Daily Journal

not sure if i locked in yst. but i did things. today will try to track my hours.

gotta giga lock in all of today. otherwise im act giga fked.

hours

habits / routines

✔️ ❌ ⚠️

❌wake up immediately, move, sunlight or take cold shower ❌great morning selfcare

• shower, pills, skincare, leave, etc.

❌gym / jitz

learning

❌lc one hour ❌recruit one hour ❌llms one hour ❌cs general one hour

• react
• docker ❌safety one hour
• bluedot courses
• arena
• recruiting -> fellowships, programs, hackathons, etc. ❌general one hour
• cooking
• reading
• etc.

❌great evening selfcare

• pills, skincare, outfit prep, shower, etc.

❌read before sleeping ❌sleep with windows open ❌go to sleep before 2 am or dont sleep at all

hours

habits / routines

✔️ ❌ ⚠️

❌wake up immediately, move, sunlight or take cold shower ❌great morning selfcare

• shower, pills, skincare, leave, etc.

❌gym / jitz

learning

❌lc one hour ❌recruit one hour ❌llms one hour ❌cs general one hour

• react
• docker ❌safety one hour
• bluedot courses
• arena
• recruiting -> fellowships, programs, hackathons, etc. ❌general one hour
• cooking
• reading
• etc.

❌great evening selfcare

• pills, skincare, outfit prep, shower, etc.

❌read before sleeping ❌sleep with windows open ❌go to sleep before 2 am or dont sleep at all

hours

habits / routines

✔️ ❌ ⚠️

❌wake up immediately, move, sunlight or take cold shower ❌great morning selfcare

• shower, pills, skincare, leave, etc.

❌gym / jitz

learning

❌lc one hour ❌recruit one hour ❌llms one hour ❌cs general one hour

• react
• docker ❌safety one hour
• bluedot courses
• arena
• recruiting -> fellowships, programs, hackathons, etc. ❌general one hour
• cooking
• reading
• etc.

❌great evening selfcare

• pills, skincare, outfit prep, shower, etc.

❌read before sleeping ❌sleep with windows open ❌go to sleep before 2 am or dont sleep at all

gotta lock in man.

record knowledge gained.

container ship homes are pr ass apparently. td was cooked. its okay tho, we lock in from here.

hours

habits / routines

✔️ ❌ ⚠️

❌wake up immediately, move, sunlight or take cold shower ❌️great morning selfcare

• shower, pills, skincare, leave, etc.

❌gym / jitz

learning

❌lc one hour ❌recruit one hour ❌llms one hour ❌cs general one hour

• react
• docker ❌safety one hour
• bluedot courses
• arena
• recruiting -> fellowships, programs, hackathons, etc. ❌general one hour
• cooking
• reading
• etc.

❌great evening selfcare

• pills, skincare, outfit prep, shower, etc.

❌read before sleeping ❌sleep with windows open ❌go to sleep before 2 am or dont sleep at all

hours

habits / routines

✔️ ❌ ⚠️

❌wake up immediately, move, sunlight or take cold shower ❌️great morning selfcare

• shower, pills, skincare, leave, etc.

❌gym / jitz

learning

❌lc one hour ❌recruit one hour ❌llms one hour ❌cs general one hour

• react
• docker ❌safety one hour
• bluedot courses
• arena
• recruiting -> fellowships, programs, hackathons, etc. ❌general one hour
• cooking
• reading
• etc.

❌great evening selfcare

• pills, skincare, outfit prep, shower, etc.

❌read before sleeping ❌sleep with windows open ❌go to sleep before 2 am or dont sleep at all

lowk forgot morning selfcare, was too busy this morning. need to lock in on sleep and skincare too. water too. BRO i forgot my class started earlier than it does. i walked in 40 min late.

29 days left…

hours

10 sleep 4 school 3 menial 2 30 research 1 hr 20 socializing 1 break 1 gym lil reading and travelling

woah lowk im getting fat too. lets cycle in cardio too while im at it. legit only 30 days before i see her.

applied to some jobs. i think recruiting is largely not useful in the way that i just spam apply. lowkey bombed my india through film report. feels bad. fk one more thing to worry about.

ok lets set myself up to be hella high agency for the rest of the year .

if i can finish my backlog and also fix my sleep schedule by end of week ill be really happy. if i can also set myself up to be exercising 5/7 days of the week that would be great too. show up for myself.

hours

8 hrs sleep 5 hrs break 3 30 menial 2 hrs exploration 2 hrs school 1 30 recruiting

spent an hour learning about bows. my girl just got a good ass internship!! so happy for her. gotta step up myself. if i stick to this sch below i can make it still. gmi gmi gmi. good research meeting happened today

did research, gen ai pset

1/26 is where it starts. 1/33

optimization thoughts:

• spending too much time menialing, socialzing, breaking, sleeping

hours

9 hrs sleep 5 hrs school 3 hrs research 3 hrs menial 2 hrs socializing 1 hr exploring 1 hr break

time to start doing public logging of hours and habits

hours

10 hrs sleep 4 hrs break 3 hrs menial 2 hrs research 2 hrs exploration 2 hrs socializing 2 hrs school

i want to create a reading list going throughout many years. lets start reading now.

ah ppl can be so bummy. dont let bums affect my mental state.

so tired but at least i woke up. at least i went to bjj.

didnt wake up in time for striking class…

i think im going to step back, focus on school, mma, gym, and ai safety club. maybe look into ice skating club. then ill focus on work and try and secure full time RO. I’ll also leetcode then and recruit as much as possible.

not sure the usefulness of reading in the morning, especially for an hour long. maybe do 20-30 min at most. maybe need different book as well.

idk how to feel. just watched fight club and the film itself felt pr good. felt like i saw a man going through midlife crisis. thats what i feel right now. my life is spiralling right now. idk what im doing.

i cannot drag her down w me. i cannot

i think its fine to have some days i crash out. not putting it in the journal is making me panic more.

need to make her happy

fuck the fancy habit tracker, ill just do it scuffed until i build out my website.

high:

• built out https://meal-cost-calculator.vercel.app/
• learned git

lets record every moment of my life in the calendar this year. lets also record all the high and low points this year as well. would like a nice template but not sure how to go about this as of yet. i think i want to build out khronos pr soon. im also inclined to create a habit tracker in that as well to get public visibility / pressure.

i also think it would be quite nice to record the highs and lows for all days of the year to be able to plug it into some chat bot to get me a year in recap. seems optimal.

high:

• got amazon offer for 26 sum
• got idea to track highs and lows for yearly recap. may want to create this as as service, simple web app.

low:

want to build a super quick website with v0

feel kinda sick right now. i just spent some time rotting immediately after getting told how high the stakes are. i think maybe a multi step plan is to begin with getting myself weaned off of my vices.

implement reading at every meal. that or watching something educational.

7 hrs 20 per day to satisfy jacob cohen requirements. i think im down to have a super loose definition. i think reading safety adjacent books are valid. maybe get to reading some fundamental papers. learning more about the field.

kimchi fridges are a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAOypGQdzGU&t=100s

man im so bipolar. some journal entries ago i wrote that i dont rly like stan. and now i realize stan and i are so much more distant than i thought and that hurt a lot. man i gotta man up. choose one side or another. ok. not gonna let him live any more in my head. my time is more important that this.

my break has ended. i feel miserable about rotting. feels so bad actually. tmrw i get back on track. lets put my all into cbai. new sprint coming up wrt. to manipulations

side note about stan thing. ah hes annoying. i dont think hes a good person. thats all the energy i want to give to the issue tho.

roomies paid last months rent and utils. stan is leaving 12/19. others are leaving 12/22.

lowk died the past two days.

thought i saw kailyn at cmu. im fking tripping. also i think i use safety words like epistemically, prior, and insofar to sound smart when im not. thats fking braindead. stop doing that. i dont think i mind cutting out the word “like” from my vocab tho.

hrm i dont think spending (1 hr+) for a single job application is every worth it. not sure how to speed it up. also think its more valuable to index into it given some higher guarantee of getting the job (ie. referral, etc)

damn. my girl just told me she believes ill clutch up when it matters. gotta actually lock in after she says that.

on a high level i have:

1. spar work
2. school work
   1. reviewing ml lecture
   2. ml pset
   3. cv pset
3. mars work
4. recruiting
   1. cais
   2. ai eval program
5. menial
   1. mars reimbursement - need plane reciept
   2. housing postings

deepseek reasoning model v2 distillation to non reasoning v3 model: Our experiments reveal an interesting trade-off: the distillation leads to better performance but also substantially increases the average response length

ah just realized i missed pivotal deadline today. been so busy and hectic and chatting with people is just so fun. gained a lotta good insights i think.

travelling is such a joy, you can go to all the places your friends have been to as well.

so many good things to write about. flight to lhr from jfk was mid, person next to me was vaping, sleep was poor, felt nauseous as shit after the flight.

got off, got scammed w ticket prices (used a really poor heuristic to make my decision), got on the train, asked some randoms for directions + food rec’s

got to paddington station, went into paddington store, still need to find chance to get sm for sk.

stepped out onto british streets and it felt magical. double decker red british busses, cold, gloomy, dark, damp, rainy, it had a very dark - blackish vibe. idk how to describe it was quite magical. everyone is dressed in dark academia esque vibe speaking the funny harry potter accent. honestly its amazing, i love this city.

the british museum is honestly amazing, when i have more time i think ill want to stick around for like 2 weeks just to explore everything properly.

the parks in the uk are honestly very cool as well. saw:

1. a dawg running around playing with a soccer ball and pushing it with its head
2. two ppl doing tai chi
3. some chess boards and table tennis setups
4. a dainty cafe that ill go to today for brekky
5. hella ppl dressed well in trench coats and shit

fish and chips are just mid though im sorry.

OMG. full english is SO YUMMY. OJ SO YUMMY.

not a negative but noticed i spent too much time in the morning, thinking in bed about what to do. woke up early in hostel and there were 6 others sleeping and i was top bunk. didnt want to wake anyone and also wanted to start my day so was tryna figure out best course of action. its ok to have a heuristic to just leave immediately get fresh air, walk around, get the gears turning, and then think.

moral of the story is i need to adjust the planning / action threshhold

woah, ik i said i would stop journalling (publicly), but damn my sleep is reset, im waking up and feeling too good about today. most dark thoughts gone, sunlight and normal sleep cured it all.

i think i will still do lil snippets here but keep them small and keep them personal. do my best to document the wins no matter how small. all other trivial notes go on x

call with sk last night. was a decent wake up call. this is not the man i want to be for her. shes locked in, focused on improving herself. im not. i can already see problems down the line if not now. tbh i see problems now already. this on me.

woke up and scrolled twitter insta. gotta make sure im checking following over for you. still hella good vibes. implementing this act feels rly good.

i think im in a pr bad state rn. i hate myself a lot. lotta bad thoughts going thru my head right now. think ill take a break from journalling, or at the very least public journalling. unsure of current value gained from doing this.

really inspired by gdm’s deepmind documentary. really want to build a webapp: (anagnorisis, Parrhesia, memento mori) or more generically (Wake Shocklight Realign Pulse Static (as in signal noise that interrupts) Prism (breaks light into its true components) Truthshot Rouse Spark Nudge Veritas)

• need to add donation feature

• maybe a daily login check.

  • with notifications

• super simple interface.

• measure user interest with shortlist?

• add on ycombinator, producthunt, lesswrong, twitter?

just could not focus at all for 30 min while trying to work in a public place. says more about me because i can focus in a random cafe fine prolly.

yst was poor. td was poor as well.

some random thoughts i had:

• took a super optimal break to cook and also look into uk travel. that was done well. jetpac for esim in uk is fine. gifffgaff is better
  • https://www.giffgaff.com/sim-only-deals/pay-as-you-go
• after the rain is such a cute manga. artist act had to lock in to make the premise cute.
• naming my future dog mogu. such a cute name
• i run my blog much like what i would post on twitter (can def see how the idea came about)

shld write husk soon, another essay ive been thinking i should get out in words.

london plans: big ben, look at london eye, tower bridge, cutty sark, greenwich observatory, sherlock holmes museum, waterstones, kensington palace + garden/park

uber boat (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Uber+Boat+by+Thames+Clippers+-+Greenwich+Pier/@51.483938,-0.009641,15z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x48760347cbdffb71:0x5907fa0e30b11b84!8m2!3d51.4839375!4d-0.0096414!16s%2Fg%2F11h_t6gvv1?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)

london edibles: full english, fish and chips (ye old cheese pub london), yorkshire pudding

prolly stay here: https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/astor-museum.html?aid=356929&label=metagha-link-MRUS-hotel-2402414_dev-desktop_los-1_bw-31_dow-Thursday_defdate-1_room-0_gstadt-2_rateid-public_aud-0_gacid-21404666577_mcid-10_ppa-0_clrid-0_ad-1_gstkid-0_checkin-20251225_ppt-Bd_lp-2840_r-449853477095216514&sid=87ca576d4ab172d7d5930e4e9793318e&all_sr_blocks=240241409_101615622_0_0_0%2C240241409_101615622_0_0_0&checkin=2025-12-25&checkout=2025-12-26&dest_id=2402414&dest_type=hotel&dist=0&group_adults=2&group_children=0&hapos=1&highlighted_blocks=240241409_101615622_0_0_0%2C240241409_101615622_0_0_0&hpos=1&matching_block_id=240241409_101615622_0_0_0&no_rooms=2&req_adults=2&req_children=0&room1=A&room2=A&sb_price_type=total&sr_order=popularity&sr_pri_blocks=240241409_101615622_0_0_0__2175%2C240241409_101615622_0_0_0__2175&srepoch=1763959588&srpvid=bc6e4f4f1d00c360a684b20f9b1c3c41&type=total&ucfs=1&

the devotion of suspect X is a good book to read in the future.

grinded wpm for accuracy td. 62 100, 70 99, 75 99, 70 95. it feels like a waste of time but i dont think it actually was. that taught me to slow down when i type to make a greater effort to order the way i hit the characters. i can easily revert to the old way but i make many more typos. this is a step in the right direction!

finished aoi ashi today. dont aim for remote work this early. came to that conviction too. it is instead time to lock in.

got more sleep, feeling pr good. havent felt this good in so long! met new ppl as well. joshua and ryan. cool guys.

i think on a side note im relatively interested in getting pr decent in:

1. bjj

2. cycling

3. ice skating

4. snowboarding

5. and skiing

6. and maybe surfing / windsurfing / sailing etc…

current goals include doing the hardest thing i can do right now and then pivoting to a chill life of remote work and doing all of the above i just mentioned.

things to index into during break:

1. leetcode (interview prep)
2. apply to jobs
3. indie hacking - make hella products, try to sell / make money
4. ai safety upskilling
   1. reading papers
   2. writing papers
   3. doing projects
5. increasing base cs knowledge
   1. learning react
   2. understanding databases
   3. learning full stack, api’s, etc.
   4. learn pytorch
      1. build hella models, etc.

run, eat, skincare, aura farm (fashion, accessories) should be pushing to github everyday.

