543A — I got the gasoline...

Today was a pretty decent day.

I slept in this morning again by an extra thirty minutes after a dream in which I woke up and had overslept, which was an unfortunate dream since it resulted in me waking in a panicked mood and struggling to distinguish dream from reality. I headed to work and arrived reasonably close to on time—I worked briefly on some final externship tasks, attended standup, etc., and then ended up spending most of the rest of the day working on some side projects; being the final day, starting a new, significant task and leaving it half-finished seemed like a bad call. I spent some time editing my "Proud Corazón" arrangement and writing this blog post, and a lot of time watching the impeachment trial and checking the news. That was certainly a rollercoaster of a day, but sometimes that's how it goes.

There were a few small non-graduation-type events which were nice sendoffs from the company—a team lunch, where I got to talk to some employees and externs I hadn't talked to significantly during my time at the company; some very interesting goodbyes to a variety of employees and walking across campus with some others. It's been a good month where I've learned a lot about working in a company setting and writing React/Javascript code. I'm probably going to continue working with them for a few months at least doing a marginal amount of hours per week for some marginal pay, since I'm already familiar with the systems and there's still a lot to be done in relatively small company. We'll see how it goes, I suppose, but it should be decent, at least.

I headed back to Next afterwards and made dinner for the last time with two friends. It was an interesting time—my already virtually non-existent cooking skills have deteriorated significantly, but the food that we did successfully make tasted pretty good. I felt pretty tired by the end of the dinner, and afterwards headed upstairs where I hung out with some friends both from and not from 4W. Sleep will come soon, I think—it is surprising, perhaps, that I am maintaining somewhat my sleep schedule, but I think that it will be easily broken once I sleep in tomorrow morning. Farewell, sweet prince.

Now, for some thoughts:

I think I've been staving off writing about my registration for classes because it calls into question a lot of my life decisions already, and I'm not confident I am in a position where I can adequately defend my choices. There were a few things my advisor made note of which seemed particularly poignant. One of these was the note that, given a baseline level of writing capability (which she noted I have), the most important aspect of writing is not the craft itself, but rather the content; that is, a broad base of knowledge from which to draw allusions and concepts may assist one's writing more than classes that focus on the writing skill themselves may. This did not necessarily change my viewpoint on my path through MIT or the upcoming semester, but it did sow some inklings of ideas to consider in the future. This is not to say that I need more ideas for classes I should take, but nevertheless, here we are.

I do think this concern put forward by advisor does touch on an interesting point, however, and I think it fits in a broad class of concerns that I have that are probably best expressed as 'missing the forest for the trees'. I'm taking classes to take classes and to learn and to achieve very specific academic goals of graduating with <x> degree, but I'm missing everything surrounding them—the college experience, the creation of a coherent, broad, complete education. My associate advisor asked a similar question in this vein—'how does this all fit into the big picture?'

The honest answer is, of course, I have no idea. I have no idea how to shape myself into a coherent human being with a clearly defined narrative told in my voice and in my classes. I'm traveling down twenty railroad tracks at once and they're starting to diverge, faster and faster as they depart the pluripotent station from which the tracks started. My thought processes are dragged every which way, with no clear rhyme or reason as to when shifts in philosophy occur. On one hand, I want to introduce rigor to my life—to be educated so that I would meet the requirements of the EECS major even without being an EECS major, because it would ensure that I actually have a well-defined and clear set of skills. On the other hand, I want to introduce a broad set of knowledge to my life, from being able to communicate with people in a different language, to being able to write creatively and effectively, to being able to understand, arrange, and perform music, to everything I need to know about the world at large to write good fiction. It's hard to tell what to do, especially when my interests are so broad—I cut down a list of every class at MIT I would like to take from 9 pages to 6 today, but it is still so much, and so large. How do I do this? How do I do everything I want to do while still graduating in four years and with a deep understanding of a subject that can get me a job or into graduate school? I legitimately don't know the answer to this question and it scares me, even if I have another three years to figure it out. What gets cut first? If I'm not careful, will I end up unintentionally severing myself from friends and activities?

