Have a lot to write about, but haven't had much time

I haven't been able to do due diligence towards my blog in recent months, and I apologize (to myself and to anyone who reads this) for that. There's a lot I've wanted to write about, but haven't found time to do so.

I've been deeply mired in a lot of emotionally draining circumstances in the past few months, and I'd be lying if I said that things are going splendidly. My mom found (another?) tumor in her neck, though it's still benign. Meanwhile, in my dorm, the escalation of some tension has culminated in some hate crime against me again, and far more clear in intent than just some chewed up gum on my door handle.

One of the works of art on my door

I love me some good whiteboard vandalism.

Fortunately, a lot of the people I am close to have lent me a lot of emotional strength, whether they know it or not, either by directly being there for me or by being an inspiration because their experiences I use as a blueprint for resiliency and growth. This past weekend at SBS spring retreat alone, I've witnessed the human spirit wrestling with weight much heavier than that which I bear, and that allows me to continue forward. It allows me to fight hate not also with hate but with love:

Take that.

In reflecting on this recent stuff, I am reminded of something I learned in CS 124 last quarter during the unit on sentiment analysis. When it comes to affected experiences, they can actually be classified in one of five ways called Scherer's Typology of Affective States:

• Emotion: relatively brief episode of synchronized response to the evaluation of an external or internal event as being of major significance (e.g. angry, sad, joyful, fearful, ashamed, proud, elated, desperate)
• Mood: diffuse affect state, most pronounced as change in subjective feeling, of low intensity but relatively long duration, often without apparent cause (e.g. cheerful, gloomy, irritable, listless, depressed, buoyant)
• Interpersonal stances: affective stance taken towards another person in a specific interaction, coloring the interpersonal exchange in that situation (e.g. distant, cold, warm, supportive, contemptuous)
• Attitudes: relatively enduring, affectively colored beliefs, preferences, and predispositions towards objects or persons (e.g. liking, loving, hating, valuing, desiring)
• Personality traits: emotionally laden, stable personality dispositions and behavior tendencies (e.g. nervous, anxious, reckless, morose, hostile, envious, jealous)

I think the recent months have consisted of a lot of negative emotion, but my mood has stayed afloat through a few experiences that have assured me that the negative things are merely episodic, and that even in the midst of such episodes there are people who are there to catch me. That can't be said for everyone, and I'm lucky because it's a very, very good place to be.

Additionally, I have been doing a lot of thinking catalyzed by my psychiatry class. It's on Modern Relationships from a Couples and Family Therapy Perspective, and it's incredibly eye opening. Between that class, conversations I've had with N- and E-, and SBS spring retreat, I've had a lot to think about. Expect stuff on (aka note to self:) negativity threshold and the relationship tension escape velocity, equilibriation and re-equilibriation, relationship resonance, first-order and second-order change, n-dimensional behavioral cones, regret vs. guilt, dynamic vs. static conversations, and what drives my decision-making on personal matters to come.

Quick couple of thoughts

Really busy this month so not much time to do a thorough update, but just a couple of things:

1) I'm realizing there's a lot of small things that can make me inordinately happy if I learn to recognize them. I was at Starbucks one Monday morning trying to get a coffee, and the cash register froze just as I made my order. I was waiting there for like 40 seconds (i.e. not much time at all), and the cashier apologized for making me wait and told me the coffee was on them. I was happy about this for like two weeks following. This is the first time after starting to read Search Inside Yourself by Chade Meng-Tan that I actually felt that yes, mindfulness exercises do work. I definitely am buying into it more now, and want to work on that.

2) I realized I never want to work at a place that I'm not proud enough to own working for. This might seem obvious, but it never seemed more obvious than when I was at a startup career fair held by the CDC. There were two tables in particular that made me particularly grateful of where I am career-wise and the privilege I have in not having certain pragmatic concerns be as pressing (e.g. income).

The first was a conversation with a guy from a company that sells gifts for men, and they are shipped in this wooden box with a pathetic mini crowbar. I found myself standing in this crowded space with a lot of, as far as I can tell, code zombies/monkeys with this guy shaking a small crowbar at me telling me how awesome his company, which as far as I can tell is full of men that subscribe to some stereotype of certain gender roles, and I just thought to myself "I am so happy that I am not you."

The second was a conversation from a different guy whose elevator pitch had this hook: "Do you want to win $1000? Come play in our Angry Birds competition!" This was already a pretty big red flag for me, but I heard him out, and my gut reaction was right. His career fair giveaway was two wristbands to an open bar in Palo Alto, and I found myself so relieved that I feel like my passions and personal sense of identity are captivating enough that I don't need to use the possibility of winning money or the promise of alcohol/other material goods to fascinate the people around me.

These two conversations made me realize how hollow and empty I'd feel working somewhere I didn't enjoy. If short, 5-minute conversations could seem like they were sucking the life out of me, imagine what 40-hour workweeks would feel like. Blech. I promptly left the startup career fair. (I felt much more at home at the social impact career fair the following day, although even there some of the companies present just felt greasy and fake.)

3) I'm doing this thing where I try to watch a TED talk every other day, amounting to 3 TED talks or so a week. This can be while I'm waiting in lines, between classes, in the restroom, whatever (this whole smartphone thing is pretty neat). I realized that in the process of working towards my degree within the infrastructure of formal education, I've lost sight of the joy of learning for the sake of learning. I rarely do leisure reading any more. I'm determined to change that, and TED talks are conveniently digestible, free, and interesting. I definitely feel like watching more of these talks makes me the 21st century equivalent of "well-read" in that I am more open-minded, keeping up with developments in fields that I care about, and generally becoming a more intellectually interesting person.