i definitely can say i tried today. was a long day. lot of things happened. not much went well. except for the truly easy ones like course reg and yapping with peter barnett.

studying for era was a disaster, era interview was cooked, i did terribly in improv class. ml pset was a disaster - didnt get to empirical’s. so badd. solution: is to get more sleep. focus on that tn.

next sem is just going to be rougher. simultaneously I need to focus on recruiting, research, and school. i suppose it will be a good exercise.

labs to look into next sem:

• aditi’s lab
• grey swan
• patrick carrington’s lab
• harp lab - henny admoni
• vincent lab
• multi agent safety initiative

in terms of pure requirements for graduation:

four courses in science and engineering
3 more humanities classes

one more scs elective
one from (Human-AI Interaction Cluster)
modern regression
one from (Machine Learning Cluster)

tentative plan for next sem: genai advanced topics in ml and game theory topics of law: ip chinese caligraphy responsible ai and ai governance

** research x2
** good ai safety class

for tentative plan to work:

• need to find research lab
• need to find ai safety classes

keep in mind background - biggest priorities next sem:

• still need to find summer job
• or get lab to let me do sura/surf
• or get summer safety fellowship

stuco’s to be interested in:

• developing game in unity
  • https://courses.scottylabs.org/course/98-127
• Movies You Should Have Watched By Now
  • (https://courses.scottylabs.org/course/98-226)
• Sew Sustainable
  • (https://courses.scottylabs.org/course/98-040)

assuming i keep this schedule i have:

four courses in science and engineering left

modern regression
one from (Human-AI Interaction Cluster)

if i get employed next sem, im taking my girl out for a trip

fked up my sleep last night a little. at least i got inspired as hell tho.

my list is long so i need to summarize it here:

1. spar
2. ml slides and pset
3. fow slides
4. hackthon context load
5. personal care
6. look for courses

fked up my sleep even more …

my only goal is to make the best decision at every timestep. lets try and do that for the next month. be the best version of myself i can be. do it for her.

testing sleep hack, actionable items:

1. sleep at 11:30, wake up 5:30
2. 3 hrs before bed no heavy meals, 2 hrs no work, 1 hr no screens
3. 1 hr before do: dim warm lights, gratitude journalling, thought dump
4. immediately waking up: 10 min of sunlight, cold water or movement

i actually like: https://www.youtube.com/@escaping.ordinary a lot

atomic habits notes:

1. must try to change identity itself, not processes nor outcomes
2. think about habit feedback loop

law 1 (make it obvious):

1. i will [behaviour] at [time] at this [location]
2. after [current habit] i will [new habit]
3. one space one use

law 2: make it attractive

1. temptation bundling - associate a habit we need to do with one we want to do
2. find groups to join where the habit you desire is the norm
3. think about where surface cravings manifest from (the deeper underlying motives)
4. highlight positives of habits rather than negatives
5. break a bad habit by making it less attractive, make it as difficult as possible

law 3: make it easy

1. reduce friction to good habits
2. 2 min habit

law 3: make it satisfying

1. mismatch between immediate and long term with good and bad habits
   1. reward immediately for good habits (longer term) vice versa for bad
2. reward yourself and feeling progress
   1. use habit trackers, accountability partners, visual signals (marbles, paperclip)
3. on bad days, just show up regardless of any excuses.
4. break a bad habit
   1. accountabiltily partners
   2. habit contracts

also completely missed spar midterm deadline, need to grind to make up for that.

the sleep last night was not optimal at all. additionally the piece of time between 3 and 6:30 wasn’t great either. around 3 hrs lost truly. watching cooking videos is not optimal.

ok i was just distracted today.

also in the midst of it all, it seems i am doing ok. i dont even want swe that bad tbh. would much rather be doing research with surf / sura. farm hella aura like that.

hit 1100 rapid today

yesterday was poor. actionable items include just sleeping and eating properly.

woah today is poor too. man L after L. just got word from google i didnt pass their interview round. i should have expected this. i could’ve done a lot better in these interviews. the bar is a lot higher.

1. i need to step up
2. it is time for some upskilling to occur
3. need to keep applying to various companies and use their interviews as practice

i think its a good decision to stay in pittsburgh if i havent another opportunity. this keeps options open for 3) spring recruiting grind 4) working with phd’s in random ass labs, 5) working with grey swan 6) i can take the easiest gen ed courses + idl

7. maybe masi
8. maybe another mats pilot

summer: 3) surf for next summer given good research with aditi or begel or anyone else 4) working with grey swan

ive went back and deleted some journal entries. i want each one to be meaningful and the ones where im drunk crying acting like im saying meaningful shit where im act just venting or saying nonsense - those entries have no real point.

goddamnit wasted another semester. feels rly bad actually. my life is a bit cooked rn. im not juggling anything else. my grades are looking bad, midterm went shit, last cv pset was turned in so poorly, will likely get a b in both classes. no classes taken, poor grades, no internship, no research fellowship, no projects. didnt upskill at all, no social life.

hrm… feelsbadman

today was also very very poor.

midterm yesterday was giga cooked. even praying to jesus could not save me thats how cooked i was.

so good seeing adi again. hes so fun to be around. very inspirational.

lotta thoughts on how to get more social able. idk if this should be something that plagues my thoughts. i also believe strongly that you need to be a good person and want the best for others and just be thoughtful and things should work out. i will test strat today.

i think concrete things that are learnable are:

1. being more sociallable
2. gaining traits others have that i think are admirable

need to think about mars dates, which week and what flight to get:

cases with these as variables: mars week 1 or 2, midterm resched or not, bluedot yes or no

groceries is act a life hack. bro i dont need to go on campus and scavenge for food no more. lets fking goo.

what i need is not luck for these exams, what i need is jesus

got in MARS 4.0 tho! now all thats left is to get cairf, another fellowship for next sem, or google or ai safety fellowship or swe or ml job for summer

omg act gotta lock the tf in and get my shit done. gotta advance study for ml and finish cv up early because im missing a week at the end of school for london goddamnit.

only goals for the rest of semester are to:

• ensure final safety applications go through fine,
• finish school work,
• begin upskilling / working on proj,
• ensure study abroad japan details are finalized
  • ensure housing details are sorted out

turned today 30m ago. only goal for today is 1) study for what i need to. 2) get sleep and 3) maintain good habits of water and posture etc. originally had a goal to rot less than 45 min. i already exceeded that, but i cannot omit that original goal just because i did not meet it.

just list down what needs to get done. i think last night sleep implementation was good. very fast and super exhausted. but in that case i needed more sleep - solution: sleep earlier and give myself more hours of rest before needing to wake up.

also want to get on campus asap.

thought back to middle / high school. i had so much potential. i wonder how i only ended up here / in this way. what ruined me? the internet in a way. i think i potentially always longed more for play, for the outdoors, for adventure. thats a tangent. i was relatively ahead in middle school. goddamnit.

i can still revert back to that, just need to also lock tf back in.

will be bad if take it easy the next coming week.

woke up with 3 hrs of sleep. alarm hit right when my circadian rhythm woulda got me up anyways so it didn’t feel that bad truthfully. i had the most pleasant two dreams in a row, one for each cycle i imagine. the second one was such a lovely one abt a cruise date to portland maine …

spoke w matthew on rottage and how i have no excuse. just lock tf in and work efficiently. today totals to 2:30 rot nb! dont be ashamed of it, dont let it debilitate the rest of your day.

been a while since i had any release of stress. er thats not true. wait that is true. i was still pr stressed during trip with sungah. what a disaster. when she comes in two weeks ill finish my shit so that i can properly destress.

also been going on campus at like 8 pm or so the past two days. then like getting back home at like 2-3 am. wtfreak is happening.

had google interview td. went mediocre i think. goddamnit. if god wills it i work there. either way the interview process was super chill and both recruiters were super nice. i love them both.

i think most important to my work ethic is figuring out exactly what it is I want. with that comes why i want it. the moment this is solved i should have no problems focusing. cant keep saying “gotta lock in” when idk what it is that im working for.

i think there’s some argument to be made about letting it all go. ive been living under a huge amount of stress and im also scared to address it causing me to be in this state of misery

perhaps a good time to write up limbo essay…

wait jsut reading random ass articles and papers is like so motivaitonal. bro starign at ppl like karpathy and po is so motivating. zero excuse for being unmotivated.

had a good talk with matthew, back to being motivated again for the moment.

cs major is just constantly verifying the validity of your ai generated slop

warm shower today. i think two shower a day is not even that bad. will try today. fulfilled and exceeded more than my due quota of break today. also wanna build a website called shouldieatout - either that or do a writeup on my website. label it under utils. leave a prompt. both will be relatively quick.

was gonna tell sungah directly but theres rly no need for that. the fault was my own so i gotta lock in and do better. i should not be calling at random ass times. that just causes unncessary grief on her end.

warm shower today. need to implement a better solution for one of my biggest problems. i think two shower a day is not the play.

high level today i need to :

• cook

• finish spar work

• think about research proposals for cairf

• think about mars interview, what to say, etc.

• study for ml quiz,

  • hw 4 and 5

• study missed ml lectures

• do hw 6 ml

• grind recruiting - look into whcih problems- start doc for data structures, - do leetcode

woah got so much on my plate. feel busy as shit everyday. have to manage housing shit too.

additionally i just did a sort of year in review and looked at everything that happened from a weekly perspective. i truly have bummed it. just been bumming around. even for a majority of this semester too. i always say i want to change. always write abt it do, etc. lets actually change tho. the way it is now, if i let myself go to japan it’ll be a disaster when im there anyways.

it would be really nice to be able to get a good year in, just be for the most part locked in. lets ask for smaller timescale first and try and manage for this next month. goal is oct 28 - nov 29/30 ish. only 45 min break everyday max.

omg today was so hard, just could not focus. i need to determine better strats and just leave and do sm physical for like 30 hard min and then come back prolly. walk and then open window and do work was pr effective tho.

i should cold shower today.

i also feel like i should leave excerpts of writing that i like a lot here:

In a culture where we are always striving to optimize it’s important to stop and consider which imperfections of ours are the things that define us. We don’t want to become the human equivalent of photorealist paintings. What flaws do we have that are actually the crackle of our record player or the grain of our film?

That’s not to say we shouldn’t strive to improve but that improvement shouldn’t be a smoothing out. You may find yourself optimized but without any definition. Perfection isn’t really a defining characteristic. In many ways its the absence of them.

today was pr busy so it felt pr good overall. ml hmwrk took me 11 hrs. this one was hella nontrivial ig. my dumbass thinking i could blitz it out in 4…

one thing to note is that im spending much too long waiting to fall asleep. if im not sleeping i need to be doing sm much more productive like LC or just getting some reading in. even if im exhausted from workign the whole day, i should not be wasting hours just waiting for sleep. on the plus side at least im not consuming media in the downtime.

i suppose i did technically sleep as early as possible last night. yst was a weird case cuz of mars apps tho. still didnt do as well as i wanted to due to the last min nature and my prev procrastination, however its a good lesson learned and though i likely will not get this program, at least ill be more locked for cairf + interviews.

just woke up, planning rn, going to eat + watch lecture, then do ml assignment until i get restless and then go on campus immediately.

also going to start implementing two shower per day tech again. implement waking up and doing work immediately

felt extremely bad about only 1 submission to mars. cannot let the same feelings of regret bubble up for interview fully one week out. study study study.

woke up pr motivated but i think thats cuz i 1) got great sleep and 2) went to sleep reading substack so i premoved the motivation. implemented website push today. want to keep up positive vibes.

ok from now on its growth mindset. i have all the tools necessary to improve myself. i track my time properly so when it disappears i know where it goes. no lamenting that i breaked or rotted. just figure out why and remove it from implementation. despite waking up motivated i still breaked for two hrs. additionally i was low productivity and not much got done.

i attribute some of it to weird sleep. i also notice that i sleep instead of break. as euphoric as napping is, i find i spend like 11 hrs a day sleeping. this mcuh is likely dulling my senses. im saying shit that all seems very obvious in retrospect. the simple fix is to sleep as early as posisble tn. this will get done

also one thing that is super poor is that i like to 1) assign one thing to do per day and if i get that done i count it as a good day. im wayy busier than that so prolly want to start juggling more. 2) i cant get a consistent work sesh in. my adhd brain gets tired or switches context too much. the counterfactual is that i know this isnt true. ive done it before for work and under pressure. the solution is: wake up, plan, get on campus and work. this will get implemented tmrw. results tbd

intuition is that if i see all the tasks to get done ill wake up pressured, motivated and aware of more tasks than 1. i also heavily suspect working at home is decreasing hella productivity.

today was mediocre. what i will not do is flame myself. whats done is done. i can still make it productive. it will be truly bad if tomorrow i dont implement the changes that i listed out.

additionally the pain i feel trying to grind this out quickly so i can get rest is pretty bad. especially doing this while sleepy.

ive been thinking in my head that this journal needs a turning point. ill do some visual change where i sort all the entries before this day in history and all the ones after in ssome way. i want the connotation to change - before often has me depressed and imposter syndroming but i want the after to one of growth and hard work.

like pre gf chen and post gf chen.

this is coming from a wake up call of what happened today and the last two days. i should be fresh on motivation but these days were still a moment of weakness. it wasnt completly rot, but overall poor.

keep telling myself to do better but talk is cheap. are actions are not. make her happy.

today i took a weird nap, woke up and got in a cold shower. shit is act the most elite shit ever. crazy i wasnt on that earlier. all credit to adi .

today was bad. just could not focus at all. not certain if i root caused it but dialling my dopamine tmrw and will see if that helps.

lil jank sleep schedule now from teh past couple of days. funny how concerned i would be over ts in the past. now its just the move to keep it pushing.

wow, the 2.5 hrs of rotting ive done are much higher stakes now. i’ve made less time for my girl because of that shit. fking cooked. lock in me.

dont think im applying to the other two mentors for the future impact group. no bandwidth rn to do the apps. also need time to research for these apps. also feel like im going about this in the wrong way. need to upskill hella paper wise. goddamnit

i also need to be much more concerned about recruiting for swe jobs. i currently am unemployed right now. focus the hell up.

think i fucked the cairf interview today. goddamnit. so fking sad. dont really have time to be too concerned tho im too busy for that shit. plus i could still pass this next round. just gotta make it to mentor matching

i rotted for like 2 hrs after i “bombed” the interview. a brief moment of weakness.

wish i could spend today just doing braindead menial stujff and then sleep early. if only life were that simple.

also didn’t completly cold shower today, started warm. couldn’t bring myself to wake up while knowing i would need blast icy winter upon myself. did decrease temp throughout shower tho. will get on it tmrw adi

if im lucky i have to look forward to next sem and summer: Cairf South Africa Mars 4.0  Google swe intern

17 hrs on the road. 10 am mon to 3:20 am now. windshield wiper fell off in heavy rain. what a grind

mitigating the risk of exticntion from ai should bea gloabl priority alongside other socieal scale risks such as pandemics nad nuclear war insofar as

1. ai has the potential x-risk level extinction factor as pandemics / nuclear war
2. it is feasible to reach such a level of ai
3. work to reduce the risk is effective.

could grab aditya, eric, meru tgt for next apart hackathon

going also to do a big notes change. gonna switch up the connotation and be high agency. will explicitly map this out in my journal. i can no longer be mid because:

1. im a bf now and i cant be mid
2. this gcp program is too transformative in telling me what i need to do. aint no time for trolling.

missed the arena application cuz of poor time management prior and poor time management juggling yapping and other shit. lets get future impact group.

spending every day thinking about her makes it kinda hard to get my shit done. actually a disaster.

spar meeting was shit so i gotta work hard to amend that.

i asked her out. day of the anniverary. gotta remember her birthday too.