These questions are big, and I highly doubt that they could be answered simply (that is, in less than a page of writing) without significant thought. Perhaps a few smaller, more addressable questions to ask at the beginning of a semester are:

"What story do my classes this semester tell?"
"What is the success condition for this semester?"
"How will your trajectory change depending on the outcome of the semester?"

To answer these questions, then, for this semester. I think my classes this semester are telling a story of me testing my limits. I'm reaching to the edge of my abilities and seeing what's there. This is true in a lot of different ways—I'm taking a lot of different classes to try and find where my academic interests lie. I'm taking as many classes as I can to see where the limits of my workload lie. I'm taking hard classes, 18.100B/Real Analysis, to see how well I can do on difficult classes and if I'm ultimately smart enough to take the classes I want in the fields I want.

The success condition for the semester, then, is obvious: If I have learned new information about my interests and abilities, then the semester will have been a success. If I have to drop a class, then I know 69 units is too many units to take. If I struggle in 18.100B, then I'll have learned that maybe pure math content isn't my forte. If I don't enjoy 21W.755/Reading and Writing Short Stories, then I'll know that perhaps writing classes are not for me. If everything goes perfectly, then maybe I'll attempt to take even more classes in the fall. I will note, however, that discovering this information should not come at the expense of my health, activities, or social life. I think the activities I've already committed to from last semester, as well as wingrepping and CPW committee, should help me ensure that I keep involved with the communities around me, and hopefully some amount of the sleep and food successes of this IAP will carry over into the semester. Given that I'll be walking to and from Next House again, instead of taking the shuttle, I suspect that the outcome can't be all bad.

I think my trajectory will be immediately determined by the information gained during this semester—everything data point I gather can be used to rule out or prioritize certain paths and decisions over another.  It is, of course, possible that I end up with a somewhat useless set of information—that I enjoy taking all sorts of classes no matter the subject and that I can handle 69 units of classes without breaking a sweat (unlikely)—but I think it is likely that there will probably be at least some possible trajectory calibration that can occur with time. I hope; I pray.

Now, for some other thoughts that I also said I'd write about at some point. These thoughts I have had less ability to condense and 'settle', as I describe on that day, but I do think it's interesting to just write them down and consider them later. I have realized a few small recurring themes which have sort of presented themselves to me in a way which is hard to necessary analyze or respond to, and which digs at a lot of fundamental assumptions I have about myself.

First, I have found that I have no real understanding of what distinguishes romantic relationships and close friendships. Three answers which don't seem complete to me but might have some small inkling of truth in them, at least for me, include exclusivity, domesticity (i.e., a sense of home, not in the Victorian sense), and prospectiveness (i.e. a view to the long-term). There's no clear sense to me how these aspects play out in a college setting either, I suppose, which makes it exceptionally difficult to consider.

Second, I have also found that past a certain point on the "traditional" path to a relationship, possibly due to previous events, innate behavior, or some combination of the two, I tend to become in some senses, repulsed. It's some form of anxious response, I think, although we're rapidly diving into autopsychoanalysis territory here, and I'm not sure I 100% understand it. The sample size is small, of course, so perhaps this is just me being unlucky (or misaligning romantic attraction with others), but it's significant enough to be interesting, and I am concerned.

I mention these in concert with attending Mean Girls, which has a song titled "Stupid With Love," which essentially describes my entire high school experience in the line:"Smart with math, but stupid with love." I had forgotten this song, and it's interesting because in my personal experience the methods of being stupid have changed (see above), but the sense has not. On the other hand, at MIT I am no longer comparatively "smart with math", so perhaps the sentiment is overblown. In any case, one of the characters in the reprise goes "so I'm swearing off of dating," which I think is where I'm at right now, until I figure some more things out. The social anxiety and whatnot portrayed by the musical definitely rang true in a lot of different ways, and it's an interesting thought train that I definitely need to develop more.

Tomorrow, I have a Think meeting where we'll discuss trip logistics, and then a dinner celebrating a friend's birthday. Should be an interesting day.