Dear friends,
It’s been sixteen? seventeen? months since I posted on here, which might indicate that I’ve discovered better coping mechanisms than oversharing on the Internet (unlikely, given my Twitter presence), or might simply mean I kept meaning to write something new on Substack and never got around to it.
I left MIT in January 2024, in the middle of my master’s program. Now, people often ask about the contours of my life: what I’m up to, which city I’m in, or other such details that might be better answered by stalking LinkedIn, but hey, here we are.
Last year, I worked as a compiler engineer—basically, I helped build a programming language—in New York City. (I am searching for something new, so if you or your friend is hiring, please reach out!) These days, I spend a lot of time talking to people, both in person and online. It is probably my favorite activity. I adore my friends, and I find myself constantly delighted and intrigued by those around me. So here are recent scraps I’ve written—excerpts from my letters, texts, emails, unsent emails, Slack messages, random screeches into the void—which might answer the question of what I’m up to:
wanna go to japan?
I’ve been reading a fair bit. I finished The Vegetarian by Han Kang; it’s a horrifying exploration on misogyny in South Korea, told through an allegory of a woman who decides to become vegetarian. After that, I walked over to the library and spent a few hours there. God, I love books so much. Something that scares me about being an adult is how little time is allotted for reading.
Speaking of being an adult, I’ve been catching up with my MIT friends, and it astounds me how many of them seem to have settled into rather mundane lives. I don’t mean mundane in a negative light, necessarily—it is perfectly fine to work at Apple or Microsoft or Doordash or wherever for many years on end, and spend your disposable income on whatever hobby strikes your fancy. It is more than perfectly fine. It is a charmed existence that the vast majority of the world can only dream of achieving. The privilege is not lost on me. But what of all the ambitions we wrote about on our college applications when we were seventeen? Sometimes I think I am the most deluded one for clinging onto some wild notion that I might still accomplish especially interesting things.
Went to a solidcore class yesterday in nyc & my body HURTS, thought of our core40 days 🥲 miss ya
She told me that “once you’re in the workforce, the years sort of blend together.” Isn’t that terrifying?
tbh idk if being angsty in your mid twenties hits the same way… think it’s because once you’re in your twenties you have autonomy and a greater amt of control over your angst, so it’s kinda not cool to be angsty anymore
When we met, I thought you were so cool, because you were the only Actual Adult I knew, with a two-bedroom apartment and real money and fashion sense and social savvy. I admired you so much and in many ways I wanted to be like you when I grew up. But now I want to grow up, and I want to become myself.
can we do 9:30 lol
not sure if i can wake up in time
ok let’s do 9 am fk it
i can drink coffee
did u watch the brutalist? i was thinking about it because the oscars were on last night and anora won best picture; personally, i loved anora a lot, and it’s such a fun watch, but I think the brutalist meant more to me on a personal level and had more emotional resonance. that desire to make art at all costs and transform your persecution or suffering into art
omg you guys look gorgeoussss
Bruh wtf was that interview 💀
I think SF has a problem where my friends are all startup bros and NYC has a problem where ppl are hard to befriend / nail down
If it weren’t for you, I think I wouldn’t have bothered to stay in compilers after college, because my plan had been to get some full-stack software job until you convinced me to strive for what I wanted. In many other universes where I didn’t meet you, I’m writing React components, either as a founder or as an employee. I’m glad I don’t live in any of those universes.
ads on the subway for “the squid game experience” … why would I pay for that when I can just participate in capitalism
Left a book on your desk as a gift; thanks again for letting me stay in your room!
i think poets are trying to find a common language and the language is usually not located in the narrative specifics of a story, like “harry goes to hogwarts and stumbled upon a magical mirror that shows him his dead parents” but an image that evokes, say, grief and yearning
Left the air mattress and bed sheets outside your bedroom door, spare keys on the dining table, thanks again for all your help in hosting me 🥰
but we both know that u dont care that much abt money so theres no point in staying at [financial firm] for that alone
so then the question becomes "are you getting more out of being at [financial firm] every day than doing your own thing"
jk i landed in the east coast and its SOOOOO cold i hate it i change my mind im gonna live in California
Loose notes on my Substack:
When I first started this thing, I had like fifteen followers. As a joke, I named my Substack “return on net assets”, or RONA. Anyway, I now have several more followers and “return on net assets” is probably confusing and not funny to most people, so I renamed it “the yuppie diaries” because, now that I’ve left MIT, it’s an accurate-ish reflection of my content? Being a twentysomething woman navigating the professional world, juggling Partiful invites and student loans and fitness classes and god why won’t he text me back? (But, like, I’m not like those other yuppies. I’m a cool yuppie!)
Again, when I first started this thing, I had like fifteen followers, so I didn’t really put much effort into this. Now I have more, and it’s mildly terrifying, so I archived many of my old posts from college.
On that note, that’s one reason I haven’t posted in the last seventeen months; it’s so much easier to live life than to write about it, and if I was going to reflect on my experiences, the end result had to be insightful and well-written and good enough to justify a Substack post! No more ramblings. But, well, actually trying is so much harder and scarier.
“once you’re in the workforce, the years sort of blend together" I noticed this after my first year of full time work and ever since then I have been actively trying to fight it
I think the main thing that slows down time for me is mental effort, often exerted by change. When a semester ends in college, the next semester starts a little slower than the last one ended. Start a new job, first month slower than the next. Travel to a new country and 3 days feels like 3 weeks. I think that's part of why I've had this manic cycle of 10,000 half-baked hobbies that come and go rapidly, it forces me to slow down time
so glad to read your writing again (and that you're doing well)!