wow i’ve scarily settled into a happy-ish routine

sailing season has ended in boston (effectively, for me) which means it’s time to think about sailing / prep / plan / learn instead

what made me fall in love with sailing? the peace and calm of the water lapping on the dock as I looked out from my (absolute moldy, unplumbed, unwired wreck of a boat that i couldn’t stand up in) before going to sleep. the days when i woke up in a different harbor to a quiet view.

sailing at night, under stars, viewing land from afar — twinkling lights and the fireworks going off town-after-town.

the wonder of discovering the glow of bioluminescence in the boat wake, looking up at the mast and the universe beyond.

seeing sights like a red glow and a ship on fire on the horizon out on the ocean, before realizing it was the moonrise.

the challenge of routing and scheduling and plotting about the weather to reach destinations. seeing sights that few other people have the privilege to see.

the surreal BVI trip, seeing manta rays pass underneath the docks at night and dolphins and beautiful weather. sharing food and water and the work of sailing among a little circle of friends, new and old. that’s when i decided i wanted to be a skipper.

(after that, i paid money for a course instead of mooring fees for a boat, and the sailing included after that was when i really started sailing on my own where i was the most experienced sailor in charge of other people’s safety)

for reasons, i think next year will the year to cross the ocean. it sounds daunting but i have methods to make it more approachable. for one, i’m not skippering my own boat across the ocean but rather plan to join as crew. for the other, i’ve researched cross-ocean rallies, like car caravans, that go leave around roughly the same time, so that other people are a day or two away rather than weeks away. additionally, there are safety-at-sea classes organized and taught due to cross-ocean races like the newport bermuda race.

without further ado (in particular as somehow even during funemployment I am behind on work)

it’s roughly, safety at sea classes nearby start in late feburary. late spring / early summer the rally leaves to europe. thanksgiving is is rally from europe back. newport bermuda race is also early summer. my bvi trip was late july.

okay honestly that makes it sound like the year-after-next is when i’ll sail but we’ll see.

rough timings:

• 10 May – 23 June 2025 ARC Europe (MD to Bermuda to Azores to Portugal) https://www.worldcruising.com/arc_europe/arceuropeitinerary.aspx
• 23 Nov – 15 Dec 2025 ARC https://www.worldcruising.com/arc/arcrouteitinerary.aspx
• ARC Europe (might be bad timing with the race)
• Newport Bermuda race June 19, 2026
• (hurricane season according to insurers in bahamas, as linked from ARC: june 30 – nov 1 inclusive)
• https://www.smbsf.org/safety-at-sea/
• Rhode island has a bunch starting in february or so
• cities on cross-ocean:
• This is the NYC rally https://sdsa.memberclicks.net/azores-rally
• Set sail on an unforgettable adventure across the North Atlantic! Join us for an exhilarating rally to Horta on the island of Faial in the Azores, departing from Bermuda on June 1, 2025. Whether you’re sailing from the US East Coast (Hampton, VA) or the Caribbean (St Maarten), our feeder rallies promise an exciting start to this epic journey.
• https://bermudarace.com/resources/safety-at-sea-seminars/
  These are the newport bermuda certification requirements– the alternative to safety at sea is a World Sailing approved “Offshore Personal Survival Course”
• more safety from https://worldcruising.com/articles/first-aid
• this is pelagic in boston — my friend said he learned a lot sailing with different people on different boats. https://pelagicsailingclub.org/
• I haven’t watch this yet but it seemed relevant. from a nyc sailing club, re: trip logistics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weSr6i5kfI8oh
• I skimmed through most of this book and have a paper copy. https://www.amazon.com/Caribbean-Back-Sailing-Atlantic-spare/dp/1671122259
• 2026 ARC itinerary. https://worldcruising.com/events/arc-europe/arc-europe-2026
• safety equipment links. They’re kind of intense. https://worldcruising.com/safety-equipment
• PDF at https://worldcruising.com/storage/08-preparations/documents/vE3bIRHdfrfLOLSObKnrlqH3FivjEl8duh8s4ymB.pdf

wow ok what a smorgasbord of interviews. just got out of yet another interview i was vastly underprepared for

so far the technical-ish interviews i’ve had are

• r&d engineer
• machine learning engineer
• data engineer
• mechanical engineer

data engineer – sql and python questions over a virtual session. speed important. simple ones (1st round)
machine learning engineer – transformers architectures and layers
r&d engineer – mix of computer vision / image processing, simple physics, mechanical debugging questions
mechanical engineering – high school physics, stress strain, mechanism design questions