12 hr drive into try and debug code makes for a crazy day.

car window not getting fixed. disaster. honestly im turning into roy. just cuz things arent going as planned doesn’t mean its a disaster. thankfully sungah clutched up and things are still happening.

spar meeting was shit. didnt work hard enough and think enough for this meeting. thats on me.

not only that i missed the safelite shit. goddamnit. so fking annoying.

cant wait to see her.

my god im actually ruining myself with my current sleep situation. omg im horrendously off my game. i just did a lil week review. man lock in.

ok locked in decently today. exercised a lot. good shit me.

fk man i didnt get to doing the roblox OA. i slept and then just missed it. fk. bro didnt even finish the LK assignment. fk. im not even that busy im just not on top of it.

wow i just something very important. the biggest diff in who i am is my outlook on life. ive lost hope and that shows.

man i have no idea if she likes me back. this is eating me up. i think i cant wait any longer. ill ask her in a weeks time for certain. nah im bipolar but i cant do that. maximize my chances. show how i can be a good bf first and then ask her. dont get hasty. i have to prove certain things to her first.

had a good talk with stan as we ran, that was fun.

fk my days are so weird, i need to revert back to normalcy at least timeline wise. i should make it a thing to read neel nanda blog everyday. introduce bias for kindness is valid as fk. man im at such a poor local optimum.

lets just get cai and mars in and then fking do the meta code signal.

agh, meta oa was so bad.

fk. man im split between swe and ai safety research. i thought i was more sure of this. ah i did not lock in. not for cbrn not for acl submission. not even for SPAR.

gotta show some more gumption than this. at this point its a bit too late. no ai safety proj done recently. just apply and see if i get next round. for now focus on leetcodes ig. if i get next rounds for these applications push out a solo project no matter what. also lock in on spar to increase my skillset.

nah im also getting hella motivated. always turn fear into excitement. HOW HYPE WOULD CAI AFRICA BE. focus man focus.

truly i just be dicking around.

oh boy. i rested a little too hard. now every deadline is coming in and im feeling slightly cooked! its okay i got this, i just hope i dont bomb meta oa. fking cooked if so.

tired as hell. got my rest in from the past 3 days. also watched goodfellas lsat night. shit was mid. dk how its so highly rated. also got like pop midterm today, so i have to cram for a bit.

crammed, did ok. i think i can lower bound score w 80% which is pr good!

cramming for CAI application now! XD

can maybe get back on khronos with the amt of time i have, write about that in my mars app.

i wonder if i truly love her or just love her character. the amount we talk is not high enough to warrant the current feelings i have for her. i think i like her a bit too much as i am rn. dialing it back will prove healthy for me.

now have a lot more free time given ive dropped ai safety course, need to reprioritize:

1. getting sleep schedule back in shape

2. re-dialing my dopamine levels

3. applying for ai safety programs / fellowships

   1. arena

4. leetcoding for meta oa + google next round + roblox oa

5. doing spar

man i have no clue if she likes me back. i cant tell at all. fk. its kind of distressing ngl. im so down bad. im act so in love.

being afraid of failure results in a life with really low ev, feels rly good to put genuine effort in something you dont even know will work. this is good growth. and it comes with pressure from teammates which enables me to do this, else i might not have so this is good.

i remember as a kid i would get food poisoning all the time and i would just sit on the toilet and take the L. shit would hurt so bad. i thought that was periodic, like its just a thing that happens to everyone.

turns out its just my dumbass parents always feeding me food thats half gone bad. ofc thats gonna happen. i only realized now that im in uni, that that doesn’t happen to me anymore.

did a quick review of the whole past week, lowk shit was pr subpar. i can do better. i am better than this.

ok spend today reprioritzing. i think main focuses are

1. getting sleep schedule back in shape
2. redailling my dopamine levels
3. leetcoding for meta oa
4. and doing ai safety hmwrk
5. doing spar
6. hitting most classes

talking with ppl feels empty, stuco felt empty, apricity felt empty. bike ride was good.

omg just got sauced from matthew. fk. i need to do slave labor. aiming for this:

• https://2025.aaclnet.org/calls/srw/

main focus:

1. getting sleep schedule back in shape
2. redailling my dopamine levels
3. aacl paper

doing chores and inventory check today. i have a lot on my plate so lets organize it and start hitting everything. im paralyzed by fear because im overwhelmed.

still was hella lazy today

leetcode all day. yesterday was a disaster. found a manga i liked a lil too much. today death grind. im cooked either way but at least struggle till the very end. oh shit i forgot about the ml quiz.

finished the google oa, shit was easy as hell.

good sleep, got good work done yesterday. im not learning fast enough wrt. leetcoding. i need to ramp up difficulty rnrn. learn harder datastructures.

tremendously bad day. breaked for like 7 hrs. this can never happen again for the next month if i wanna be real.

didnt all nighter. got 5 hrs of sleep. goal is to finish spar, ml lecture, nap, then finish and submit cv hmwrk by 4. then can do mix of menial + leetcode + recruiting.

also note that waking up early feels fking amazing ! cold blue-ness of the morning is lit. took too many naps today most likley. at least i feel super fresh. would be amazing if i could get the 5 hr leetcode course done and then also check japan deadlines.

checked japan deadlines. still need to leetcode. overall productive, felt good, got a lot of things done, could be a lot better tho

gorgeous day. finna spend the whole day working on cv lab !! woo ! bro if i get it done today that would be so blessed. feeling hella stressed. might actually have to pull all nighter tn. i slept wayy too much last night + today.

yesterday could not lock in. im finally feeling the full pressure of things. also reviewing all spar docs today.

there was a time in my life i cared so deeply abt common apps i would think about answers to questions in the shower. bouta pull the same thing for mars 4.0 i want it so bad.

need to leetcode and recruit hella in the upcoming days.

i have oa’s coming up and i should prolly focus pr hard getting swe jobs rn. its prolly pr high ev. especially since ai safety is so hard to come by. mats and astra are alr gone.

will spend most of the rest of today on review + catch up. tmrw is on finishing ml hmwrk + going through all the random links.

there is no try, there is only do. like what yoda said.

kinda nervous, finding teammates

ok what a day. what an intense series of emotions in the past 6 hrs since the hackathon began. holy moly. i think its good overall. had a lot to evaluate upon myself.

im evaluating the hackathon experience as a whole: i think …

1. i need to improve on working under pressure / emotion regulation;
   • heuristics include:
     • staying calm, not being hasty, not panicking
   • actionable items include:
     • waiting and breathing before every decision
     • taking a walk (go outside)
     • talking with friends
     • take 1000 ft view, understand whats important, see #2:
2. good takeaway from trump is like dont give a f
   • he doesnt care about anything at all, instantly moving on is both good and bad. both things needs moderation. i think i likely care too much, i need to care less and iterate faster.
   • i think a good reflection of this ideology is this would have broken me a lot more in the past. woulda thought i was a failure for certain.
3. good intuition is super important
   • high agency people come up with good ideas / good solutions often and fast
   • conversely its often easy for them to understand when an idea is bad
   • additionally its often easy for them to regulate emotion easily
   • i can only increase intuition with experience - i was not born with good intuition, i did not have the best environment - no leaders with good intuitions
     • i will only ever be behind compared to peers thats ok - do not get demoralized do not feel self pity. everything is my fault but learn from each experience meaningfully
4. learning
   • i walked in with “i need to win mindset”, instead of “i need to learn”. most experiences should be a learn not win mindset at least in this stage of my life. this leads to #5
5. preparation
   • i did not nearly prep enough for this hackathon. more lit review needs to be done. more practical knowledge needs to be had. I didn’t have required pre-requisite skills, this failure is my fault. I only have myself to blame.
   • i should focus on improving slowly and steadily and building myself up to a spot where I’m super prepared and the goal seems super feasible to picture
   • i don’t know if im someone who can exponentially grow in this kind of setting with time pressure and intellectual setting. im likely someone who works super poorly under pressure, to counteract that i need to prepare more.
6. leadership
   • one of the problems was that i couldnt lead and delegate tasks effectively. in this setting there are two solutions:
     • 1: find teammates who are more autonomous or understand the paradigm better
     • 2: onboard teammates better to understand the project more (do this prior to hackathon starting)
     • 3: increase preparation exponentially, dictate and list out all tasks that need to be delegated.

given that extensive list from just over the weekend, i would say i learned a lot. i can reflect on the failure modes and say that what happened was i lacked good regulation / management in all of these fields above. for a manner of a couple hours i would say i learned a lot of good lessons so it was profitable overall.

wow, for an onlooker reading my journal it act just looks like im the laziest, depressed fker. i think i need to drastically switch the connotation of my journal. report a good thing that happened everyday not just so it looks like im winning for randoms, but also so that i can see how i switched up to begin thinking more positively.

i want to see growth later when i look back on my journal.

lets get the wins for the last couple of days out actually:

• got into SPAR a coupla days ago.
• refocused mental and want to all in on apart hackathon
• got into ai safety class at cmu
  • prof is really really nice so im excited to get taught by her
• casi looks really fun!
• finalized my schedule
• got groceries at whole foods, learned about harmful effects of seed oils + microplastics
• got my bike repaired
• got my car back

woah recording the dubs is so much healthier than logging the L’s. i alr feel so happy and grateful.

all in on cbrn, lets make this happen. dropping everything else for it as of now.

longer term goals for this sem only:

• finish apart hackathon

• do good research with alfie w/ SPAR

• apply and secure mars 4.0

  • do ai safety class
  • go to ai reading groups

• recruit for internship (summer)

• recruit for fellowship (summer)

longer term goals:

• apply to aditis lab as undergrad

• apply to more spar mentors

  • do idl

• recruit for internship (summer)

• recruit for fellowship (summer)

• worst case go back to zon

  • (change location to like nyc or sm)

• deathgrind ai safety over summer

• apply to fellowships like mats, constellation astra next fall

realitistically it is really really bad for my schedule fi i do the crbn apart hackathon this weekend, but i think i will just go for it. attending the discord was act quite motivating. also going to the trustworthy ai class was also super motivating. im super fkign lost but hte prof is so nice. i think this is motivating me less and less from going to japan this next winter.

need to get into mars 4.0 winter batch and without this apart hackathon i have zero shot. i really need to organize links for ai safety so i dont miss more shit

recruitiung for this dumbass workshop in boston took much too much time. really poor use. should be able to pump these out in 30 min or less.

didnt do jack yesterday x2. lock the fk in man. make her happy. make me happy.

bro im always living with people with maximum agency. holy fk this is so valid. i dont want to be mediocre when surrounding myself with ppl like this. im such a bum its crazy. dont be weak. cant be weak. lets do a quick git push for notes. lets go, lets fking lock in.

actually gotta start recruiting srsly.

didnt do jack yesterday.

didnt do jack yesterday. menial day all day today cuz i didnt get good sleep.

beautiful rainy day. good lock in weather. gonna stay inside all of tomorrow as well. lfg!!

uh woke up late because i went to sleep late yesterday as well. lets not let that happen often. this likely is a one off. I GOT IN SPAR HELL YEAH LETS FKING GO.

complete menial day, i got so much shit backed up. lock the hell in so i can focus on other shit! can apply for more research maybe. i need to recruit. fk. so much shit to do.

realized car got broken into today. at least they didnt take anything too valuable… i think.

did not lock in yst. lets not write all the bs. lets just see if at the end of the day i can say i worked hard.

i cant not write about this. had a good day, went to both club things was quite fun, went to improv class, went to bjj. both were super fun, learned a lot. behind on my classes, behind on my hmwrk. yada yada. dont rly care

BRO.

had a call with sungah today. i think im so in love man. fk. idk what to do. she makes me so happy. she makes me want to be a better version of myself. bro i need to become a better version of myself. ill do it for her. i need to if i want to ask her out.

we gon need to lock the tf in today. also gotta drink more water. ok drank more water so thats good. lots of self torture by forcing myself to work. i dont think its gotta be like that tbh. being lazy legit just means you have nothing better to do. i have so many better things to do. so many things i want to get done.

ultimately i need to reduce the friction for me to get into a hardworking state. i can rot at night (not too much else i realize it jacks the dopamine state for the day after). i also need to pull an all nighter and be productive as i do so else bad things will percolate downwards. i also want to get the car in and fixed tomorrow.

lots of things to do. leave tomorrow mostly as a menial day to sort most things out. tonight is hmwrk. and monday is back to ai safety. ml cannot be this cancer so i dont need to fret too much.

just work hard. be a man i can be proud of. be a man i want the woman of my dreams to be proud of.

first day i truly slipped. ~8 hrs of nothing today. full rot day and ruined my sleep schedule. holy. this is not good. lets pick it up.

lets keep my head up. learning is so much more fun than gaming. just run good music and learn. too fun man, didnt get algoverse full ride. its okay. keep the head up and apply to everything else. got some hmwrk done today but brain still operating super slow…

every night my sleep is good. good fking stuff. not been doing much but staying active and learning when i can. this allows me to hang out with people guilt free which is quite nice.

fk dropped the ball a little. i should only be chilling at the end of the day. doing it midday makes you want to end early and chillax. so fking bad. dropped the ball a lot today, its okay matthew bailed me out and gave me hella good resources to apply to. but still i got bailed out yesterday.

also wasn’t locked in in classes at all. rn its so basic, and i feel like i haven’t been challenged in a while.

still got great sleep last night. forgot how late i slept. would be easier if i tracked it but lets go a week right now not worrying about the clock and see how that goes.

leaning heavily towards japan right now. lotta paper work to do tho.

fk getting kinda nervous cuz i planned out my courses poorly. now im left doing very little and thats getting me super nervous. like im not maximizing my decisions and my poor choices have caught up to me. fkk.

like listen to what kobe said about doubt. lets just not make any bad decisions and keep it pushing. dont care what other ppl think. i have too much self doubt. at some point this is all i ever wanted: to take it easy and recruit.

hella nervous but i think its fine to drop classes and focus on robotics or ai safety for now. get myself research. just keep trying. i can do that this sem, next sem i can keep up momentum and also get a slight breather doing classes elsewhere. man its scary as shit.

really tricky to fit everything in but imma need to do my best.

even if nothing is happening right now i need to remember that things will happen in the future as long as i work hard.

great sleep last night. woke up and stared at linkedin for a little more than i should’ve (10 min). there is nothing productive/motivational about linkedin given you have enough motivation internally. should not be wasting that time, instead get up and let the natural light hit your eyes ( outta jefferys playbook).

omg i set the fk up outta this room. its so optimal i feel like i already want to stay for the spring semester too. holy shit. this is a den man. a fking haven. i can already feel that i will want to spend a lot of time here.

spent another day rotting. locked in doing more menial shit. truthfully i shoulda done this all in the three days i had free time so that my transition back into school would act be smooth but well… alas.

schools about to start up again which will be really good for me. lets hit this semester really really fking hard. write good code everywhere i go.

super long day yesterday so gassed. man i am tired. good summer tho. good lessons learned.

i want to find some time to write about childhood. name it the glass child effect.

i also rotted for like 5 hrs all of today. goddamn i needed that. also i have less time to work on spar. wtf is wrong with me. i am not securing this research. i have fked up. i still want it so desperately tho. time to deathgrind for it.

made an oopsie. i think im pr exhausted. fking unenrolled and then enrolled into the same fking class. put myself on waitlist for no reason …

several things still on the list to need to get done before school starts. fk. pr stressed out and i rly need research. car broke down today. good to get the break in. able to sit and chill and get my work done for the first time in a while. this is the plan for the next sem. no breaks!

ideal class schedule:

• independent research - ai safety, etc.

