The Pink Peach Tree, Vincent van Gogh, 1888

the goal of coming was to heal and "fix" myself

9 doctors

38 visits

5 hospitals

5 clinics

for teeth, gastro, chiro, and skin

-> RM 40.1k

I'm pretty sure I beat some record for the most doctors visited within 6 months for someone that's only 22.

I was going to write a longer post about what I learned the past 6 months, but I'm a major procrastinator and have not finished packing and I have to get up early tomorrow.

my anxiety was growing as this day inched closer and closer. I was rushing to leave the first few months I was back, and now I don't feel like leaving anymore. Maybe it's the fear of the unknown, or the guilt from the insane cost for my studies, or the expectations and goals I have set for myself that I'm afraid I can't meet, or the fact that I won't be around my family and friends anymore, or all of the above.

I wanted to achieve so much coming back, but I'm leaving with unmet goals and unfinished projects that make me feel like a failure.

But what I regret more is not spending quality time with my family, meeting up with more friends, and enjoying my time, doing what I love and resting well.

Now, I can only remember the love of my family and friends, and how blessed I am, even with all the inconvenience and medical issues and pain, I have a good life.

And it's about to be better. The most important things are to take care of my health and well-being, but still put in the work and do my best. And to have faith in myself and in God, and the rest will follow.

• why is my bed so comfortable?
• why are all my dreams so distressing and anxious?
• why do I have to leave Malaysia? why can't I be happy and content here? What is in the US that cannot exist here? Can it ever exist here?
• how much of the movie was green screen vs real-life? how much will AI make filming in real life an aesthetic than a necessity?
• how did john krasinski learn to direct a film?
• would i have the strength to fight cancer? will I just be depressed and terrified the entire time?
• when can I visit New York again?
• if an apocalypse happens when I'm in SF, what will I do? can I even survive?
• is it possible for a cat to be that quiet?
• what is the loudest I can scream?
• should I get an ipod nano?
• why is it that I wish I had curly hair whenever I see a guy with curly hair?
• can every cancer patient have someone like Eric in their final moments? business idea?
• what will be the equivalent of "pizza after piano jazz shows" for my parents?
• why does taking one wrong turn in KL add 30 minutes? why are the roads so badly designed?
• would I have the courage to pursue my dreams? to not have a plan for my life? a career?
• would I ever write a song one day?
• why is it so hard to sketch people? what technique am I lacking? is it possible to learn technique from self-practice? or do I need to be taught?
• how to sketch without fear of making mistakes? how to have full confidence in every stroke? is it just a mindset?
• how does one create their own style and not go for the details every time?
• why is sitting alone in a crowded and open restaurant so distressing?
• why is it so hard for me to let loose and just have fun in conversations? why must it be deep or practical?
• how to becoming more responsive and lively? is this a skill I can nurture or just a mindset?
• how to come up with funny responses to jokes? is it a "the more conversations you have, the better you get" kind of thing? or is it learned from media?
• why am I so awkward? how do I be less awkward in a way that's not sacrificing my authentic self?
• why am I so intimidated by certain people? is that a sign of something? how do I conquer it?
• what determines a healthy family? from the parents? can the children change the parents? can generational trauma be cured?
• how can a family develop better communication styles? is it a point of no return?
• when's the next time I will be back in malaysia?
• what will I be like when I'm 30? where will I be?
• how do I blog without staying up? will I have the time to do this once I start school in SF?

The Hunters in the Snow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

in 29 Thoughts for 29 Years, Tom White grapples with the big questions, contemplating his life and his values, his telos.

asking the questions:

• Who am I?
• Why am I?
• What are my guiding principles?
• What are the guiding principles of the people with whom I interact on a regular basis?
• What would I sacrifice my life for?
• What would the people I am closest with sacrifice their life for?
• What is the most important thing for them?
• How about for me?
• Are my answers to the above questions honest or mere bullshit—dishonest balm to sooth my soul?

According to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s, maturity is the ability to pin down and articulate your values.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most.

It is extraordinary to discover that comparatively few people reach this level of maturity. They seem never to have paused to consider what has value for them. They spend great effort and sometimes make great sacrifices for values that, fundamentally, meet no real needs of their own. Perhaps they have imbibed the values of their particular profession or job, of their community or their neighbors, of their parents or family.

Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

We are only faintly aware of the habits of thoughts and behaviours that shape the course of our lives.

We don't live life, we sleepwalk through it.

To live more deliberately, he compiled 29 quotes, each striking a psychological chord, imbuing a philosophical truth, and sating an existential urge.

The highlighted ones are my favorites.

• Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is. — Saul Bellow
• Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ―Rainer Maria Rilke
• If you aren't going all the way, why go at all? — Joe Namath
• Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top; it is the willpower that is most important. — Junko Tabei
• The things that we love tell us what we are. — Thomas Aquinas
• You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding. — Cheryl Strayed
• When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• You never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from. — Cormac McCarthy
• All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. — Samuel Butler
• My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. — Michel de Montaigne
• What punishments of God are not gifts? — J.R.R. Tolkien
• Education is the lightest burden that you will ever carry. — My grandfather, John T. Landers
• Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity. — C. S. Lewis
• Growth and comfort do not coexist. — Ginni Rometty
• How we spend our time is how we spend our days. How we spend our days is how our life goes. How our life goes determines whether we thought it was worth living. — Keith Yamashita
• You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. — Rabbi Tarfon
• What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened. — Vivian Gornick
• A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. — Rainer Maria Rilke
• If life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question. — Stephen King
• God does not require that we be successful, only that we be faithful. — St. Teresa of Calcutta
• There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. — Albert Einstein
• It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. — Albus Dumbledore by way of J.K. Rowling
• A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man. — Mario Puzo
• If you want new ideas, read old books. — Ivan Pavlov
• Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. — E.L. Doctorow
• The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. — Steven Pressfield
• What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do, or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better. — Doris Lessing
• Many of us wrongly jump to the conclusion that our purpose can be measured by our productivity, even though in our own lives many of our most wonderful moments do not seem to “produce” anything but love, awe, or enlightenment. — Ellen Wilson Fielding

I had a chat with a staff DS at Meta in the Gen AI product and growth team.

It inspired me to pursue product DS, because I believe it's a good skill set to have if I'm building a startup, having product sense is useful.

DS at Meta

• Mission: driving impact through data-informed decision making.
• Misconception: It's not just about using fancy machine learning techniques, but about leveraging data to improve products and user experiences.
• Specialization vs. Full-Stack: While smaller companies might require full-stack data scientists, Meta's scale allows for more specialized roles. This enables deeper expertise in specific areas of data science.

key areas of focus

1. product
   • Use both descriptive and predictive analytics to uncover insights
   • Examples:
     • Analyzing user engagement with Meta AI
     • Determining which countries or languages to prioritize for expansion
     • Deciding on UI elements like whether to show a search bar in WhatsApp
2. ai eval
   • Goal: Create the best AI assistant possible
   • Key metrics: User acquisition, engagement (daily/monthly active users), retention
   • Evaluation methods:
     • Instruction following accuracy
     • Academic benchmarks (continuously evolving)
     • Custom evaluation metrics tailored to Meta's specific needs
3. product-market fit analysis
   • View product adoption as a funnel
   • Key metrics:
     • Adoption rate (e.g., percentage of WhatsApp users using Meta AI)
     • Retention (monthly return rate)
   • Use techniques like A/B testing and holdout tests to measure impact
4. gen ai advancements
   • Develop retrieval mechanisms for real-time knowledge supplementation

essential skills

1. hard skills
   • Strong foundation in statistics and probability
   • Engineering mindset for building and implementing solutions
2. soft skills
   • Effective communication to convey insights and build trust
   • Product sense (especially for product scientists)
   • Analytical thinking and attention to detail
3. passion
   • Think deeply about products and user experiences, obsess over the details
   • Question design decisions and try to reverse-engineer product changes

some resources for Meta DS interviews

• Meta Product Data Scientist
• Meta Data Science Interview Guide [30 LEAKED Questions from 2024]
• Meta Data Science, Analytics Screening: Interview Cheat Sheet | by Priscilla Mannuel
• The Product Data Science Interview Guide

got distracted by a few sketching videos on youtube today when I should be packing and doing other work

first one was How To Draw Like The Masters - John Singer Sargent's Simple Style

Next time I see his sketches I'll to notice how brave and simple they are. It's not the most technical or detailed, but it captures so much with so little.

