On Maxing Out Your Calendar #
This is kind of a chatty long-form post with no direction. Just a heads-up. #
I think there's a certain habit of time optimization that comes with going to a prep school for a few years. It's not that I was particularly studious or anything, it's just that the environment tends to get to you. This month, I basically understood why there's a general word of advice to never say no to opportunities, however small they might be. I used to be the sort of person who skipped on events I didn't find particularly interesting, but I'm starting to realize that when you're in the right environment, every event you go to is going to have at least mildly interesting people.
At this point, I bike to Cambridge about twice a week minimum for events and the like, since nearly all the interesting events happen on that side of the river (due to proximity to MIT and Harvard but mostly MIT). I made far more friends than I thought I would in such a short span of time, and I don't think I'm really the type to be chatty when I don't know someone so that's a first for me. I figured I would have a lot to do in a city as full of students as Boston, but I'm starting to realize it's not just quantity. There's a signal density in this city that I've never seen anywhere else, and I've been to most major cities where you'd expect to find that kind of crowd (Bangalore, Paris, Hanoi, Berlin, London, New York, but not SF yet).
I'm pretty hyped about the kind of stuff I can do here. Hackathons (going to Boston Hacks next month? Drop me a dm on my twitter!), rev, concerts (loona??? atarashii gakko??? renforshort???), and of course, friendly beans!
I've become one of those terrifying people with a Google Calendar. I will say though, absolutely seamless onboarding, so no complaints. I don't think I've had a day with nothing significant scheduled in about a month now. "But Shresht, you'll get burnt out!" you say. And to that, I say skill issue. Honestly I'm seeing that I have so many fun events scheduled that I'm not even feeling the lack of time. Maybe time management is the secret to happiness after all. I wouldn't know, I still procrastinate on everything I do.
I can't believe it's already October! And I can't believe it's only been one month, simultaneously. Last month feels like a decade ago, and like yesterday. Sam Altman really got the whole "there are weeks when decades happen" thing right (wrong context but it applies regardless). Sometimes I wonder how much more exponential it can get from here. I don't think I've had a year where I've looked back and said "well I did more last year so that's a pity" so far, but I'm not even 18 yet (this month!) so what do I know.
Hopefully I can keep the pace of doing stuff and having fun going exponentially for at least a decade, cause that would be fucking awesome. I finished all my homework in advance for this week for the sole purpose of going to two concerts and playing videogames with my friends. I'm also working on fully homomorphic encryption with my cofounder and getting onboarded at the Dean (Dr. Gregory Abowd) of the College of Engineering's Ubiquitous Computing Lab. It gives me whiplash sometimes. I don't know how I got this far. It was only two years ago that my average daily playtime on League of Legends was 8 hours. It's a miracle I don't have some lasting form of muscle atrophy (I suppose I'll find out in a few decades).
Speaking of, walkable cities! I've lost about 6 kg so far here without doing, well, anything out of the ordinary. My weekly trips to Cambridge and my constant campus traversal seem to be doing their jobs. Overall, the honeymoon period is very much in its peak. Hopefully, I figure out how to extend it for as long as possible. In all honesty though, I don't see an end in sight. I found a bunch of cool friends at rev, and they've helped me max out my course schedule and meet a bunch of cool people. I still spend too much time on Spotify and playing roguelike/metroidvania games (FINALLY playing risk of rain 2 co-op with a friend), and I'm still making a videogame in my fantasy world of Zindabuul. It's a blast.
Oh, and did I mention I switched my main single-file code editor to Helix? (I still use VS Code for larger repos because I'm not that much of a ricer). I take all my notes in LaTeX too btw. Puny mortal.
Anyways, hit me up on twitter, instagram, discord (@Tetraslam) or by email if you want to talk to me about anything, criticize my taste in music or videogames, or spam to me about Wind and Truth (the last upcoming Stormlight Archive book by Brandon Sanderson). I'm down for anything and everything so literally just drop me a message and I'll try my very very best to show up! Until then, I'll see you around in like a month or two when I remember this blog exists again :)