• intro to robo learning

• intro to ml

• cv

• dhcs

• stuco: improv comedy

ideal work schedule:

• do spar research

• leetcode + recruit

• look for research in jp

• look at ai safety fellowships

• work on khronos

for balance schedule:

• cooking club
• gym a lot + do bjj

i personally think i failed this internship. we’ll see what the evals say but personally feeling heavy feelings of failure. only one solution: code more! act want to create cool stuff and work on hard projects.

got a intern / research article that says how to be successful. reading on the road trip, gonna take it to heart.

lmao two days ago i said i would journal, i didnt end up journalling.

get busy living or get busy dying. i watched a lot of random film this summer. its quite easy actually. when you have nohting else to do and nobody to talk to you end up doing a lot of nothing. for me i ended up occupying that time up with film. just watched inglourius basterds. watched shawshank redemption and a couple others this summer.

idk if i can quantify this summer as good or not. it felt like purgatory. idk if i can actually say it was hell. to me that can be defined as me constantly tryin to change myself but nothing happening. even now during the last week i feel at my lowest. i dont think ill get the return offer. i spent my summer diong nothing but working. i did other things like rot but i did nothign else.

tried diong some research. got poor feedback. did some discovering, just discovered i was mediocre. that just lowers the ego more. every day that i spend rotting i just feel worse. i should just stop.

im actually ruining my life.

theres a great sadness in my heart i think. and its been there for more than a year i think. this is the worst year of my life. things need to change. i can force it to change.

the only thing holding me back is my mindset. i also think im not even that invested in CS, and that i would rather be dicking around in the mountains or in a random lake in canada. am i quantifying the metric of success based off what my peers quantify it as ? do i have the same goals as them ? i dont think i did when i entered uni and i shoudn’t now.

tomorrow i do lunch with my uncle. ill work more and try to get my checklist for work done for tomorrow. i need to write out my message for akhil this summer. maybe plan and try and get photo gift taking gift (# IVY 2 Mini Photo Printer Pure White). (want to be more thuoghtful) will also try and get the spar applications in. also need to talk to cmu prof’s for research.

feeling really good about this gift plan to akhil. cant wait to execute actually.

today was poor but not the worst. lets be optimisitc. tomorrow will be better.

a man needs a routine before bed. we want to sleep cool, we want to get exacltly the sleep cycle we want. i also want to journal, set up a system. likely the best is to clean up, journal, and just chill and read for 30 min.

gonna journal a bit tn

working so hard for aws. at least i dont feel bad about ever being lazy so thats a nice plus honestly. genuinely so freaking tired. need to optimize such that everytime i have a break im doing sm productive else im ngmi

yst. was great. today was cooked. idk why i just could not focus. so fking bad. gonna try and do some work this evening. next implementation is just to do work in the morning every morning. work till 5-6 and the rest of time just give back to myself. thats incredibly healthy. i only have two weeks left. lets get this done right. i have a car to ship etc.

gonna try and put in ~3 hrs of work tn, then crash. cooked. sleep at 1 wake up at 8, go to work at 9. thats the move.

this is terrible lets lock in bro. such low prio. i can barely focus. i want to aura farm this is not the way to do it. lets. BRO

bro lets do this better. make better decisions in the micro managing. just dont enter the url. life is lowk better when i dont scroll. hrm this is eating my life away.

AHH.

ok

.

gonna write before i sleep. lets see how this grind sesh goes.

super great day. hung out with sungah. want to write this all down but im dead tired. food going in my stomach at the end of the day is luring me into the warm embrace of sleep. might not actually be able to write as much as i wanted. can do tmrw mornign. my legs are so tired. im weak! if i can go to bed this tired

man its been a very long week, wanna do more writing. half the time i walk around and im thinking about what i wanna write about later that night. and then i just go to sleep before doing that. tonight might be another one of those nights..

up and at it early in the morning. keep building or at least working in public. in public i want to be able to say im doing well. today i need to lock in for work else its over.

the ebbs and flows of my life are crazy. sometimes the downs feel so down. sometimes im so lethargic and so goddamn lazy. its because of this that my self actualization and my own sense of self is so poor. i … i dont really know what to do. i dont think the people closest to me understand how lazy i am. its really quite poor, eats me up. kills me.

i fear my own mediocrity more than anything.

super exhausted by work. got sauced the sauce from matheew. this leonard tang guy is quite cool. he runs a cool blog.

i like this essay: https://www.leonardtang.me/blog/life-descent

• if you like any of my writing read this. its similar and written better.

woah work has been stressing me out this past week. even if i dont notice it, its apparent by the lack of journal entries. i also hate the feeling of falling asleep but not being sleepy. it comes from me not working hard enough throughout the day. lock in homie!

decent work day felt pr productive. still overall super low impact tho.

i need to raise myself to much higher standards in my own time. flip a switch. then be willing to dick around with homies, take myself completely unseriously. thats prolly sm that hyojae does well. raise my own stock. increase my aura.

under the guise of finding myself im not doing shit. this is really poor. im the laziest ive been in a while for the summer. lock back in, stress less about work.

daily schedule: hrs - activity 8- sleeping 6 - work 2 - epfl dl bootcamp 2- khronos app

1- recruiting 1 - leetcoding

4 hrs misc. to do japan shit waking up, cleaning up other menial chores

also thought i had novel idea but it was already implemented better and more elegantly: https://ahlab.org/project/fingerreader-v0/

super poor sleep, this has actually been killing me. lets work hard get my chores done get my work work done then work on website and sleep ealry today. i need it so bad.

also im breaking out in hives from stress…

also realized i used this journal half like twitter as well? half like an actual journal so thats good. i think truly having nobody around me is eating me up. its actually truly quite poor. i want to write more about this. i am conflicted because i both

• want to lock in fully like matthew is:
  • secure these good opportunities (even though ik he is not fully locked in and working 24/7. he def still talks to buddies),
• and also take it easy, hang with cool ppl and not stress too much about work and opportunity.

im lost at an impasse as option 2 is something people no longer think i want. friends think im tryna lock in and they also think i dont want them prolly. so when i reach out they dont even wanna yap. i need - in my head - to register as like i got no homies. then there’s no internal strife and pain when they arent there for me. this is the most logical choice i feel.

may do more writing later tonight to word this better.

work has just been straight killing me. been so poor and so tiring. just so much infrastructure shit and idk what im doing and how to deal with it. i have demo lined up and it just feels so poor. honestly. idk what i want but i know corporate isnt gonna be my best option. def want to be a research engineer.

matthew giga locked in. secured work for the fall too. ima also not stress too much on work. prioritize myself rn. good day over all, worked (not hard but long, do leetcode, do dl bootcamp, gonna sleep well tn.

just realized in the shower, saying the internet is like the agricultural revolution is pr similar to the unabombers thought process LMFAO. shit is act crazy.

woah also breaked super hard today…

thought today would be locking in. guess its easier to go into the office for that … geez

being lazy is so unattractive its crazy. at the same time i feel that bumbling around like a busy bee the whole time while getting no results is equally unattractive. i gotta work hard and work smart!

did the following writings (should go live soon if not today):

• meaning
  • create what ppl love

still need to do these:

• limbo

• bitter-ness
  • no friends
  • talk about energy

writing feels pretty good imo. its a pretty low energy way to still feel productive. i do want to produce good writing tho, so lets see how i tune it. its an intersting paradigm actually. with so much ai slop thats being fed out it might seem coutner intuitive to add to the existing text. i think its still pretty cool though and its nice how there are still various methods to find continuously good text whether thats from substack or other forums.

some of this text is super inspiring as well , and i think some of my experiences are no less valid, so i hope to begin write something inspirational as well.

i also rotted unproductively for like the better part of the morning. -4 hours that way. cannot be rotting like that. cannot be feeling like its ok to rot like that and cannot let the people around me influence me into thinking thats ok. at the very least always be learning something. i also didnt gain that much enjoyment from rotting like that so, good heuristic that is prolly not what i should be doing.

had decent evening just didnt work on the website at all. just cooked and chilled. lowkey pr poor. i need to get out of the house wayy more.

worked on website all day. genuinely felt like a pr poor day because i didnt feel like much happened. low progress even though i was working all day. i think that comes with like working with new tools, new frameworks and just not really knowing what im doing.

i think this comes everytime i try and do something new and i shouldnt set unnecessarily super high expectations for myself just beginning. what does that mean tho? work at my own pace and dont get overwhelmed. at the same time try to deeply understand what it is im doing. what im doing right now is just vibe coding which isn’t really productive. i should be doing this proj firstly to learn, secondly to create what is loved.

, need to write tomorrow. start like 3 threads:

• limbo

• bitter-ness
  • no friends
  • talk about energy
• meaning
  • create what ppl love

the internet and what it brings gives similar vibes to the agricultural revolution. also in my experience i shouldn’t write about who i want to be, that just defeats the purpose. instead of giving myself direction i put myself in the spot i wnat to be in my head. then shit never gets done. just work first and retrospect later i think is most optimal.

new day. mornings always feel better and i usually always contemplate in the evenings. i do actually want to write about this limbo idea if possible.

couldn’t go to sleep, too stressed about what needs to get done. my sleep schedule rn also a little cooked. sleep schedule very cooked, i think i need melotonin buff tn

i think ive been reading good things, and ive gained more agency. idek what happened but its been a good change and just something i needed for so long. im doing whats scary and that’s good!

building khronos.app is legit the most fun ive been having since like discovering bjj. man this shit elite.

later this last day i got called out for vibe coding up khronos.app. and i took that as me getting belittled for not being able to do it myself. to be fair i have no idea what im doing.

that led to these feelings:

man i hate feeling mid. i hate it act so much. today was not locked in. i want to head into the office i think i need to keep doing that to feel better and to have zero distractions. i hate feeling like im getting left behind. cuz i am getting left behind. im not actively choosing the best options for growth at the present moment.

its act crazy how bad it is. im just gonna say this publicly cuz this is how i feel but i feel that i cant be loved the way i am rn. its so cooked. i really need to develop myself. in ways that are more than just grinding.

do i work to forget the other feelings? whats going on …

if i have to sack work thats fine. i think its arguably much more important to get this hackathon submission in and to get some feedback. i feel that if i hear from other builders that this is lit ill feel a lot better.

to be fair its pr simple but like i could not do it so quickly prolly.

i need to get myself out of the house and also need to secure research at a good lab and also need to grind leetcode and also start job grind and also meet people and also find a woman and also …

feeling really panicked. lets get out tomorrow to a cafe and just chill. so many emotions right now. i think half of it comes from starting to do things. before i pulled the ostrich tech and put that shit in the sand. heads up and the peaks looks so tall. i feel i cant catch up but its just a step by step manuver. man fk.

MAN FK WHAT IS GOING ON . im act losing it. zero friends. need to find the grind group. cant even maintain relationships. ah im act feeling giga failed rn. failed human.

work to forget all the feelings. ah i act dk. i act dk. gotta become ok with myself.

i read this nice thing on substack that says thinking about doing x is not the same as doing x. this is obviously true but our brain can conflate these two so easily. also read sm about quantity vs quality wrt. photography. grinding quality means you know theory, but you need to grind quantity to get good results.

got rejected by arena today. thats fine i was a poor applicant, but still feels bad. quantity tho right? gotta grind thru hella rejections to get accepted. part of the journey

i also may never be a good cook, i care too little about food. i think its good aura play tho. mma is also good aura play.

so tiring day at work. i need better sleep quality to not end up in that position. i ended up debugging all day today which was why it was so tiring. biked, slept. decent amt of rot today but still thought about website which was cool. i do want to do mma i think.

today is the day i have fully automated my website workflow, hopefully this serves me well doing this in hopes i journal more.

woke up super good, felt like a real human being. i gotta wake up even earlier, do brekky w them. personal research, then hit up work, ideally leave by 5, go hit the gym from like 6-9, come home, cool down for 1-2 hrs - work on lc and applying, sleep.

feeling the worst ive ever felt abt myself, but it only appears when other ppl be around. in a vacuum im fine. this is the most dangerous thing. it enables recursive isolationism. i gotta focus for a bit in isolation so i can be fine w others again. jeez this is bad.

even if isolated, set up measures to feel connected constantly. i need to scroll linkedin in the mornings right as i wake up. and journal when i go to sleep. give myself 1 hr in the morning before im fully going, and aroudn 2 hrs at night so i can journal properly, get sleepy, and also do leetcode and apply to things.

very sure i dont wanna go into industry, dont like the heirarchy, dont like the meetings, dont like meaningless-ness. incredibly difficult to find work i like i feel

• gov has good flexibility - potentially viable
• maybe do some charity work
  • apply to more swe
• pr interested in being a digital nomad

gonna be back in the office after cook, to work on this research proj + work on manifest

really good day today, ate some good food, got treated by lucia, and had a goodass hike. took all day tho. super exhausted in a good way! got some time before bed to cool down which is what i wanna start doing. should spend like two hrs before bed to just do some cool down shit and get me properly tired to conk out instantly.

i realized i dont be journalling at all, i have poor night time routine! lemme go home tn and write about my feelings. i should wake up and linkedin scroll or sm. bro today i learned bilnd people can echolocate!

took another day as a rest, was good but was also rot. felt pr bad overall i think

first day of work, lowk a little nervous

list of notes of things i did last semester :

• classes:

  • cs + discrete math course
  • algorithms
  • rl
  • various math courses
  • various other courses for exploration
    • SPEECH TECH CONVO AI
    • NEURAL COMPUTATION
    • cog pysch

• research:

  • Bridged the double empathy gap in mixed neurotype conversations by building a personalized machine learning model to convey the meaning of your physical mannerisms.
    • read lot of papers on speech reciprocity
    • pitch mimic, behavioru mimic
    • autism dont match pitch

• projects:

  • secureAI
    • developed web app that demonstrated nanogcg
      • iterative approach to nudge llms towards a “sure, here is how to ” response
      • abuses the stochastic nature of llms
    • and a novel counter
      • pipe response into another llm
        • known as llm chaining or similar to a chain of thought approach, but we didnt know about htat hyet at the time
    • won vthacks
  • developed a novel method to prevent code switching in spoken dialogue systems
  • built out full spoken dialogue system relatively from scratch
  • built a nn from scratch

overall this last year strengthend my theory side a lot, whereas my implementation side i feel, lacks a little. so what im most excited for is to grow that weakness and turn it into a strength this summer.

spent many days on the road, finally can settle down now. spent some time working on stanford campus - their shit is 67x our size LMFAO ?!

need to start looking into internal transfer for amzn

theres a lot i need to do.

wrote up my personal intro to the team here:

Hey team!