an artist's style is so unique to their personality and influenced by their personal experiences and teachings.

then it was a video about Zac Crawford, an NYC artist who sketches people at Washington Square park. He draws people every single day, and has sketched up to 100,000 people so far. he developed his fast drawing skills and unique style by drawing people on the subway.

then a video about the importance of sketchbooks

"The worst sketchbook is an unused one", treat sketchbooks as a journal, the goal is not to fill them but to use them.

i got inspired to start sketching with ink pens and found this video: Improve your INK PEN SKETCHING with this easy tip

Pens I'm currently looking into:

• Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen India Ink Pens
• Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen Superfine Fineliner - Indranthene Blue (247) 1.5mm
• SAKURA Pigma Micron Fineliner Pens - Archival Black Ink Pens

one day, I'll pick up one of these pens and a moleskin sketchbook, and sketch people in the park, cafe shops, and on the train.

read this article by elicit on how they're implementing SOTA semantic search specifically for research papers, bringing us on a journey from string matching and full-text search, to semantic search and agent-based search.

the problem of search exists in almost all applications.

before modern vector search, we did traditional bag of words – take a set of documents to be retrieved (i.e. web pages on Google) and then transform each doc into a set (bag) of words and use this to populate a spare "frequency vector". popular algorithms are TF-IDF and BM25

these sparse vectors were popular in information retrieval because of efficiency, interpretability, and exact term matching

however, there are cases when we search for information, we rarely know the exact terms, we have the idea, not the words.

with dense embedding models, we can search based on "semantic meaning" rather than term matching.

the issue is you need vast amounts of data to fine-tune dense embedding models, without that, you lack the performance of sparse methods. and data is hard to find for niche domains with domain-specific terminology.

another issue is embedding models are non-deterministic, so the same query could produce different results.

these models are also black boxes, end users don't know how the results are ranked. even researchers can't give a great description as to how or why.

ex1: academics using search as part of systematic review or meta-analysis has to explain how they got the papers they included. they need to know that the results are comprehensive and they haven't missed any important papers.

ex2: web-style semantic search for a law use case, where judges search for a relevant case law. if the search leaves out important precedent, it could be disastrous.

one solution that makes the most of both world's is a merging of sparse and dense retrieval – using hybrid search and learnable sparse embeddings.

that technique is called SPLADE — the Sparse Lexical and Expansion model.

how it works: given a user query, it enriches it with synonymous or related terms, and instead of it being a manual process, use LLMs to suggest additional search terms.

they also included another technique: automated comprehensive search, where you use semantic search to sort papers by relevancy, and have LLMs read them in that order. as it does this, each paper becomes less and less relevant. model this curve and you can probabilistically guarantee you've found everything relevant.

more on search and evals

• Evaluating Search: Measure It
• Evaluating Search: Measuring Searcher Behavior
• Evaluating Search: Using Human Judgments

Elicit seems like a cool place to work at.

