Life As of Now, October 2023

October 14, 2023

For the first time, my ideal life didn’t (doesn’t?) look like pushing myself to the limits. It looked like wholesomeness, security and well-being, but I failed. I do feel like I put in the work I said I would maybe put in, but Hamidah’s foresight was correct. Was it worth it? Who do I want to become? It’s odd to think about this now, to this extent, but it’s essential. It rings a bell in my brain when I look at myself rotting in front of my laptop screen, telling me to do something. But what’s that something? I spent a weekend socializing and felt a sense of regret - was it a good use of time? People are friendly, tuition is non-negligible, and some kid is working on a Nobel prize-worthy societal contribution as I type.

There’s the hidden introvert’s dilemma. Alone time is precious, and then you realize you haven’t spoken to anyone all day. You make plans with all your friends, and within 48 hours, you’re exhausted. The cycle repeats.

It’s really easy to feel comfortable. I go to classes (most of the time), eat food, wake up, make the commute, come back home, spend some time with friends, etc. I have to show for this that I’m a student who’s promised a degree conditional on satisfactory performance. This student label is great…I think. But, I think back to the last week and ask myself how much I learned, and it’s definitely something, but is it enough? In my literature class, I learned about a new author, vaguely understood diagonalization from linear algebra, and concretized some introductory calculus knowledge I had glossed over the previous year. It still feels incomplete. I’m tired and pull up to class. I'll sometimes find myself watching the clock on my phone more than the slides on the projector screen.

What are we here for? Am I trying to maximize a grade? Ahh, why does it even matter? I’m faking self-reflection with questions on a personal site that no one asked me to make. Am I trying to connect with my professors? You can try and do it all, but I’m skeptical, at least for myself.

Anyway, I recently got a DM from someone about this site, and it let me know that people I know (and don’t) read this. If we haven’t talked in a while, hit me up. I’d love to hear from you : )

Updates

• I’ve now spent a little over a month at IFP. It’s been fun. I’ve been writing about a topic that’s pretty near and dear. They are an organization that takes aesthetics, design, and the public view to heart, and it pays off. My ramblings on aesthetics kind of capture the essence of their priorities, but the motifs differ. I also attended the CLEO workshop led by Richard Gold. I wasn’t as present as I’d like because of the next bullet point, but I learned a lot and have some new things to think about when it comes to clinical trials, the science of innovation, safety tradeoffs when it comes to progress and what we refer to when we vaguely allude to « data » in policy decision-making.
• Midterm season!!!
• I spend sooooo much time on Spotify.
• I went to this personal-project coworking session in Montreal (ran by Arielle and Joss!!) but was too wrapped up in school/work commitments to think of/work on anything that steps out of my current commitments.
• Le français fait partie de ma vie quotidien!!! Honnêtement, c'est tout à fait possible d'exister à McGill et de ne pas parler français du tout, mais j'ai fait un effort. La majorité de mes amis sont anglais ou bilingues donc nos conversations se font en anglais, mais j'apprécie quand même cette l'opportunité d'essayer. Je ne sais pas comment je peux vraiment m'immerger dans la langue, à part commander mon café en français (lol)
• I haven’t done much if any, leisurely reading, but I’ve started Secular as Sacred. I have no previous interest in Confucian philosophy, but it’s been interesting to reconcile some of my thoughts on « being » within the context of this life philosophy. The Analects have been misunderstood? That’s the premise of the book, and I think about Stoicism and the similarities with that. Hopefully, I'll make a review sometime soon.
• I’ve just been living, lol. I live in a spot where I’m responsible for cooking for myself. I’ll say that I’ve been embodying the actual college student experience in this one domain.
• My student involvement has been spicy. On one end, I’m not in that many traditional student clubs, but there have been some interesting side quests…I’ll share more later. She was a fool to think the university would only be about bonding with people her own age (lol).
• The college major is such a lie. By that, I mean it doesn’t mean much for the first year at least, but socially, it means a lot…more than it should. I find it interesting. I think I got a conflated sense of self when I was the only CS student in my English Lit class because of how many "impressed" nods I’d get. But you have to humble yourself and remember that you’re not even halfway through the one required CS course that you’re taking. There’s something about this whole experience that gives you a baseline level of self-consolidation, but is it justified? I don’t know. It’s not all a big show, but it can be.
• More generally, when people have asked how the university is going, I think I sound like it’s this blissful time where I’m being my most socially flourishing self, etc. It’s not all rosy, and I’ve learned to enjoy the time I have alone. It’s also a pretty segmented social experience, and I find this okay. I don’t have a group of people I can walk around with the whole day; people’s schedules look too different for this to happen, and we’re in a city. But on the flip side, I feel like I can be an individual, and I appreciate that. I feel like I’m too young to make plans in the way that I feel we have to (especially living partially off-campus), but I’m personally chill with it.

For the most part, my spirits are high (for the most part), and some moments have been gloomy. Ultimately, for now, the promise that comes from being in this oddly curated place for my self-development is cool. Most of my optimism comes from the promise I see in this, most of it not having even manifested yet. Maybe I’ll take a gap year, take a super light courseload next semester, go crazy on the in-campus involvement, and take a bunch of credits. Maybe, maybe, maybe. We’ll see what my thoughts are in a few months. So far, so good(?).