going from like drawing the cross-sectional free body diagram to describing how to use isnull() on sql queries to find duplicate records is like

a lot

and i don’t get the chance to build on each interview since they’re so different in format and topic. i swear i can re-learn the stuff and am open to learning / re-learning but jeez what a way to feel like i don’t know anything in particular and i’ll be that worst-case coworker who doesn’t know what a for loop is

a common thing at least in hardware i’m realizing is the whole idea of going from first principles rather than trying to be a little more creative. the goal is to show you know the basics rather than that you are some shiny candidate

more thoughts later, but for now, onwards

day 19: well, i have insomnia apparently so there’s that

alright i’m too lazy to type it like it’s all a big quest.

sailing / pfd

yesterday was what is likely my last sail of the season. feel really fortunate to have been on the water so much this year. probably 30-40 hours.

actually set up my pfd (personal flotation device), came with co2 cartridge that i never inserted. sailed so little after i got it that wasn’t worth it for years. it was literally just depress yellow lever thing on the bottom, slide in cartridge, press down hard against springs, and rotate. Helped a lot to look at the mechanism the cartridge slid into first.

bike

fixed my other mode of transport, my bike, which somehow i have continual issues with. i forgot i have hydraulic brakes so actually fixing the brakes should hopefully be adding some oil. on normal brakes, this feeling would be the pads wearing out or the cable somehow getting completely loose or something bizarre. though of concern is why there is so little oil. learned that my bike does have “oversized” brakes for the size of wheel it has, which is good given that this is 50lb-heavy ebike not bike.

typst

side note: typst is amazing! finally, a latex replacement. sorry overleaf

i am using it to transcribe lecture notes for https://web.mit.edu/6.7920/www/schedule.html

the equations! you don’t have to type \frac{a}{b}, just type a/b. bolding! no \textbf(hello) world, just *hello* world. the compile errors actually are concise and easy-to-understand.

you can even just use unicode directly in the editor, though I don’t show it below since i find it easier to search for “lambda” than λ.

makes me want to learn rust to work with these people…

meche roots

have a pure mechanical engineering interview coming up. feel a bit bizarre about that. i guess i can keep learning software engineering during my side projects?

reverse engineering

talked quite a bit to my friend about projects to do. (is it better to err on side of naming or not-naming people?). i mentioned how i wanted a portfolio project without feeling like i was working on a portfolio project. he brought up the good point of reverse engineering existing products as a way to learn good engineering ! and then try to improve on them.

then he gave me a shimano step ebike motor heh. my place is finally set up enough, with the workbench clear finally, to feel motivated to work on projects. just in time for my interview where hopefully i can explain how this ebike motor works.

i guess that is how i could have improved my coding skills also: reverse engineering existing good software. it feels different though. i don’t really have anyone to talk to about that sort of stuff except at a high level. i guess that was the nice part about miters and the meche ee sphere, there were just objects to stare at together on a bench.

thesis -> publication

have made no progress turning my thesis into a paper. hopefully that will change as sailing drops off (rip) and the lecture notes end (there’s only one month of them). anxious that i will be anxious once i stop having so much work to do.

lecture notes / keeping busy during funemployment

here is why i think the lecture note task has been a great complement to the job application process (which feels a bit like tossing my work into the wind):

• on my own, my side projects are just quirky quick projects that i am not motivated to polish vs. move on to the next idea
  • not projects that scream professionalism, just quirkiness
• but if the project is helpful to someone else, i am motivated to polish it
• it’s immediately useful to others
  • vs. job apps where you can potentially throw infinite work in to no end. my friend said at this point she turns in grant applications and immediately forgets about them until she hears back, then just builds on it for the next application
• there’s a deadline, which prevents me from just thinking about the best way to do it
• there’s a time limit after which it stops being so useful
  • forcing me to focus on getting the core done (a minimum viable product) instead of polishing small sections to perfection
  • then i can go back and polish bits of it

(although it’s dozens of hours of volunteer work, and part of me does think, wow it’s an unfair advantage to (profs here) that there are people willing to just do this stuff for free lol, but the other part of me is like, we went over this, if you turn everything into a societal systems problem you will lose yourself as an object of concern, you decided to give yourself permission to just think about yourself and be happy instead)

the end, mostly because i am tired of staring at this screen.