My name is Chen and I’m currently doing my 2nd year undergraduate at CMU for CS.

I was here last summer working with Huron to gather metrics for our compaction function and I loved my time here a lot! The team was so great to me. I’m back here for this summer as well and I’m looking forward to working with you all again!

My latest interests are HCI and AI safety and my personal hobbies include cycling, and BJJ.

If you see me, feel free to walk up to me and chat - I love meeting new people!

ah fk its a grind, im so tired and ive been rotting so hard

Message to the one girlie i met at 98k who asked me out:

It went well I think, not sure if I was able to clutch the A, but if not it is what it is.

Listen, Eva, I’m really sorry to tell you this and I think you are really sweet, but I don’t think I can do a serious relationship right now. I’m just too focused on myself and I’m lowkey rather busy as well. I travel around and I’ll be in the bay all of this summer for work so I will likely not even have time / energy to maintain something long distance. I’m busy to the point where I feel if I were in a relationship it would be more of a punishment for my partner than anything else.

I guess this is something you may have noticed based off the infrequency of my responses … sorry about that. At the very least you definitely do not deserve to get ghosted and I wanted to send a message to you that this is something I can’t maintain.

Honestly you’re really sweet and I wish you all the best in your future whether it be your love life or streaming or anything else!

slow start to the day, started work at 10 pm , shit is so bad. i need to figure out what exactly I have to do. there is a lot tho . ah fk im so busy.

gamed a lot - like 6 hours of league. drove home. talked with fam.

officially done for the year. god bless.

doing the process of linting my journal entries, so this shit act pretty. 2024-10-14 is the first time I started using this revised format - an old habit from my work days.

time to lock in on stat

done with 210! watched a good movie

slow start - starting work at 3 again .

done w these classes:

• speech tech
• cog psych
• neural comp
• grappling stuco
• research

still have to grind for these:

• 210
• stat

slow start - starting work at 3 again .

done w these classes:

• speech tech
• cog psych
• neural comp
• grappling stuco
• research

still have to grind for these:

• 210
• stat

slow start - starting work at 3 again .

done w these classes:

• speech tech
• cog psych
• neural comp
• grappling stuco

still have to grind for these:

• research
• 210
• stat

slow start - starting work at 3.

this is not good. summer mode is hitting wayy too early. lemme get back into it rl quick

done w these classes:

• speech tech
• cog psych
• neural comp
• grappling stuco

still have to grind for these:

• research
• 210
• stat

slow start - starting work at 1

super hard to sleep yesterday. i was on screen way to close to my sleep i suspect. i took sleeping pills too tho so im not sure what was up. gonna gym + try not to nap tn and we will see how that goes

giga optimal day yst. yapped a lot planned a lot for summer but overall rly good. pr optimal day today as well..

pr solid day, pr effective overall since waking up at 10. ready asf for sleep tho. gonna read a bit before hitting the sack.

not entirely happy with my final, shoulda got less sleep. so giga unhappy with my life. so much more i want to do. im not locked and idk what to do to get to that point. is that even what will make me happy…

i tried my ass off to pull the hard reset but still woke up at 1 am. then stasyed up till like 4ish and slep and woke up at 2pm. wtfreak

did not pull an all nighter, staying up was too hard. gonna need to pull it tn. else bad shit gonna happen i feel. i think ima reset sleep tn, im so gassed. gymming was good.

lowk yest and today are like the same day, gonna pull an all nighter type thing throughout the night.

not sick anymore, just need to fix sleep and im good. i need to like giga lock in the next couple of days. i think i will want to hit the gym later today if possible. not sure if im adding too much to be on the plate tho.

also i want to journal once in morn and once at night. maybe in morn ill plan and then ill journal to start . or maybe not. not sure yet. and then at night i want to write up more W’s. reflect more on the day and like say things that made me happy. hrm.

yeah but morn journal : gotta lock in less than a week for AIP submission ill act need to lock tf in for this one. can def still win tho .

just downloaded mans search for meaning, gonna be reading that starting now.

super bad night, good morning ish tho.

current priorities:

• finish school with good grades
• palintir aip project before 25

bad night before and bad morning.

got off waitlist for dhcs and ai human interaction, leaning towards dhcs

burned the weekend. actually tragic. prolly was the most important weekend of this last month. g mfking g. new goal - stay locked in for a period of a week or more.

hit the hard reset today but still woke up piss late. not really great. at least im motivated in the morning

did not go to ai for social good event at 10 am today … i over slept. again bad decisions made tn rollover in terrible ways.

giga motivated. bro i missed my registration time 💀💀

thinking of these classes :

• ai safety cmu robotics
• 15435 - blockchain

just make good habits from now till like 7pm to 2 am and i should be chilling, it is actually a problem how bad my sleep schedule is.

one more late day for neural comp given 7 in total and i finish neural comp 4/9

need to become the goat of ai safety

looked at these stucos, these are options…

Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Fundamentals of Improv Comedy Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Chess Tactics and Strategy Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Build Your Own Breadboard Computer

Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Movies You Should Have Watched By Now Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Historical European Martial Arts (swords) Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Private Pilot Ground School

giga tired when i woke up, gonna take a nap. sleep quality dogshit i think i woke up cold a couple times, need to figure out whats going on.

rotted for the first tiem in a while today, also slept wayy too long. feeling the heat after that mistake a little bit.

justins back! my sleep is fked. talked with andrew and didnt lock in after that. old habits die hard huh. changed my shit up before i slept tho. additiionally, i gotta change my life up fr.

sleep still fked, still locked in tho

reset my sleep lfg!

rotting my time away. def pulling an all nighter tn to compensate i think i have a little too much to do. act gotta figure out what i do to allocate my time

everything that i need to focus on (no exception):

• school
• projects
  • build nn from scratch
  • build transformer
  • learn how to finetune
• research
• bjj
• yapping

thought abt the future for a bit, when i begin applying like a madman ill apply to co-ops for sure. if i get in any then, ill figure out what i do, but for now dont think so much and just apply.

i want to study abroad my last year if posssible. looks like ill finish most of my cs core by end of junior year, most of senior year will be gen eds i believe. at that time ideally im studying abroad and just applying to full time roles

slept at 1, woke up at 10. idk why i was so tired.

need to be locked in today, my sleep is pr fked so i wanna hit the gym and eat some melotonin to do a hard reset if possible.

24, 10, 14 is when i started using the journal format… its been a couple of months since then huh…

pressure is on fr. also realized if i spend time socializing, if its good conversation thats overall pr good. that satisfies my desire to be good at yapping. by continuing to do that i can get back to where i once was with my yap. still cant be doing it too much tho

redefined list of what i need to focus on:

• school
• projects
  • build nn from scratch
  • build transformer
  • learn how to finetune
• research

what i want to focus on:

• bjj
• yapping

focus on high percentage plays

some words hat i want to define my futrue: agency ego individualism freedom

realized i need to narrow down what im doing to be able to do everything at a sufficient pace…

what i need to focus on:

• school
• projects
  • build nn from scratch
  • build transformer
  • learn how to finetune
• research

what i want to focus on:

• bjj
• yapping

• CASI
• aises course
• exploration
  • blockchain
  • graphics
    • nerf
    • guassian splatting
  • reading

got bitched by peter today, im not very good at volleyball. i shouldnt play while new, ill get bitched?

i really did not do shit td. read ao ashi for like 7 hrs to the point of fking up my sleep, causing me to miss a class, fking with monday overall. not good !

didnt do much yesterday, was just chiling with sungah.

brithday message:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMEE

ig the first quality that comes to mind when i think of you samee, is that you are really caring. i remember like so many instances you just reach out tryna cover my bitchass when im late for an assignment. always asking if i finished something in case I didnt and i need help. those are pr obvious examples, more subtle ones i remember are like when you wished me luck before the hackathon and pr stressed for it, or when reached out during the break to ask what i was up to and check up on me.

the last one is a struggle of mine, i often get so caught up in what i need to do that i don’t check in with my buddies but when they check up on me, i feel so warm inside fr. in that last example it kinda highlights how I often feel you are caring to the point its sometimes disproportionate. and lowk i feel its pr true. at least for me.

when you were stressed to the point you were almost brought to tears for the neural comp exam, that was act a memory that scared me a decent amt. it ate me up lowk. i want to be someone who can act as a pillar of strength just as you do for me. and i couldnt cheer you up / calm you when you needed that strength even though you always pull thru for me.

ill end this birthday msg on a happier note. theres two things i want to communicate with this message.

firstly, I hate feeling like I’ve recieved more than I’ve given. ill grow stronger so that i can be a pillar of strength for the homies. given thats the case i want you to feel that im a resource you can call upon at any point. anytime you need a sauce. anytime you need a friend. anytime you are sad or stressed, i want you to talk to someone, and i will always lend an open ear at any point if it is me. don’t let it get to the point where you are stressed to tears.

second, dont think it goes unnoticed how much you care! I feel that warmth fs!

I’m happy you care so much for me and ill be happy to be a resource that can help support you happiness ! im wishing you all the happiness on your special day, and im hoping more good days come in your future!

addendum:

i ended up rewriting this and rewording and shortening a couple times to convey what i wanted the most.

also sorry, i meant to write this on a card but i bought one, left it in my bike bag and it snowed, thawed and the water seeped thru the bag, so the card was giga soaked HAHA. and my stingy ass wasnt willing to drop another 8 dlrs on a card 💀💀

man what am i scared of in finding someone, should meet random people and ask out hella random people too

man what am i scared of in finding someone, should meet random people and ask out hella random people too

man what am i scared of in finding someone, should meet random people and ask out hella random people too

goal is still to be completly finished with all school work by EOD monday want to finish menial as well but idk if that is possible…

might need to push back until tuesday if we want to consider neural comp pset as well..

priority is to finish all of review, then future work, then do exploratory.

bemore kind and genuine - develop this tool to treat ppl more inclusively - go on blind dates and meet ppl more effectively and kindly

learned about the texas 4000, seems rly fun honestly i wanna do that shit … maybe the summer after i graduate !

decent day, good sleep, decently effectivey since waking up.

learned decent heursitic. for any mvp we need SLC. simple, lovablae, adn consistent. emphasis on lovable. every human is dumasf, we see cool graphic we like. so if i wnat ppl to like it i need to lock in on design.

got my break in both last night, this morning, as well as later today. that means ima need to lock in the rest of the week.

need to stabilize better. was also insanely exhausted. mediocre day.

shit ton of shit to do. time to like hermit mode and get it done i think

did well on teh midterm today, kinda rotted immediately after.

gonna try and sleep early to fix my sleep schedule

gonna try and sleep early to fix my sleep schedule

super important chat with tani today. i once again realized how much ive been thru. and that somewhat explains why / how im so behind compared to everyone else. ive had my opportunities and others have had their’s. at this point all thats left is to steal everything to become the best person i can be.

at the same time i can use that to be confident in myself as well. I am who i am cause of the things i went thru. no one else went thru the same things as me in this school. not many can do that and come out the way i am.

i realized i was raised with a lot of other values in mind. not ones super geared towards success. even ones that weren’t necesarily taught to me were implicitely taught to me cause of the circumstances.

one example is my crippling league of legends addiction that I have that i sunk infinite hours into. i had low agency ofc as a kid, but as a kid you are sorta of instilled into believing you have low agency. at least thats how it was in my family. never empowered type shit. truly very tragic. I had to fight for my own agency against the current, which is something that didn’t really ever happen when I was living at home. truly felt powerless, because I was powerless.

man i only realize now how damning that was and even writing about it my heart aches at the pain. sometimes i walk in teh door never sure if my mother will be happy or sad. if i have to deal wth another goddamn tantrum or not. no agency to decide the outcome. no power to calm her if shes geekin.

no power to help my brother in any situation

ofc i jsut spent the nights away playing a useless game, constantly believing i couldn’t do shit. ofc i used it to cope. ofc my highly successful friends never had a problem like this. they were empowered and chillaxing.

shit was act tragic. ofc i couldn’t do amc math. ofc i didnt believe that i could. ofc i didnt do research. ofc i didnt pay attention in school. i didnt believe that i could. i didnt believe that i even needed to, only focus on surviving. only priority is making sure mom wasnt losing it.