they recently released a blog post about how to hire AI engineers

they have good thoughts about coding assistants in interviews

they ship a user-facing feature every week

they have a great ML reading list

• my last time playing at this church for a while and I'm late to practice
• found myself really tired to interact with people in the mornings, like "ugh i don't wanna talk to anyone let me just sit in this corner"
• said a lot of goodbyes and got a lot of kind farewells by uncles and aunties, asking when I'll be back, and me responding "not sure, going to find a job and stay there" ironically many of their kids are overseas so I'm wondering why they would ask that question
• just thinking about how the next time I'm back, the kids and uncle aunties will be older, maybe some won't be around anymore, and how there will be new faces too, and how I would be a different person at that point
• but I haven't even started the program yet so there's no point thinking about the future that much
• which makes me think, can you feel nostalgic towards the future?
• now only mentions of me will persist in the church, questions like "how's your son and daughter in the US?" to the parents
• feeling like I'm really low energy and dead at these meals with uncle aunties, and starting to notice that parents who are better at sharing stories, with emotion and vigor, that skill is passes down to their children, and I'm realizing my parents are low energy people, are there kids who develop this skill outside of their family? low energy parents but high energy kids?
• still thinking about last night and how I was unable to express myself and tell stories about the US, about why I liked it so much, which made me doubt my true feelings, maybe the US isn't the best choice after all, maybe I just can't let go, what do I truly want and seek?
• thinking about how my parents met these uncle aunties through church, and how they've lived in the same area for 30+ years, watching their kids grow up together, and how in the future I'll also decide on an area to settle down, and who are the people that I will be having meals with my potential children. church is such a connector. it is an effective social technology.
• auntie saying her mom always used to say "一转眼" and time flies, and she finally realizes what it meant when she's 68.
• first time going to an orchestra concert, soloist saxophone player is my sister's primary school friend
• the audio quality is so so good, I've only listened to music through airpods and speakers, live music is heavenly
• heard marimba playing in the first song, and that was the only time heard it for the whole show
• seeing a Cymbal player in an orchestra just makes me think of that kid whose cymbal broke halfway in a show, and he just stood there and saluted the whole way through.
• I respect a trianglist, first impression would be like "that's so easy to play" but I guess to perform it well also takes skill, and you shouldn't judge a book by its cover
• "a good show requires a good audience", the conductor critiqued our hand clapping lol
• most of the pieces just sound like ghibli music or james bond songs to me
• the only thing that comes to mind when I see a saxophone player is the song "Careless Whisper"
• jazz is so good, saxophone + piano + double bass is a killer combo
• i was evaluating and not appreciating yet again, my music background makes it hard to not evaluate
• thought about how the orchestra can go on without the conductor because musicians naturally memorize pieces and tempo, I noticed the musician don't actually look at the conductor while playing? but maybe the conductor makes changes last minute, since practice != performance, so real time changes are necessary?
• seat was too comfortable, room was chilly with AC, it was dark, the orchestra was soothing, I couldn't help but fall asleep halfway
• thought about how nice it is to be a part of an orchestra, or any group in general, feeling a sense of belonging is important for happiness and fulfillment
• only a few more "shopping for US sessions", walks with family, meals, car rides, waking up in an AC room
• recently feeling proud and grateful for a dad who was hard-working in providing for family and for my education, and for us to live comfortably, and how any success that I'm able to achieve in my lifetime is due to his contributions. I can't say I'm self-made.
• realizing I can never talk about anything deep with my dad, only my mom. there's always a barrier and it might always be there until I make an effort to change that
• i've been in this safe and comfortable environment for too long, i don't think i've been growing at all the past few months, it is time to leave
• been feeling pain again recently and it's concerning, i might be eating too much lately with all these meals with friends and family
• if i wasn't still having mild pain now, and feeling dizzy and nauseous and having pale lips (which a pharmacist says I might be 贫血), I'd be 100% ready and excited, but I can never be fully prepared, if I kept waiting until i was safe and healthy and ready, then I might never go at all. there's no right time I guess, it's all about taking a leap of faith, and trusting that things will go well, and even if it doesn't, I can still make it through because human beings are capable of adapting, having a growth mindset means suffering builds character and strength, and finding meaning in the pain, avoiding comfort, and also being grateful and thanking God at all times.

i'm flying off to SF with my friend in a week and our families had dinner together

his parents asked me why US, why not singapore or China, somewhere closer to home. Why go to the other side of the world?

I mentioned there's something unique about the US you don't get anywhere else but I found myself unable to articulate what exactly.

it's so much about my own idiosyncratic interests, fun experiences and warm memories, my personal values and beliefs, that I couldn't distill into words at that moment.

this happens a lot, and it frustrates me when I fail to explain myself, to bridge the gap of the differences between me and other people, so yet again, I'm writing down what I wish I could say at that moment.

I'm dumping my messy and chaotic thoughts in bullet points, cause I'm tired and I have to get up early tomorrow because I'm playing at church, one last time, but also to capture them and examine them, study their shapes and colors and size.

