life is kinda weird nowadays,

around the end of the china trip i really stopped wearing masks for the most part, if i forgot my mask i wouldn’t make any effort to get one / go back. now in the US the last time i wore a mask was when i thought i had a sore throat.

i’ve been in a weird mood all year. it’s weird that many of my peers are graduating after me, weird that some friends have drifted out and others have drifted in, weird to not be working on something i care about or being bitter about life or mired in a sense of how i could’ve and should’ve done better and forgiven more and worked harder

it’s sometimes difficult to cleanse the mindset instilled in me with every day of grad school, that hard work doesn’t pay off and matters little in the end

i just feel like my understanding of the world has really narrowed in scope. but maybe it’s okay to have seasons of ambition and seasons of recovery. i’m not sure. in some sense i have a much better sense of self-worth and who i am than as a 20 year old. but in other ways, i’m not even sure of my name.

i am hopeful though

mostly, i miss my cat

blog posts coming up shortly hopefully about graduation, thesis writing, china, and the job application (and life) process. maybe cat budgets, ogame, weekly get-togethers and cooking, and animal crossing, who knows.

one covid+ roommate

and graduating later

it’s fall which seems like a time for reflection

i wonder when my dreams went from changing the world and dreaming about a better future

to wanting to publish in conferences and hoping to get interviews at big companies to make money to feel like i’m not just … behind on being an adult

the feeling of the wild (east) of the open-source hardware movement, and education at scale, to a desire to hear back from recruiters and hiring managers, to wishing i’d gotten a reasonable job and stockpiled money, worrying about the economy and about myself and about the world

what happened?

after graduating undergrad, starting my own company was what gave me back my confidence

what’s to give me back my confidence after graduating? i thought graduating would give me confidence. instead i look at jobs that i think i could do well in, and they ask for publications in venues i never got to, and i just feel

discouraged

it’s an internal thing i’m sure, but it’s hard to not think about it all. to think about progress. when there are wars erupting, previously stable areas destabilizing, climate change, us-china relations so strained, global economies drifting apart, and here i am, a mote of dust in the midst of it all. what does it mean to dream of change? where can i immigrate to, in order to dream of a better future? who do i get to dream with?