I can only work to fix them now with the autonomy that i have.

but anyways i write not to forget these feelings. the moment i forget the pain is the moment that i think im truly mediocre. when accounting for the past, (not to toot my own horn but) not many could walk out the way i did, when faced with the same challenges i did. in that own way im maybe a just a little bit brilliant after all.

going back to what i was saying about stealing from others.

theres a lot i can learn from my high achieving peers in uni. one of the main ones is agency this comes from a nang talk i attended wehre he talked about the “say do ratio”. who are teh people who are doing what they say they will do? to me that defines agency. the power to think rationally individually and then execute on said plan. I was a person with low agency. maybe due to lower self confidence from my past.

but thats not the end all be all. we are rational young adults in college. we have a very high degree of control over our lives at this point. we can do whatever we want. and with that we need to learn in whatever way we can how to improve ourselves and our shortcomings. to me I overcome that problem via theft.

not actaully ofc.

thats illegal.

but heres an example: i room with justin. hes pr cool. he has a lotta cool traits that he picked up from idk where. but these are desirable traits to me. for example he is just super curious and loves to learn about like cs and shit. i always wondered where that came from but recently its been rubbing off on me a lot.

i also recently realized that i used to hate learning prbably. maybe its because i realized it so mcuh only now that i have learned to love it more. but i wanted to pinpoint where it stemmed from and likely it was because i felt i had to learn or die. there was no choice. I had no agency in the matter. learn or be poor. learn or starve on the streets. my brother has a very rough future, learn or he dies. my parents are old and not that educated and dont have that much agency. learn or they get fked too.

so in this way i had to learn like my life depended on it. I had no choice. I was bad at it too. I didn’t want to in the first place. so many responsibliites. in an environment like that its hard to come to enjoy the learning process. not like the other fkers who have cushy lives and parents who love them. man ofc i didn’t learn to love learning.

but in an environment surrounded by justin and his community of people who love learning, its definitely rubbed off on me completely. im srue the distance from teh family helps. I dont think they are a good influence on me which is fine to think. you can think anyone is a bad influence on you.

anyways i stole desirable traits from people who have it. this is my definition of theft. he still has it tho so maybe i just copied it off of him. theivary is prolly the wrong word carrying the wrong connotation.

the intuition for this is simple. in the above example, i hated learning because it was what I HAD to do. Justin prolly loves learning because he was given the chioce of doing wahtever he wanted. he was prolly empowered to love the proceess. I just had hella late start compared to him, im starsting only now. but anyways ofc hes gonna learn to love learning. ofc im going to hate it.

but even though i had a diff background than him, one that was def not so cushy, i can still gain access to teh traits that he gained. the ones that he gained only because he had access to such a cushy life. so in sense i was able to gain access to the benefits that his cushy life was able to grant him, all wihtout needing the prerequisite of having the cushy life to begin with.

hopefully its starting to be clear how much of a cheat code this is. you can get the good traits you want, without needing the life and background that gives you those traits. all you have to do is steal them from people who already have them. this is so OP cuz the life and background is not something that you can control, its not something that everyone has equal acess to. its nothing you can change yourself. powerless. agency-less. but with the stealing technique you can still chagne your life for the better and gain good traits. you have power and agency to make it happen.

its a shortcut that bypasses the need to have a good background. it can also make up for lost things that you didnt have whether it be by mistakes you made or by choices that were outside your control. for example if you didnt know love because your parents never taught it to you, you can still learn it from your friends (thats what worked for me, (not that my parents divorced tthey jsut didnt love each other)).

anyways, this is my solution to the background problem. if your life is shit / was shit. surround yourself with people who had it good / have what you are looking for. and in that way im sure you will come to gain those traits as well.

footnote :

i say cushy in comparison, justin if you ever read this know that i don’t think your life was actually acutally that easy. not like mega yacht billionaire type easy. but do know that you have high achieving, hard working dad, with a loving family that supported you … (my heart aches as i type this unironically. like eyes are watering kinda cuz this is all i ever wanted) so to me you had it pr nice. no offense tho, i hope none is taken. you are still hella good influence on me and i love you a lot

at 100, dk how grappling will go, hopefullly i dont get gassed out

got giga gassed out when going for the wrestling. will need to do some conditioning for that.

basically back to 100%, did not go to striking class. i realized my vice is sleeping. i do it significantly more than anyone else. but other people have their own vices and as long as i work every waking hour that i am awake, i should be ok.

feeling a lot better today, giga bombed the midterm tho. if i wasnt sick maybe i could perform better. we will never know!

still sick , so much shit to do tho.

feeling sick, so many reasons i could be feeling weak right now so not really sure whats going on. the air is dry, i drank expired milk, i ate veggies that were expired, im not getting enough sleep. its prolly a combination of all of these factors to be honest.

great sleep, we’ll see how the hacking goes.

woke up tired, did some research. only school grind for a bit !

woke up dead tired, body so sore.

pure grind day, was good. inertia is rly powerful. rly easy to stay in motion once in motion

i slept wayy too mucht today, i realized it comes down to willpower to get up earlier - not anything else. i just gotta do it cuz theres things to get done that day.

also had another thought about religion. relates to waht amelia was saying. there can be no “correct” philosophy or thuoght process. the moment you get into that thinking, sm rly bad happens becuase you dont consider the grey areas. then in that case is religion or christianity scary ? yes in the way that they set in stone some absolute correct moral philosophy imo. but to believe in christianity, you need to be believing absolutelty in this moral philosophy so does that mean the most devoute and correct christians will then be the least open minded, and the open minded christians are not good chrsitians ?

i really want to be getting used to reading journals / articles / news when im eating - thats a good point

slept too much, gotta sleep earlier today

slept good lfg

so insanely tired, its not optimal that i get low sleep. super optimal that i get a lotta sleep every night otherwise the learning the next day is so stunted

so insanely tired, its not optimal that i get low sleep. super optimal that i get a lotta sleep every night otherwise the learning the next day is so stunted

woke up tired as hell, the problem is the nap otherwise i can sleep like a dead mfker. if i dont take nap today im jesus. no nap today just straight grind 210, i think tahts pr optimal

quesiotns:

• optimizations or finding hihg q, k pairs and only find the relevant value matrices
• what sithe value matrix itsself? how is it necessary and ohw did openai realize it would be crucial
• waht does the mlp do besides storing context?

rly need to fix sleep schedule, i think i will be able to do it today tho. lotta things i wanna do today, maybe i can get it done and will be effective.

so sleepy today …

really really bad sleep and work cycle today. like so bad it scared even me. the naps i take in my room are super unoptimal cuz the room is always super warm, thus i always sleep forever.

maybe need to pull all nighter? not sure how to fix to be honest?

today was not great in terms of productivity. i still learned a decent amt wrt. to transformers. i also rotted an insane amt today. not high prio. i also dk how important it is to stay at home… easier to lock in but i act gotta lock in.

man so awk.

had interesting talk with amelia last nigth abt societal problems, i think i overall had a conversation that was more productive than the alternative, prolly woulda played tft, i also do not know how useful it was in general but it did make my happy so thats prolly whats most important.

also had great talk with the FIT team, the homie prof begel is pr sharp!

felt like i did a lot today but also not that much at all.

justin may be leaving soon… and minjune has alr left. bro idek what to feel rn. i act need to work harder…

im also worried im spreading myself too thin. all the things im generally interested in are :

• AI safety,
• blockchain
• MMA fs,
• and i also wanna build applications for those with special needs.
• i also wanna build tools related to transformers…

bro …

bro i should only be making high percentage plays, i fking stink, think about my actions a bit more carefully in the future. i dont wanna allow myself to suck.

bro grapplling club is so freaking fun …

bro everyone and their mothers are all so cracked. plus they just enjoy the grind like no one else. its pr inspiring. gene is so brilliant. andy is fking smart as hell and strong as hell too. bro could fold me in half. hyojae rly enjoys his work. its all pr insane.

good sleep this mornign, decent schedule but still took two hours before i could ramp up and lock in. i slept for idk how long. took a nap and just conked out. def happens because of how warm teh room is just feels like i want to sleep forever. i need to micromanage room temp then…

neural comp looks unironically pr hard. bro wtf is going on! will need to invest some time at some point to srsly do it out…

rough nigth last night. need to figure out sleep and get that optimal rly fast. cant sacrifice gym thats something i really dont wanna do.

rough start this morning, woke up at 7:50 didnt get to a lotta work till 9:50. gonna try and cut those numbers down tbh its a lot of time waste. also realize i have so much time waste compared to who i am from first year first sem. like no wonder im getting gapped by anthony LMAO ?

uh overall productive, but sleep management is a problem i need to fix…

lets see if i can meet someone today. met a baddie named veronica but i think ill never see her again. i fumbled the bag didnt secure the insta …

all g tho

woke tf up this morning, will need to take a nap later got maybe ~6 hrs of sleep. looking forward to locking in today and getting into a good schedule.

couldnt take a nap when i needed to. the importance of good sleep to me is so crucial as it affects my interactions and thus my relationships and eveyrhting else. there is certainly a snowball effect…

insanely productive day otherwise tho - went to , worked out, had my first acai bowl, went window shopping for thrifting, did groceries, cooked with justin and emily, and meal prepped and finished all my hmwrk, just didnt learn today but thats ok. more learning to be done whenever!

repeated some unhealthy sleeping practices that i didnt do yesterday. wont be repeating those, i know just how detrimental they can be to productivity

i also took a big midday nap, idk how bad it affects my sleep schedule in general. dont know if its optimal.

i finished supervised learning regression and classification for andrew ng coursera, i didnt look at all the code completely i think …

i have a list of thingsi wanna do w friends when i have the chance:

• go thrift shopping: get a tote bag
• figure out how to use my russian camera !
• watch movies on list

can do solo / alone

• plan out study abroad properly …

grind time baby. woke up late, much later than i needed to. bad habit i need to break from the break. was super bad at waking up over the break…

did a decent amt of work, finished week 1 of andrew ng coursera ml specilization. i have 2 more weeks for supervised learning and couple more weeks worth of stuff that i shuold be able to blitz and speedrun i hope

also looked into full stack open a bit today but yeah poor efficiency. ohyeah looked into EA as well as well as 80k hours.

schools back, wanted to do a quick entry here. break ended, and it was the longest break i ever felt. lots of things i wanted to do that i didnt get to. in a weird way my brain has allocated laziness with my home. i wonder how weird that is or how weird that is not.

overall its okay, its not the worst thing that could happen. i breaked during the break. like thats all that happened. and its not like that shouldnt happen that defeats the purpose of the break.

no regrets just disappointed in myself.

but ill work to fix those this sem. i have a lot of hopes for this sem. so much so that i was hoping for move in date quicker and quicker, just so i could be able to get back to work and to gain back my own autonomy and agency.

i dont like new years resolutions as that seems to pose that self improvement can only happen once a year as if its a special occasion but one thing i would like to change that i conveniently realized this break was: i want to lose ego.

ego is something that i value pr highly, i imagine its important for sure. but in a way it stops me from reaching my fullest. I feel that there should be things i know already and then … when it comes for me to study them, like transformers, i feel that i might get judged for learning them only now. its chill tho. with no ego comes no shame.

thats one thing i would like to work on this sem!

wow the new year is alr upon us. i should take down ‘who im willing to kill’, i wonder if thats a false representation of who i am. i wonder if humans are naturally lazy. oh wait i looked it up and its true. hrm.

rotted the morning away, im act in such a good position to work hard today. still reflecting on yesterday and not sure how i feel about yst. what am i frustrated by? wasting my time shopping? weak people ? weakness? people? uninteresting people? things that dont bring value to me?

probably the last one. hrm. to make friends i have to assume nobody can bring me any value. assume that they cannot and will not. when they do i can be pleasantly surprised but always assume they will not. never let my expectations be raised.

additionally note that people in easy situations will remain weak. as i am right now im weak too.

im act disgusting. many things abt my personality i wanna change. not that i will enjoy the presence of all people, i just want to face it better.

wanted to reflect on some things today. overall tho i realized i was pr pissed off and i wanted to come to terms with it. didnt get the closure i wanted tho.

not that i necessarily deserve it or that everyone always gets it …

actually quite scary how easy it is to rot this break away. did the math and not including today i have about 3 weeks of break left before school proper starts. 3 weeks is a decent while but still not very long.

i have a lot of courses i want to speedrun and properly learn.

got home last night, so happy to be back. noticed everytime i go back my parents are getitng more and more senile. i think it happens inversely proportionally, like the more independent i get the more they regress, because its far less responsibilty for them now to take care of me so its good that they can take it easily mentally.

still dk how good it is tho…

like its kinda scary to see them like this tbh!

got home last night, so happy to be back. noticed everytime i go back my parents are getitng more and more senile. i think it happens inversely proportionally, like the more independent i get the more they regress, because its far less responsibilty for them now to take care of me so its good that they can take it easily mentally.

still dk how good it is tho…

like its kinda scary to see them like this tbh!

finished the 281 final, shit was light… lets just see if i clutch everything else…

bro that final i bombed yesterday… ah fk man actually fk man, its legit so unirionically mid to be fkign failling a class. ah fk. i dont wanan ever feel this mid again. i experienced it with 151. then forgot the feeling last sem cuz i was too cocky. man wtf.

ah so mid, im just so insanely mid. too mid. ah its too uninteresting.

lowkey cope chillaxed a little too hard, migth be a repeate of 251 im not having that! time to lock in!

finished my fking two cringe course finals yesterday, today is full 251 grind day, im alr getting nervous

man its so cooked.

woke up late, got to work pr smoothly

went to sleep pr late last night too, today is a pure lock in day no excuses no stopping. i need to clutch up and now im feeling the heat …

was tryna think of projects to work on over the break , and spend too long doign that i fear. came up with growth grove or gardener's growth grove or the gardening grove, still working on the name i need to write down the idea before i forget…

slept on time today! just woke up super late cuz my body needed it from working out so hard

im gonna try and hit everythign on my todo list and hten go gym, so ic an sleep early! good plan!

gym wasnt open so i couldnt execute compeltely the plan out, did most items was still not super locked in, i think i need more sleep so hopefully i can get htat tn.

effective day today, reci was pr useless tho! slept late last night, took a nap and it was too much.

woke up late, couldn’t sleep last night

felt like yesterday wasnt that productive tho idk why. super effective day today, didnt doom before sleep so not bad actually!

woke up much too late, wasnt able to fall asleep fast enough idk why. mornign alarm didnt wake me, idk what went wrong

talked with prof. andrew begel seeems like i can do reserach next sem for credit which im pr excited about. he seems omega chill and super passionate, so im pr excited in doing work for this lab

did not grief the start, woke the fk up. took a buss nap in the middle of the day, woke up and there was free pizza! then i studied prob pr srsly, then i took break and was kinda not locked in. got to talk to allison, rosh, and dan, and justin today. shit was so good!

spent a little too long talkign tho…

woke up at 12:30, once again griefed the start. this is not even that bad its just weird. like i skip all my classes and shit. its so bad actually prolly. man fk . id ont even know how to fix it. im so low discipline, bad decision making.

woke up at like 12, with like 7 hrs of sleep - feeling pr good and not that tired. think ill skip gymming for the rest of the semester so i can focus up. its like 10 more days and i have a decent amt of stuff i need to lock in on.

itll give me more time back to work on just school - no gym + less sleep.

passed out at like 9 ish slept for like 3 hrs till 12 … need to figure out what is going on with my sleep asap before i get proper screwed.

also i had a grave realization today. im not one of the goats. not even close. the goats always push on no fear, no loss of motivation or sm idk . like today i realized im just not technical. as a cs major being non technical, this is pr illegal. i need to lock tf in.

i have so much more potential

woke up at like 9-ish and it was too early, i was def not functioning properly. idk why ive been needing so much sleep recently

took a nap from like 12-3, only able to start doing real work after that

man i wasted the night, i think i learned that if i dont work out or do anything to strenous or stimulating (like talkign to ppl or whatever) and do work in room all day then i dont / wont get gassed out that hard so i can afford to sleep less i think is what the consensus is.

super great talk with hadrien, opened my eyes to the EU work culture, maybe a great place to settle down idk. seems like a very interesting place.

super great friendsgiving celebrating anthony’s birthday type shit. was super great. i realize that hard work buys you back time. enjoying the hard work buys you freedom and lifts a weight off your chest.

had a fun day, next two days are work daysaa

saw the homie sungah yesterday, it was pr fun. im gonna need to lock in hella today. starting the grind at 1 pm today.

i woke up at around 1030 and rotted teh mornign away which was lowk so bad. also reorganizing journal and sending out who im willing to kill on the blog today to thoroughly convince myself

also pausing exploration + talking to ppl for the break for teh sole goal of catching up over the break

uh mid day not very productive sleepy will see the homie sungah tmrw gotta wake up early for her so i shuold sleep asap, will write everything up tmrw!