• the textbook answer that the ben from 2021 would give before going to the US is the bay area has all the largest tech companies and it's a place where they pay a disgusting amount of money for software and tech people. but it's more than that, because I actually experienced it, I spent
• two summers in california and i felt alive and excited, I met many people and travelled to many places with them, so these good memories live inside of me, it was the place I wanted to be, and it was hard to leave because
• it feels like i have unfinished business, I was always planning to stay there since the day I left Malaysia, but because health reasons I was forced to let go of that dream, and cali has been calling me back every since. and it was also the people, the friends
• I have now are mostly there, and I want to live near my friends, so SF is the place I have to be. it's also a place to make new friends, because everyone who ends up in SF are there intentionally and strategically, they're all similar yet different in many ways, they're a hodgepodge of
• high agency, cracked, creative, technical, dogged, and ambitious individuals, people who believe they can "fix the world's problem through sheer will", where work and life aren't two separate entities, but melded into one, because to them, meaningful work was crucial to a good life, they do what they love, and they love what they do, they're the ones who
• start companies with their friends, build things that other people can use, who believes they don't have to just live in the world they see, but they can embrace it, change it, improve it, and make a mark upon it, and being in SF, we surround ourselves with them, in hopes
• we can become more like them, and that increases our surface area of luck, to do great things too, because to be in this place means we get to dream, it's a place where
• you can experiment, california has a sense of openness and new possibility, a space to think about what want to achieve in your life, the authority and permission to dream, to ponder about the possibilities of creating something that you love, to solve big problems with amazing people that you won't get the chance to, anywhere else.
• i also think that since we're given the opportunity, because of my parent's hard work and capabilities, why not aim high and far, why settle for someplace close and safe. we're at an age where we should be taking risks, doing what's uncomfortable, and surround ourselves with the right people
• and who knows what will happen in a year? in 5? in 10? maybe we end up back in Malaysia, maybe we take what we learn in the US and help make Malaysia a better place. hopefully we do, it's a chance to pay it forward, but there's no need to think that far
• for now I have full conviction in SF, it's the best place to be and maybe once I experience it again, and I meet more people, my thoughts would be clearer, and I can evangelize my worldview, and explain myself the next time someone asks, why the US?

• hotel beds feel so nice and comfy that it's so hard to leave them
• reread a bunch of Ava posts from yesterday and took some notes on the car
• she's like a big sister that's imparting a ton of life advice and I feel lucky to have access to all these

on getting things done

• stick to a schedule. your schedule needs to be realistic, it's not what ideal you would do, but what you actually think you're be able to do
• touch everything once. run for 5 minutes. write one sentence. read one page. the most important thing is just touching it.
• resistance is the problem to getting most things done, not time. do every task as soon as you think of it. procrastination can ruin your life. spend less time thinking about doing things and more time doing them.
• have more constraints, it makes you value limited time more.
• slice tasks into chunks of time
• manage your stress. don't let it affect your sleep. work out. take walks. don't overthink about worst case unless there's something you can do about it.
• no notifications, they're poison for your mind
• take notes constantly: use iPhone notes to jot down whenever you remember something or have a good thought
• multitasking is okay sometimes. there's two modes everyone operates in: 1) total focus and 2) getting things done while also doing other things. you can do #2 on certain things to save time.

the right conversations

• in literature, there's an abyss between two people, how no matter how close you are to someone, they remain a wilderness to you
• "how well is it possible to understand someone else?"
• we all long for moments of pure recognition, the sense that someone else gets us
• we seek for commonality on an emotional and intellectual level, and it's hard to find someone that fills both gaps
• in a relationship that isn't working, it's like a boat dragging dead weight – you're the only one providing momentum and direction
• or they other way around – they're the one driving and you're just along for the ride, the other person's choices don't reflect your sensibilities
• a right conversation feels like you both are side by side, yelling back and forth about which direction to turn. a mix of intuition and negotiation. both sides has influence on each other
• there is no comfort greater than being on the same page, talking about the same things
• the combination of understanding and agreement is the rarest thing to find in a relationship
• too many differences will leave you going in circles, it'll wear you down
• disagreement between two people are inevitable, but how you navigate them marks the difference between a passage and impasse
• when you meet people who are different, in what they say and how they behave, don't give up. notice that difference and get better at sharing, try harder at explaining, evangelize for your view of the world, convert them into a believer

