and encouraged to thrive, where i can think beyond whether i will ever make enough money to have kids and focus instead on making a difference and excelling in my work.

yes, it was a fantasy that if only i wrote a paper — if only i passed quals — if only i graduated — if only i had steady income — i would be happy. but it was not a fantasy that i’m less miserable now. so. i’ll work hard to become employed and have a year where i’m not stressed about money. and i look forward to having the problems of too much work and too many people demanding my time and when my problem is how i want to make a difference.

if the income over time curve is an S, if you draw the line at any given timepoint then yes, i’m permanently behind. if you look at societal averages then yes, i’m permanently below average.

but there is some trick, to zooming in and looking just at my own journey. now that it’s less painful to look at. i can say perhaps my curve is just shifted to the right a bit in time rather than shifted down in income. that in five years, in ten years, i will have income like my friends do now. it’s not impossible.

but in the meantime i’ll be 34 and unemployed and sailing the ocean 😭🤣

meh

reading geriatrics papers right now for work; just feeling a bit sad thinking that a year ago scientists were abuzz thinking about advances in alzheimers research and right now the scientists i talk to are thinking about when their jobs will evaporate

sad to see us squander our reputation for world-class research and lead in translational science and all this deep expertise and indeed the next generation of scientists for the sake of some tax breaks for trillionaires or whatever

and the targeted CDC shooting is so shocking, and sad that on top of that it’s barely a news blip; i worked there two summers in high school

i hope things change soon for the better and we learn a lesson and form a collective dream of a better future

projects blog (nouyang)