no gym today, also want to invest more time into MMA, i think i get a lot of fulfillment outta it. super hard stuff willing to spend way more time and get good at it. its like a game but irl LMFAO. im tryna climb the academic and physical ladder.

i need to cut my bangs for mma, thats how hard i want to all in

worked myself physcially, but not mentally. even when i go this hard its still pr hard to go to sleep early.

woke up late, but im tryna regain back my life.

went to sleep late, idk what i was doing… genuinely dk how to fix this part of me…

i think i got super frustrated near the end of today. i was def sleepy which effected cognition heavily but it was super hard for me to understand the phd guy’s talk. like i dont even understand transformers idk why i thought i would be able to keep up. we came in late too, but yeah i just didnt understand shit. anthony came in late too but he understood a lot more…

i didnt realize how far ahead that guy is pushing.

its like yeah, he’s taking relatively the same courses as me … we go to the same school …

man wtf . how is he so ahead… know so much more… wtf. its so piss frustrating to me like i feel so behind.

thats just what i felt so hard today. man i feel like im locking in wayyy too late. its too frustrating . its so on me but its so frustrating.

additionally: i think much of my frustration comes from not feeling part of the group. i wasnt told abt the talk today. wasnt told abt Apricity. not in the slack. im here by circumstance, i didnt seek it out. i dont have mutuals that can vet me, saying that im legit or that i wanna be here. i wasn’t invited.

which is fine that is not the worst thing. but it just makes me feel so stupid i think. like too dumb to even think of inviting. i mean they not wrong but i still wanna learn regardless. its so sad feeling this way …

man im glad i wrote this out, its actually quite frustrating. i think im pissed. but like also i dont wanna just step away and say that im not interested in this shit. im not willing to accept im a bitch like that. guess i just harness that feeling and push thru but it feels so bad rn bro so bad. fk .

im reading more of the mountain is you before i sleep.

wrote up a list of games i wanna play

uh rly tired throughout today but i forced myself up, goign to sleep tired so thats super good

regained a bit of agency again which is super important to me. hard day, hard work. wanna work super hard through this break. wanna work hard thru these last couple of days.

going to sleep was super hard need to work out harder so i can pass out easier

planning to work hard today, no griefage at all and then go to sleep on time and wake up tmrw maybe later if need, adn hten tmrw blast my legs nad hit them hard, and then go to sleep on time wed. and then thurs wak eup early and bang everything fixed…

over all super inefficient day. no hair cut no gym, did go run !

did think a bit and then treated myself in maybe an unhealthy way idrk i need to stop doing big unhappy breaks and then big sprints, causes my life to be so outta wack… gonna need a big sprint to get into the clear and then i wanna stabalize …

good day, feel like i was decently efficient, spent an horu reading manga which wasn’t great also took a nap today - much needed

i uh played tft with matthew for like 2 hrs late into the night caused me to sleep in late, and miss my first two lectures. super duper awk.

slept at 1 yesterday, felt pr good. felt like i was pr productive and doing work for most of yesterday. just not doing like school work work, tmrw is likely going to be the same with the socratica esque thing goign on so i need to finish a decent amoutn today and tmrw morning…

full transparency : i played three games of tft ah gg the new set is fun as hell tho…

11/17 writing this:

ah i actually rotted all of the remainder of this day away. goes to show how much free time i have. its quite a prblem i think!

ah fk .

full transparency dawg. im just not him

i have to lock in completely today to make up for the weekend…

slept on time yesterday, i pressed snooze on my alarm three times this morning, ig i was tired as hell. i might try and hit chest again today instead of legs so i can still go mma club tmrw …

thinking about courses: dont think i wanna take 10701 this sem will leave 315 for next sem?

10-301 - intro ml for non SCS majors

• need to make sure i can get credit for htis
• see if i can take this with schedule conflicts with 36-226

11-492 - speech technology for conversational AI

• need 15210 prereq (will email prof to see if i can coreq it)

11-711 - phd nlp

• prolly insanely legit

scs electives:

15-330 - computer security

• prolly pr interesting

15-294 + 15-394

• make sure these count for extra scs elective…

i ended up not passing out on time yesterday, it was so bad idk waht was the problem. today i woke up late ended up skipping 251 but luckily there was no lecture today for that god bless. went to 281 lecture but didnt absorb anything

finally finished midterm for 251, im so hpapy im free i hate midterm season. goddamn that was grindy will do a quick git push today to load all the jounral entries i think, its boutta get super long.

man im so tired lemmme write up what i have to do for studying tmrw and thenass out.

lemme also plan out couress better so that 2026 fall i also take it easy. i wonder when i will ahve the chance to sutdy abroad…

• talk to advisor more about this

ok gn need to pass out..

long day. talked to nobody studied all day. ggs this is so bad.

uh invested some time into van life, i think im still weighing my options behind a small crib vs idk a nicer larger one. the extra mobility is rly nice i think, but i also want the comfort pr badly…

i think i wanna prioritize the comfort more tho … + with larger van i can build out more features… i think i want two sliding doors, and windows maybe all around ? and def a skylight, + fan for ventilation + still adequate room for solar to charge various things.

overall okay day but i need to take better more optimal breaks (not rotting and isntead thinking about van life) and context switch between variou things to remain super optimal, plus i feel like i should be getting more sleep.

felt like i worked super fking hard today, got decent talk in too, gonna sleep super late today just to finish everythign but fk it. its midterm season…

omg slept 1 hr later cuz of doomscroll

spoke with jeffery for a while ! it was good!

I LEARNED THE TRICK TO SLEEPING early !! i just gotta get ready for bed earlier, fully brush teeth, and wash face. that way i can pass out anytime after getting sleepy from studying!

i did not do shit. i did not sleep early. im actually cooked idk what im doing losing motivation hella. i think i need to bring back like a spark or sm .

had a good day despite bombing midterm just by hitting gym and talking with david. letss goo !

super tired after gymming, may have went too hard, was left doing a lot of nothign after getting back home…

rly slow past couple of days ? liek am i stupid ? ig i dont have stamina like that or what, im so lost

tiring day, felt pr good! not enough shit done thuogh.

did like sochratica esque thing i think today, was rly fun. felt like information overload, lotta terms i def didnt understand.

too cringe man. too depressing how mid i am. too cringe man

talking with andrew today, bro im so mid. compared to that guy im pr mid. ah fk, lotta things to do bro. no more wasting time. ive wasted so much time.

man im so mid, im so over it man so over it. im complacent for no reason.

writing genuine thoughts for homie andrew:

basically i realized how compatiable we were only now i think. its like you only know you love her when you let her go type shit but basically now that we not chilling tgt i realized how fking compatiable we were. like simliar mindsets i feel. maybe because both TW? both like poor? idk ? but like def super open minded so it felt like it leaded to lotta intersesting conversations about everything

can def admire the growth mindset you had back then, cuz its something im tryna achieve rn. can def admire the way you are able to maintain connections, lotta things to learn from you which is one of the main reasons i wanna live w you.

basically for the argument of living alone vs living tgt, i think i would have more growth living tgt for sure but that may not necessarily be the same for you. i think if i lived alone i was envisioning a super quiet life. i would maybe be able to borrow the car over the summer so its like live alone, clock in clock out, go mma practice until like 8pm, go home, meal prep / cook, leetcode / do projects, sleep.

in that way its super quiet, super healthy (eat well, sleep well, just keep learning) but i dont think i would grow that much, sure a lot of learning is happenign but like no character growth.

whereas with you i see myself constantly workign hard / playing hard

• go stanford, meet ppl
• go parties, meet ppl
• go other intern events, meet ppl
• grind projects tgt
• grind leetcode tgt
• and just growing myself and most importantly my character and like who i am and the friends i have

overall every day w you i can imagine just doing somethingi genuinely believe in whether thats like after work im doing mma until im passed out exhausted or like after work im grinding leetcode then hitting up a party, meeting cool ppl then going home exhausted. i think i just wanna be exhausted LMAO, but genuinely just grinding and working super hard and playing super hard and ill be pr happy with that, and i think if thats our goal we can do it bro !

so like i think end of the day its a choice between peace vs growth, if i live alone theres peace, but if i live tgt with you its growth. and i was planning on heavily considering peace, but then you msg’ed and you were like “we gotta lock in” and then its liek hella inspirational to me cuz i was rdy to tap out, (not acutally but like try the super peaceful life and see how that goes) but then i see you are still going full gas and well fk. its like a wake up call i need to do that too .

you wrote cons section so ima write one too of any i can think of wrt. us living tgt:

• i think there have been moments we were certianly on edge against each other.
  • i think largely that was my fault and i was being toxic
    • but i believe ive changed / am tryna get better at that so if you can believe that then i think we will be ok
    • and we are both tryna be open minded as hell so i think it shuold be alr!
• i think we can acutally echo chamber
  • which can be a good and bad thing, like we have the potential to echo chamber each other is good and bad ways.
• i think its importnat to maintain autonomy,
  • i think if we do stay together with the same goals we have a tendency to want to do the same shit always, which is fine but i do have to maintain autonomy i think

pr effective day today, felt like i did enough and then i stayed up till 5, reading manga. lowk so troll. i coulda studied like for like 4-5 extra hours. i think its a representation of a hard cap i have on the amt of work i have to do. either that or i feel too free…

its a problem.

writign othis on the day after. need to htink of genuine ways to balance life ebtter sot hat i dont end up sitting in bed roting before i m sleeping staring at my phone. that has to happen less.

writing a bit in the morning, tired as hell but hopefully i can still make today work.

tired is not viable, never gonna do this agian, getting good sleep from now on - waking up early as well. ah fk .

today was so miserable.

only 8pm rn tho maybe still recoverable.

gotta relight the passion, heart is in the work type shit!

10 pm 2 hrs passed not much progress

writing a bit in the morning, tired as hell but hopefully i can still make today work.

tired is not viable, never gonna do this agian, getting good sleep from now on - waking up early as well. ah fk .

today was so miserable.

only 8pm rn tho maybe still recoverable.

gotta relight the passion, heart is in the work type shit!

10 pm 2 hrs passed not much progress

writing a bit in the morning, tired as hell but hopefully i can still make today work.

tired is not viable, never gonna do this agian, getting good sleep from now on - waking up early as well. ah fk .

today was so miserable.

only 8pm rn tho maybe still recoverable.

gotta relight the passion, heart is in the work type shit!

10 pm 2 hrs passed not much progress

writing a bit in the morning, tired as hell but hopefully i can still make today work.

tired is not viable, never gonna do this agian, getting good sleep from now on - waking up early as well. ah fk .

today was so miserable.

only 8pm rn tho maybe still recoverable.

gotta relight the passion, heart is in the work type shit!

10 pm 2 hrs passed not much progress

writing a bit in the morning, hoping for a good grind day…

i just realized something i think i wanted to note down tho. i think i have a strong desire to try out the different varieties of america’s fast foods. not like its a criteria for being american, just somethign i think i didnt have the chance to try as a kid. no money no food no agency. so its somethign that i think ive wanted for a while.

maybe when i go vanlifeing across the US, ill hit all the fastfoods and try them at least once. i think taco bell was quite yummy i wanna try them more ! kinda expensive tho !

pr out of it for the whole day, wasnt able to get much rly rly productive work done, felt like i coulda got what i did yst done in like half a day instead of the entire day…

gotta quickly write down thoughts after today.

important notes:

• say do ratio
• hard work gives unproportional amounts of hard work
• explore to see what i like doing …

  • do what i believe in .

  • get hands on and get them dirty.

      	**this :**
    

    • dont be scared, dont be lazy

tired as hell in the morning, barely able to get anything out of classes in the morning.

highly inefficient, dont wanna stay up that late anymore at all.

i want to start waking up at 7 am each day if possible, we shall see if that works out

goofy ass story wrt. to groceries today, gained a lot from it i think.

writing from oct 25: rly bad day, slept late and didnt adhere to my principles, it was a bit warm in my room making ithard to slepe. i just didnt sleep. ah fk its so bad. i need to wake up early and go to sleep exhausted. i imagine if i kept studying i would have got in like 3 hrs of good studying before passing out.

• made the start to 10/25

slow start to the day . wonder how i can optimize that to be faster?

had good talk with friends, both here and from at home.

tired as hell today, gonna hit the gym later and fix my sleep schedule fs

legit beast moded today, today was pr good, did decent decent effort on 6 hrs of sleep, eyes hurt rly bad rn …

still tired as hell, finishing writing this up at 11 pm, still need to explore today and i have to write up 251 closing today out with:

• explore
  • do this by staring at deep learning book for 15 min.
  • my eyes hurt like hell anyways so its a good break.
• writing up 251 written notes
  • maybe…
• laundry unfolding briefly?
• brush teeth
• sleep

back at school, doing normal school days. feels familiar …

super tiring, need to eat better, sleep better

had rly good talk with andrew…

last day of break ! lock in grind time !

good day today. did my exploring by riding my bike. not sure if i can muster it within me to read the DL book but i will try to do so later tn.

talked a lot with anthony, ate out today! today was super good, super fun ! wrote exploration on webpage, it takes the place of this journal entry as i feel its pr important

panicking hard, keeping the grind up !

did some work in the nigth till 2 and then slept to wake up and work again

unpacked winter clothes till 3, plannign to sleep till 11, woke up at 12…

did vv little work yst. wish there was less of the list from yesterday but there was so much i just copy and pasted the same doc and moved on.

im gonna fking clear this list today tho .

thats a promise dawg.

if i need to stay up and not sleep. if thats what it takes then i dont sleep. alr way behind track on my timeline.

maybe got the site up ? not sure will know after this update!

woke up pr late today, was pr slow to get to work. still typing this out mid-day but hopefully i can get to work later

also starting to use this as a a todo list at least for the break so it doesnt clutter my other to do list

worked on website for maybe 1 hr ish

today good overall, pr tired, minimal time waste i feel. finished resume.

overall feeling pr good about everything. i wanna meet more ppl tho, will try to finesse it tmrw!

finally doing a journal on time, today was good insanely tiring but i managed to stay all day on campus. maybe i was so tired bcz i didnt have dinner until much later.

hit the gym and had a big din din. need to pick up groceries and do laundry but planning for that to be done over the weekend.

also worked on my resume a little bit today, feels good. im liking how its turning out. tmrw it should be sufficiently done.

gonna be able to sleep for nine hours tonight which im very excited about tmrw will be super hard as well with many consecutive classes, so gotta make sure i have enough sleep

today just felt hard cuz i had to stay on campus from 9 to 8 essentially. almost a 9 to 9 …

just like work fr !

decent day today, met with a lot of friends, attended a reci that wasnt being held but otherwise was pretty smooth . i i also tried to reheat some food and idk if it worked but like i dont think so … all g tho .

did work on the 281 codign assignment a little bit. things are gonna get really hard really quickyl i imagine. might be worth reviewing integration tools, might be worth reviewing clive book.

again need to work on the sleep stuff, might want to set bedtime to 10 pm so i can actually wake up at normal times. will try to eat at 8 and then look to do some cooldown, as well a journal tmrw.

note that these prev school days were incredibly light.