on making and keeping friends

• finding really good friends is more important than almost anything else you can be doing
• friendship takes a lot of work. you have to be ready for friction and willing to work to resolve it
• having good friends is enabled by a set of learnable skills – how to find people you like, how to put yourself out there, how to listen, how to make space, how to propose fun things to do
• most successful friendships stem from shared preoccupations (technology, hobbies) and shared context (core life experience like same university)
• good friends can see your potential before you can, nihilism results from a lack of people who really see you
• things that work for her
  • carve out time for friends, whether calls or in-person hangouts
  • live in the city where the largest number of your good friends are
  • find 3-5 people you can be close friends with for many years, and hang out with their friends, and try to align your life choices around them
  • go to a lot of things, parties, dinners. maximize serendipity
  • meet people through hobbies, get really into running or something
  • ride the coattails of your one really social friend
  • be friends with people you can genuinely praise to everyone, you should be super proud of your friendships
  • meet people through Twitter, tweet like your life depends on it and enjoy the returns
  • write in public to meet people who like how you think, think in public
  • develop an internal friend clock that tells you when to reach out to a friend "it's been 3 weeks since you saw X, you should text them"
  • proactively ask about your friends' lives. many people have trouble talking about stuff that's troubling them, it's on you to ask
  • be willing to take feedback, be willing to apologize
• you can't "win" an argument, you can only lose the relationship
• it's okay to let go of a friendship that isn't working anymore
• your mistakes can and will damage the relationship; you cannot start over, but your mistakes can also be forgiven

begins to regret it as I feel intensely carsick, shorter notes now

• closeness
  • how to quantify what makes it possible for you to feel close to someone?
  • closeness has a few elements: proximity, both physical and emotional, as well as mutual empathy, shared context and experience
  • Joan Didion never had a thought without saying it aloud to her husband is aspirational
  • a desire to share consciousness
  • the appeal of extreme closeness: "I find it both thrilling and exhausting to be in my own mind and sometimes I want to share the burden of it. I want you to know everything, to share the inexhaustible accumulation of experience with me"
  • the ability to really understand someone is often the product of innate compatibility and similarity
• knowing what i like
  • many people think they know what they want, but they're pursuing the wrong things.
  • when you get something that you've desired for a long time and it feels hollow, it means you've been chasing the wrong thing.
  • there are things in life that feel good to get
  • when what you get is what you want, it means you have taste, and it takes a lot of work to get there
• loving imperfection
  • if someone is externally perfect, they usually have all sorts of terrible wounds.
  • if you love someone you are happy to pay the price, people assume love is about celebrating someone's amazing qualities, but true love is about accepting someone's flaws
  • everyone is imperfect, and we just have to choose the imperfections we can love
  • the goal is to find a tradeoff you more than tolerate – someone who makes you think, "you're so imperfect, and I'm so lucky, I can't believe I get to spend my life with you"
  • we have to look for the trauma that slots into our trauma, the imperfection that moves us
• love in the time of hyperfixation
  • we don't get to choose which fixation lasts and which won't
  • the things we stick with are just the things we repeatedly fail to give up
  • the entirety of what I know about love: "in the beginning it felt like I couldn't control myself. And then it felt like I could control myself, but I still wanted to continue"
• fewer, better thoughts: making the right decision involves paying careful attention to the state of the world around you, and the state of your own internal landscape. watch people and watch yourself. what makes you feel good, what frightens you, what aches and why.
• 17 hot takes about dating
  • getting into a relationship is like buying a car; being in the relationship is like driving it. Don't spend two years trying to buy the car if you don't even know if you'll like driving it
  • a great relationship is one in which both people are like "Wow I got so lucky". an okay one is one in which only one person feels that way.
• two years: consistency creates inspiration (if you know you have to write everyday, you'll think of something to write about)
• what makes me feel grounded: spending time with the people you love amplifies your "youness"
• practical magic: on rejection and secure attachment
  • ask for things at the exact edge of rejection. if you're never rejected, you're too risk-averse
  • be comfortable with rejection and with failure
  • the willingness to be pushy and ask for things that aren't directly offered to you
  • always go to the source. It’s important to know whose thoughts you’re referencing, and why. And whose thoughts they’re referencing.
  • double down on your talents
  • get good at building a strong feedback loop between "I perceive X" and "I've confirmed that X is in fact true". you'll start to trust yourself more. accurate self trust is more important than anything else

all my relatives keep asking me to take care of health and that's what matters the most

and that now that I'm relatively healthier there's less worry, and that I've gone through it before and I'll be fine.

