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Chen-Chi Hwang ¬

Intern at Amazon | CMU SCS '27

Daily Journal

Short-form thoughts and updates

did a lot of cool things this weekend:

  • went on a 2 hr long bike from palo alto to san jose

  • got my first rental car!

    • (not the first time i drove a rental though)
  • went to half moon bay

    • got some yummy fish and chips

    • walked along random birdwatching beach

    • saw a shipwrecked ship

    • saw a random boat floating in the waves

    • looked for seashells on the seashore

    • got gelato

    • walked to another beach

    • missed the sunset grrr…

    • played with a random outdoor cat

    • had good ass convo

  • went to big basin redwood state park

    • did some togueing
      • got carsick
      • slightly lost
    • made it to the park,
    • did the hike
    • took some flicks of the waterfall
      • while performing!
    • walked back and got lost
    • all while being tired and hungry asf
  • panther beach

    • ate good ass burger
    • went to beach at perfect time for sunset
      • admired it
      • took some pics
      • did a sketch!

got some bucket list items done:

  • went togueing
  • saw a:
    • pheasant
    • coyote
    • heron

did all this and we only got in a random person’s car once. not bad!

need to do a weekend recap. will do tmrw!

past couple days have been mediocre. lets try and root cause this. maybe just lack of schedule is causing me to be lazy after work hours. super unfocused and not getting much done at all. think deeply on this this weekend. want to write a lot this break.

not tracking my time properly, which is why i feel hella unproductive and also feel like im working all the goddamn time. gonna start doing it again today.

kinda did it today. realize im just really really tired and being slow.

i think ill write up an essay on recycling and veganism soon. i think ill also want a green burial.

lowk so unproductive at work today. arghh.

argh i didnt get in. im really sad about that actually. i feel sick with annoyance. lock in harder. what a long day. didnt really do anything. goddamnit.

did not get good news about ICML

ARGHHH GODDAMNIT


also every human should watch like a 10 sec unskippable cutscene of animal x getting butchered before eating said animal x

hoping for good news about ICML today

gotta lock the fk in today.

did not do anything today… big rot day. tmrw will be better.

im not working on things that are super challenging technically so i must upskill in my own way in my own free time.

immediate goals are:

  1. be happy

  2. do work well

  3. get hackathon submission in

  4. sign up for community college courses

  5. get food situation sorted

    1. oatmeal
    2. milk
    3. huel
  6. apply for swe fall 26 + leetcode


i want to make things and do actions that are net beneficial for humanity and the world. i take that to include all animals not just the human ones. im not currently doing the most optimal actions currently. in the way the way that i am, im weak. i am far too much optimizing for money.

i realize my heart is driven the most by the good that i can do. not by anything else.

team seems rly chill, excited to be here, think i can get a lot of good work done. this summer i must lock in. was a little dismayed closer to the end of the day but its okay i was just tired.

there are various things i can never justify the spend on even if you were a billion gazillionaire. luxury things are one of them. these are so superficial. luxury cars vs a daily driver, uber black vs a regular uber, fancy watches, expensive handbags, designer clothes.

these are superficial tools used by humans to convey some message, however, there’s various other more genuine ways to convey desired message.

i also feel the money would be 100x better suited to feeding the hungry, doing good, being philanthropic, etc.

trying to understand the point of view of people who spend money on such items and luxuries, i suppose it is valid if the tool is bringing some amount of utility, however if items are being purchased, used, and shown off solely because they are expensive, limited, or whatever, this is peak stupidity to me.


woke up started the day so lazily. goddamnit. back to old habits. if i have a chance will read mountain is you tonight and write down some thuoghts.


saw luci again, shes so nice!


the goal for this summer: be happy. its a sin to be unhappy. i will be happy. i will be happy.


need to get daily skincare in check,

  • mon thurs do acid + retinol

some ppl, talking to them you feel that they are just so sneaky and it leaves such a bad aftertaste in your mouth. I should do my best to ignore these people and not hang out with them.

so much to write about. eating when hungry is the most optimal play. was a long day today, esp because i time travelled 3 hrs. rotted a considerable amt later in the day. need to reset sleep and get all menial shit done tmrw.

havent been consistent with my journalling. been busy and also tired the past couple. so many people live such busy and satisfied lives without touching much tech.

as someone who feels behind im willing to do whatever it takes to catch back up. learn from anyone and everyone. do the most optimal things to learn the most this summer.

watching movies is relatively pure rot. reading Dostoyevsky’s wikipedia. goes to show how quickly life can turn around. 一日一歩.

i gain a decent amt of satisfaction from updating my blog i suppose.

so many diff people in the world suffering more than you or i. lock in people.

woke up and did an insane amt of chilling with gf. lowk so unproductive but vv fun.

prolly learn claude code and then work on MARS for rest of tn, do menial whenever free. didnt do all of the above… lowk could not focus all day.

4/28: just slept yst, did some cooking, and did my presentation for gen ai.

4/29: super long and tiring day.

ok listened to jb. some of his songs are pr good goddamn.

ima listen to justin beiber and play league legends. lowk didnt do much today still feeling backlash from the big friday sprint.

7:30 hrs of work today. mostly took up most of the day by sleeping.

bro i gotta lock in. yst was 7:30 - ok but again the problem is sleep. today alr done 7 hrs, projected to be 9:30 hrs if i can lock in. total done: 7:30

ideally im doing next sem class while:

  1. living in a van

  2. applying to fellowships and jobs

  3. spending time with gf

  4. working out + being social

  5. maybe doing research with labs or js in general …

  6. reading

summer i need to:

  1. apply to epfl
    1. reach out to harrison
  2. do hackathons
  3. study safety
  4. go outside more
  5. prac leetcode
  6. apply to hella jobs
  7. go to yosemite
  8. do work well

also randomly just for the sake of saying it i think i woulda got a delloite offer if i didnt turn them down

OMGOMGOMG im fking stressed. its time to giga pivot

hrm 6 hrs of work only today too. jeez. wish i could say more but no other main notes, pr uneventful day. main theme is that sleep needs to get reset!

6hr of work. can do better. sleep is the biggest problem rn.


so much shit i want to get to this summer. need to keep applying to jobs. leetcode. want to get to arena and blue dot. read papers, implement cooperative ai proj. do lora finetuning, do sft tuning, train small models, write up a good benchmark, learn zed + claude code / codex

scroll twitter more often, read books. hang with homies. cook with them. visit yosemite. do work well - maybe extend internship?

want to optimize pc, understand better my bash and powershell systems, learn comp arch

things to not do:

  • drink huel and dont waste time cooking.
  • prolly dont buy new laptop, dont mess around with linux dual boot.

thoughts from a past me