will hit the gym again tmrw

late journal entry coming in, sitting in ai gen ed ethics class rn

this day felt pr good. did all my work, there wasnt that much work to be done on the first day, but i finished all of it so it felt pr good.

the sole and only problem was how late i slept and how negatively that can affect the next day. gonna start gymming grind to try and mitigate that remaining awakeness as much as possible. will probably need to cook soon as well. will also need to think about not napping too much even when exhausted. also looking to wake up wayy earlier at like 7, so i can take care for breakfast, or just get to campus earlier.

also looking for meal blocks. if theres anyone reading this believing in feeding the hungry, reach out to me !

fixed up website stuff a little i hope ? will send out a push in a moment. slow morning today. maybe will head into campus later.

also looking into streamlining journal entries.

have a lot on my todo list i want to take a look at. last day before classes.

met with friends today, all seems well. im looking forward to this year tbh, its gonna be really fun.

small entry before sleeping, if i can do that everyday will prolly be good for my mental.

spent my last day with parents, time to adult it up myself ykwim

cooked a little with father today, lotta food in the fridge, hopefully i got the skills to pay the bills and keep myself fed. did hella dishes today. felt like i was overall pr productive.

good stuff i feel .

looked over classes stuff a little, looks to be pr scary and pr exciting at the same time.

gotta lock in . i wanna be out more too tbh, meet more ppl.

got to meet the homie chloe today, that was pr fun!

note journal entries, with the day before, may have gotten mixed up. This means that I’m not how these are technically ordered, but all happened within the summer.

i think im getting into good schedule. not sure tho. i think the tech is to cool down with skincare -> couple chess games -> journal -> reading -> sleep thats a lotta cooldown tho. had hella trouble sleeping yesterday so i wanna get more tired these days so it comes easier. but i imagine if i do more physical shit and get exhausted the cooldown routine is gonna get cooked. we’ll see how long i can manage it.

realized above all else i need bike so i can get to exploring even when others are working !

had a chance to do the cooldown routine today. overall good day tho nothing much happened

got to thinking about what i believe. i think as long as I remain convinced and no one can convince me otherwise, ill have good ideology. and as long as my ideologies remain true when compared against each and every other ideology, ill have reached transcendence or sm like that.

did some more research for AI within autism and that got me pretty excited about the potential.

gonna keep on thinking and play some more chess games to cool down. maybe do a leetcode. before i sleep. hit the wordle and connections for today. gonna go bike tomorrow and weigh my options on which gym i end up choosing.

been a couple of days since the last journal entry.

ive been experimenting with schedules and i think i will try to maintain energy levels a bit better so that im not instantly exhausted the moment i come home. - so i can journal more

very good day, finally reaching what i might call happiness - really happy to find that there might still be hope for me to like at least be happy in corporate, thats good to think about! like i still have smth and i still have options to explore. might be pr satisfied doing this for a couple of years, will have a lot of time to grind evertyhign else

had a really great deep talk with the rooomie today about time vs energy management and also how to think about conversations and just being natural and shit. it was really good!

first deep talk with the roomie and im glad its happening so early

talked about how if we viewed the day with like two lenses where one was

1. did some work in the morning but it was pr minimal, wasn’t able to get much work done later tonight
   1. = depressed
2. did some work in the morning but it was pr minimal, my energy was drained asf, hung out with friends later and was able to recharge all my energy was it was overall very good!
   1. =happy + good day

and so i realized just how inherently immature my get shit done mindset was in terms of sabotaging my own happiness AND my own productivity.

holy shit i had to read so many self help books to get that…

also thought about how im free from my fear of spending money. its the kind of generational trauma i definitely inherited which i was scared to fking death of getting but i kind of had no choice of getting it, from seeing how my parents grew up and the principles that they instilled in me.

like for example ill be unhappy not eating something nice, but ill be even more unhappy spending money to eat something nice, and thus ill stop myself from recieving ANYTHIGN nice for the sake of “saving” money. i was really scared of getting this one cuz i saw how toxic it was from seeing my parents and how they are also struggling with this, but i def also got it from how i act now.

kind of shit and resutling in my overall unhappiness

i realize now that i have so much self sabotaging like ways of making sure im unhappy, i think part of this is because i inherently believe that being happy is to be selfish ykwim like if you have enough time to be happy go be useful and do some good in the world…

but like i need to inherently understand that as im happy i can be able to do so much more and so much more good with the additional energy that I have…

so much ive learned from self help books!

also milen texted me today with made me really happy!

overall a lot of happiness!! beginning of school year type levels of happiness !!

-shit is easy and no stress so far… i wonder how things will progress as we move along…

overall rn things are pr great tho!

beginning of the summer journal the site is back up took a second to figure out why my url was down

planning to introspect a lot more thru the journal thruout the summer hoping to get a journal entry in at least 5 times out of the 7 days of the week, might not post all of them.

fixed a bit of the website up today will try to get local host to work on laptop as well

will meet with manager tmrw

had a rly intersting talk with father last night idk i dont think i can approve the way he lives !

i deserve only what i work for

need to journal tonight - lots of thoughts going thru my head. ive been blurry hazy and just plain burnt out for the past little bit. all for things i realize are prolly inconsequential. grinding classes away, the wicker of my soul burning ever lower and lower weaker and weaker for what

a fkign grade ??

what is wrong with me bro … i need to lock in focus on the things that matter to me. need more time to hang out with friends. need to allocate more me time. as much as i want to believe im a machine im not bro.

finally soted out my inner thoughts and now im more convinced that im actually a good person. it seems this is somethign quite important to me acutatlly now tha ti think about it. it was disturbing me how much i was scared i might actually not be a good person.

i realized its just a matter of context. how much ppl know about me dictates how they wanna judge me. and well thats chill too makes sense honestly. its on me how much i share anyways right so rly its like .. on me.

yeah whatever

finally clear head these days. time to lock in especially hard. think ill try tmrw and see my mental state after!

better day today, things look like they’;re on the up and up. i ahve two late assignments so i gotta lock in and do them tmrw. tmrw is a full lock in day. today was better tmrw has to be even even better

things are managing, stuff is getting done.

looks like i will survive after all LMFAO !

i think i can last until 28, i think i can make it !

rly rly tough day today

these days come .

i was wondering today if i break down too easy. if its somethign that i do too much. why im so emotional at the end of the day and other ppl can tank this shit. and deal with it like nothing evenhappened.

idk bro .

maybe it comes from the way i was raised. and when you deal with that much bs then you sorta jsut take the L on that day. cry your heart out . and then move on the next day.

liek surely im this way because ive been trained up to be this way right. and if ive been trained up to this point then it has to work for somethign right. so it has to be right tech ? surely .

nah i wonder why this happens . ive gotten bitch bitched like 3 times here alr. idk if thats a low number or a high numebr but i feel liek thats kidna frequent.

maybe its that i cant brush it off like how i see others do. so i have to take the L and cry to like try and allieviate the difference bteween us. liek maybe if i dont break down ill just get cooked omega. liek i just have a debuff idk .

its tough tho. i needed to start this lab earlier. i already knew i cant code well. if i knew that i shoulda started earlier to at least lvel the playign field . this is just me takign the L for my sins. its okay i learned my lesson.

also think i may be burning out but i cant tell yet

we’ll see how things progress.

not sure why i dont have a journal entry for yesterday, guess i was too busy. This entire week back from the break ive been pretty locked in. tryna burn myself as far as i can go. see how brightly i can shine type shit. idk. today has been the same

i worked pretty ok-ish hard throughout the day. woke up 20 min late but thats ok. still working on it. tried my best thru lab and thru the rest of the day. felt like i was completing most of the shit off my checklist. still have all of malloc to go through but its alright ill jsut do my best tomorrow - all of tomorrow i think i will spend on malloc . we’ll see how burnt out i get !

i got a little mad at samee and milen today which i regret. its def mb cuz theyve been thru a lot of shit today and i shouldnt be getting mad just cuz … welp its whatever. its def a little bit all of our fault but i feel bad so ill apologize tmrw!!

i was feeling down tn cuz i think the grind was getting to me a little bit. jsut the whole day and still the stress of more to do. but near the end of today i was talkign to anthony for a rly good bit so it was quite mentally relieving!! that was a definite up of the day !

also i got my contract today finally which im quite excited for. we’ll see exaclty how much money ill have to pay in tax tmrw morning!

ok, off till the next one (which could be tmrw or the week after LMFAO)

worked on 151 all day, got a good amount of work in and got a lot of intuitions so thats good. talked with nav for a bit. i think i need to min max it for a bit more. burn myself out to my very core, survive until malloc lab is done.

last day of break, did some good-ish work on CPS, but honestly not completely fulfilled, thats ok tho gonna lock in tmrw and finish the majority of it, or at least get enough insights into finishing everything

pretty much just worked the whole day. had fun hangout with friends near the end of the day but ig it just feels still unfulfilling when we afk and do nothing. might be a toxic trait i have that i want every moment to be 100 but thats never going to be possible.

all g

finally the break is over, i cant wait to finally feel the fear of god himself looming over me, his watchful eye keeping me on track as i finally get all the shit i need done done. itll be good to finally feel the pressure again

i realized i just cant work during the break, and i feel that because of that i dislike myself slightly more. yeah i just hate who i am during the break. ig its just cuz i cant get anything done, cuz i cant lock in, not even for like lack of effort but i just dont feel the fear so like i cant actually get it done. idk

gonna start journalling more frequently cuz things are picking up - better document these days to make sure i feel like im moving forward, or at least figure out if im not.

updated journal entries rl quick, updated NOW page as well, updated timeline as well into the website, realized my dumbass has no shot at making a CV I’ve legit got no experience wtf am I thinking man

ate, got food with dan and tiffany again, skipped the workout cuz im a busy piece of shit, stared at housing for a good 2 hrs and got hella panicked

tried to get the monitor producing sound and legit prolly wasted a good hour or two. wtf. why am i doing dumbass sidequests.

planning on cleaning the keyboard, doing laundry, and also studying CPS tonight, also making late night snack

agenda :

complete lock in day today, finished cachelab finally, meant to read teh writeup for malloc and read some 15150, but didnt have a chance to. fell the fk asleep before i actually could. had a really wholesome conversation w Dan and Tiffany about their relationsships which was good. college rly does sm to ppl to make ppl fall in love which is def a good thing. also talked with the ppl on our floor for a bit which was great as well!

remaining agenda from previous days:

• cachelab lecture review
• work on the website
  • CV
  • Timeline tab

figured out more housing shit today, ordered grip trainers, did transcript shit for scholarship, grinded league of legends, finally hit plat so i can stop playing that shitty game, ggs done with league for a bit now

actually been tired as fk all day today its rly strange. I think i will fall asleep instantly which has been rare on days I dont work out. supposed to lock in today but didnt.

its okay tho, tmrw i lock in completely. itll be alright. have to go to OH tmrw as well.

remaining agenda from yesterday:

• transcript request
• cachelab lecture review
• work on the website
  • CV
  • Timeline tab

did some research last night into LLM’s, might not be possible to implement what I’m thinking of within these seven days while needing to do everything else… we’ll see what happpens…

break need to dos: 150?, 241 study, 213 grind, grind plat, rest well, LLM tech?

kinda cooked yesterday, completely locked in and debugged the shit out of csim.c !! finished midterm as well prolly got an 85ish or 90 which is not the worst as well. overall very good dance. plus i learned a fun tiktok dance!! overall very good start to the break. lets hope it remains as smooth sailling !

as for today ---

woke up on the dot, did laundry, organized a lil, hit the gym - great chest day, went grocery shopping, got milk, ate food, played a game of league, hit gold 3,

cut my nails, shave, folded laundry,

todays remaining agenda: read the cachelab lecture, want to work on website a bit more -cv, timeline,

• need to request transcript as well for amzn

break need to dos: 150?, 241 study, 213 grind, LLM / tokenization tech, grind plat, rest well

doomed. didnt even get distracted that much and still pr slow. yikes. it ok tho lock in tmrw !

vv weird day as well, took a nap for 1hr 30 but i did three reps for 30 min so im sure the sleep quality was not even that good. did laundry and washed blankies so thats good, did a little work on 213 lab, realized i have no time, came to some good realizations today. gonna get 9 hrs of sleep everyday. I have enough time to afford it so i should rly be doing it. like wtf am i doing not getting sleep am i fking braindead ?? it ok tho, time to focus up. i have bigger plans than to waste time freshman year fr fr

slept for an hour 30, didnt feel like i wasted too much time today, still felt pr slow regardless tho. its okay tmrw will be better ! didnt gym today, today was rest day, tmrw will be push day 2. made breakfast ! it was pretty great!

mid day overall, pr much just finished CGA, went to the gym at least so theres mental copium there. prolly wasted 4-5 hrs today theres a lot to be done in terms of efficiency

woke up late, did nothing till like 6 ish which felt rly awful. I really need to get good sleep to operate like a real human being. took a nap, felt like a real human being after that, finished 150, went to the gym, started CGA and will prolly try to finish tonight, had really fulfilling hangout with friends so that was good!

gonna go to sleep and lock in tmrw !

i feel like im taking my weekends way less srsly than I am last sem and that feels kinda off. idk why that is or if its actually true!

got 6 hrs of sleep, went to gym, capg, protein, worked on website, finished it for the most part, just need to finish CV + timeline, finished attacklab, dropped matrices hmwrk

mid day today, good deep talk sesh with friends. Took a while working on attack lab. That lab is so unfun. Otherwise overall mid.

ah weird ass day fr fr

yk that feeling of like locking the fk in for a test, and grinding your ass off? yeah thats what i did for this 150 midterm. prolly like 10 hrs of straight locked in grind. like pure panic study type beat.

and then what . i pull up and the test is that fking easy ? its like sm just spat in my mouth . disgusting feeling bro. I worked my whole life for a fight and the opponent just chooses to get knocked out first round.

welp at least it was easy tho !

last two entries didnt go in, too busy grinding. its ok tho.

this weekend i have so much shit to do. its ok tho! no biggie. I’ve put in work before.

if i have a chance ill prolly try to get the website nice and fresh i think.

slow day today. was planning on gettting a lot more of attack lab done today but thats ok. think ill spend all day tmrw on 150. took a 3 hr long ish nap today accidentally and i need to stop doing that if i wanna focus up. gotta lock in for this next week.

think im gonna need to take a late day for attack lab, gonna need to use a hmwrk drop for this weeks 241 but thats ok.

gotta lock in.

day2

1st journal post!! kinda exciting no cap! today was pretty mid. tough gym sesh, felt like the weights weren’t moving but that’s ok. happens. spent the rest of the day figuring out how to clone and host a website. took 5 hrs ish. coulda been done faster but thats ok. it was pretty fufilling so thats good.

Need to get some actual work done tmrw.

hopefully it’ll be written in this journal that its gotten done. ig this is just something that can keep me on track!

Gonna be writing these journal entries daily so i can look back on what ive done and feel the progress more concretely. Also for mental copium so I don’t actually lose it.

day 1, freshman, second semester, in midterm week