I do think i'll enjoy life there a lot more than staying here.

The only thing stressing me out the most, the thing that really strikes fear deep into my core, is the pressure to find a good job that pays well (where I'll enjoy the work) to make my parents proud and to pay them back for the dent that I'll be making in my dad's bank account. the money that was hard-earned from going to the office everyday, taking multiple calls every hour.

But I'm sure I'll make it, either way. I have to trust in God more. Stay grounded, act according to my core values, surround myself with the right people, and take more risks. I just have to keep doing what I'm doing. And actually implement the advice that I've been consuming the past year or so in these blogs.

It feels like the week before the war, and you're on the frontline. you know you're subjugating yourself to a ton of challenges and discomfort and obstacles, and you constantly feel under-prepared and anxious of what's to come. but you still have to march forward. it's like you're trapped somewhere in sinking ship, the water is rising rapidly around you, you're floating and weightless, and air is running out, and you're about to take a deep breath before you dive under and look for an escape. you have to hold your breath, but you're not sure for how long. You just have to keep holding on.

• woke up feeling anxious and sad that I'll be alone in a room and my parents and sister won't be calling me to get out of bed
• saw primary school students on their field trip, I feel so old
• yong peng fishball noodles
• she spends her days and maybe entire life farming, and going to restaurants to sell her produce, and she's satisfied with life. she mentions her friend's durian is for sale. her face lights up with a big smile, her skin tanned yet healthy. her body strong and fit. isn't she's the lucky one? what more do she seek? her life is simple yet fulfilling
• most people don't get to choose. they grow up in a small town and work as a waitress in a fishball noodle restaurant, and might never get the chance to even leave the town, country, to see and experience what I have experienced. what is life to these people? i'm worrying about not getting a high paying job and not passing FAANG interviews while they probably have to worry about whether they can save enough to sustain themselves, their parents and for their own future. perspective is important. step outside of the bubble more
• a few notes from having meals with relatives in their 60s
  • they repeat things, at their age they talk about the same things a few times, almost like they forgot that they already mentioned it earlier
  • they like to talk about travelling experience, where they went and where we went, at this age they love travelling because time is limited
  • they talk about their own kids (marriage, life, career)
  • they talk about living cost in singapore is high
  • they will say you look like <INSERT RELATIVE NAME> a few times
  • they love asking questions about your life, they're very curious about young people's thoughts on things too
  • the uncles in IT will ask you about AI and ask you to share
  • they surprisingly know how much other relative's kids earn per month, that's what parents flex to other parents I suppose
  • they'll mention how times have changed, how young people today is different, ex: living together but not married, LGBTQ
  • they'll mention a few times that health is what matters the most
  • they'll give advice to you, the uncle mentioned travel and reading books are the two important things for career
• i think I need to talk to old people more,
• a lot of singaporeans came to Johor because it's a holiday, and everything is 3.48x cheaper
• overheard a group of young singaporeans (probably my age) in a restaurant talk about career and it made me worry about my own
• reminded of Steve Job's quote on career, "The enemy of most dreams and intuition, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the 'Career'"
• but realizing that as an international student, I might not have the luxury to think about what I love doing until I get a stable job in the US, so the idea of doing what you love is a privilege not accessible to everyone
• read a total of 13 posts by Ava while shopping with mom, it feels like I'm having conversations with her. it would be so cool to meet her in SF.
• I always use to wait outside while mom shopped for things, but actually shopping with her is a pleasant experience, I found a nice jacket at brands outlet
• i've been buying clothes at uniqlo and starting to feel guilty to buy nice clothes using my dad's money while he wears the same old clothes he's owned for years
• growing up and getting old is realizing your parents are people with their own issues and problems and insecurities and flaws and quirks, and not expecting them to know everything about the world and about you, and noticing they're getting slower and more fragile and more accepting of everything.
• i remember watching a video of a son bringing his parents to japan, booking all michelin restaurants months prior, growing up is also treating your parents to nice food and experiences once you're capable, paying back for all the sacrifices they've made for you.