2-21-2025

Lol what a long couple weeks it's been. It's as cold as ever here and I'm desparately trying to muster some warmth. I told myself that I'd try to do an update biweekly at the very least or something but that was a complete fucking lie. It's not as though I didn't know it was going to be a tough semester, but this shit is no joke (ワロエナイ). Here are some important dates.

1/13/2025: Interviewed for a Deep RL lab and successfully made it in. In my previous semester, I took a reinforcement learning class and it was unironically one of the most intense classes I've ever taken. There were no exams but each assignment was so horrendous and convoluted, it had me glued to my chair for days on end. But despite all the suffering it was inspiring and, more importantly, incredibly interesting. I've always been interested in the idea of intelligence and creating intelligent systems, and this subfield seems to analyze the most crucial elements. So I took the bullet and ended up applying, surprisingly mading the cut. While doing my preliminary reading though, it occured to me just how intensive the math was. While its mostly analysis and built on top of previous analytical theorems of convergence, there are just so many moving subproblem involved that it becomes overbearing in a sense. My grades in real analysis were by no means stellar either. However, the content has been more exciting and stimulating than I could ever have hoped for. So inspiring in fact that its causing me to begin neglecting my classes haha.

2/15/2025: I finally submitted my first paper to the ACL conference. What a tumultuous year its been. I got to reflect on it a lot after submitting the paper at 4 in the morning, 2 hours before it was due. And while the project itself was not as grand or ambitious as I lusted for, it has been an immeasurable contributor to my growth as a researcher. Sitting there in the silent aftermath confirmed to me once again how much I enjoy the struggle. The strive. It's a sense of calming completion that I'll never be able to experience as a SWE. I wonder why. Maybe its because its a medium I can pour myself into and scrutinize. Maybe its the cutting-edge nature that makes me feel like I'm at the edge of the domain of knowledge. Who knows. I am simply elated and excited for my future projects.

Classes have been pretty solid. My favorite class as of now is definitly my OS organization class. Computer system classes have always tickled a weird area of my brain. I think it might be the hands-on nature of it. It requires a certain level of finesse and getting your hands dirty that makes me satisfied.

Maybe reading my journal logs makes me feel like I'm living a busy, go-getter life but it's certainly not like that all. The days are quiet and time doesn't seem to really flow linearly anymore. All the projects and research that I engage in are abstracted from reality. I get lost in my own mental dominion and I become increasingly detached from the world. But I also believe that this is the inevitable fate of an academic. You can't pursue the stars if your feet are grounded on something. Outside of the few friends I semi-regularly hang out with, most of my free time is consumed with light reading and heavy gaming lol. I can feel my mind slowly but steadily retreating into some subset of corners. Not that I hate it or anything. It's cool. It's whatever. That's all for now. I'll probably post again in a month or two but what do those words really mean anymore.