now

quarter-to-quarter

Last updated: November 14, 2024

The last time I updated this section was September 12. Since then, I:

  • started classes (again) at UC Berkeley (for the first time)! I’m studying undergraduate philosophy, and getting used to “assignments” and “participation points” after taking a year off of college.

  • did some random travelling: NYC for a friend’s wedding, LA to visit a high school friend, Chicago to visit that same friend and another one, Boston to visit two more friends while I…

  • worked at EAG Boston, which was quite fun :)

  • published a post giving some generic advice caveats and another one explaining that active recall and spaced repetition are different things

  • more personal stuff:

    • planned & ran a hallowarming party (a cross between a halloween party and a housewarming party)

    • moved out of The Lodge, a rationalist/EA group house in Berkeley. It was a lovely place, but the vibes & physical space weren’t quite aligned. I’m living with my parents for the remainder of the semester, and currently figuring out my living situation for next semester.

    • fasted on Yom Kippur

    • went to the gym more consistently than I ever have in my life. I also learned enough about nutrition to make my gains not go to waste.

    • spent a lot of time with Anki — making cards, deleting cards, editing cards, studying cards, and thinking about structures of knowledge. It seems like Anki is a tool that requires a lot of finesse/skill for it to be effective — but the fact that so much skill is required isn’t obvious when you start out. I now feel like I know what wizard-level Anki skills look like, and what they can do. I don’t have them (yet), but I’m getting closer. A lot closer.

    • hosted a few Taco Tuesdays at 1907 while Austin and Rachel were away

Not too much, compared to my usual retinue.

In the next few months, I’ll have finished the first semester at Berkeley, possibly travelled a bit over winter break (Japan? Boston? Airbnb in the middle of nowhere? idk), and decided whether I want to continue school next semester (gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i hate this decision).

If I do continue school, I’ll have class from Tuesday-Thursday, so I’ll have 4-day weekends every weekend. That likely means a lot of travelling and/or working, which I’m looking forward to. The classes I’m currently signed up for are: Philosophical Methods (required for philosophy majors, just a ton of writing); Philosophy of Science (prof looks cool!); and, Later Wittgenstein (language games galore). Probably also a decal or something.

If I don’t continue school… I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do. There are a few interesting jobs that I might want to do, a few interesting projects I might want to work on, a few interesting fields I might want to learn, or I might just take a few months to do absolutely nothing. Who knows!

year-to-year

Last updated: Q3 2024

I’m an undergrad now, studying philosophy at UC Berkeley.

I started at Brandeis University for a year, then took a year off to organize Manifest, OPTIC, and more — you can read more about my work here. They were really cool projects, and I worked harder on them than anything else in my life. Consequently, I’m incredibly proud of them, more than anything else in my life. I also applied to transfer to a few universities; I was accepted to UC Berkeley, and started classes in August 2024.

During that year off, though, I was travelling at breakneck speeds — spending an average of about a week at any one place before moving on. I spent some time in Europe and the UK, and the rest was mostly split between Boston, the SF Bay Area, and Los Angeles, as well as a few short stints New York City, New Hampshire, Miami, and drives up and down the coast of California.

I started a blog, on which I write about the brass tacks: things you’re allowed to do in university, impact markets, and quotes I’ve collected, among other sundry things.