Category: Personal

Now that I’ve gotten into my full-time job, and I’m familiar with the area, a certain novelty that comes with a new situation has worn off. I am not finding brand new things all the time anymore. I know where I’m getting my groceries from, I know what I’m having for lunch each day, and generally know what I’m having for dinner. To a certain extent, I have fallen into a fairly predictable schedule on a weekly basis. Thursdays I have concert band rehearsal. Sunday or Monday I record Comical Start with Grant, and edit it that night. At some point each week, I sit down and try to write a sufficient post for this blog. Every so often a surprise phone call, or an episode of OHAC comes up, which I get to work in with everything else. But overall, I’ve developed a schedule.
Continue reading “Beating the Schedule”

It is still technically Monday, so I’m counting this, but in a sense I have lapsed. It is Monday evening, and so far I’ve been good at having each post written a few days before Monday, and then scheduling it to post at the same time each week. However, I went home to Minnesota this weekend, and thinking of a post to write was not on my mind. So, after the fact, I’ll write a bit about going home.
Continue reading “Lapse”

I started my first post-graduation job at Art of Problem Solving this past week. I was an intern here last summer, and I was lucky enough for that to lead to a job. My official role is “Curriculum Developer”. I work on developing their elementary school math curriculum, as that is their current focus. It’s an incredibly good job, with fantastically intelligent and caring people.
While it is a great company whose mission I am deeply invested in, and San Diego is a beautiful place to be, these first few days have been very tough. It was weird driving across the country, having a good time, then suddenly getting to work. I’m living on my own, in a room I’m renting (technically an AirBnB) from a nice lady. I know the area from last summer, but I’m still getting over a mental hurdle of actually going out and doing things. Although at the time I write this I’ll have only been here a few days, I’m already feeling antsy. It’s strange.
Perhaps the biggest reason for my feelings is that I spent my entire life in Minnesota. I am very rooted there, and despite many friends leaving who have also graduated, there are many people I’ve left behind. I’m leaving the comfortable world of academia to work at a place where I have no true connections. It’s a rather isolating feeling that I am working through.
Yet, this is something I correctly anticipated. I have been solidifying Operation: Have a Conversation and Comical Start as ways to keep in contact with people. I’ve reached out to people (or luckily have had them reach out to me) to stay in contact via phone calls or letters. And I also committed to myself that I would write weekly on this blog, and not worry about people reading it. It’s just a good thing to have on my schedule, both for the purpose of self-reflection, and to stop myself from falling idle after I do a day of work.
I already reached out to the San Diego Concert Band, a local community band that has fairly open policies for joining. I’ll be rehearsing with them regularly starting next week, which I am incredibly thrilled for. Although my percussion chops are not what they once were, they will improve and I will be better off for having the experience. I also plan on finding a group (or maybe just a person or two) to try and play tennis with. It’s an easy sport to play as long as you have another person, and I definitely enjoy playing it. Ideally I’d find a softball league as well, and I also have a long book list to get through.
Despite a touch of melancholy and some misgivings on traveling so far, I am excited for what is to come. Knowing that my time here is rather indefinite, I can feel more comfortable finding my place and joining new things. I have more opportunity to be involved and help myself as I go along. It’s an interesting time.

I think it is important to have a variety of projects capturing one’s attention. The breadth and depth of these will vary by individual, but they should be there nonetheless. Someone who is incredibly invested in one particular field or interest will be more aware of the branching-off points, and can thus develop projects related to the disparate branches of that field. Others may be interested in many topics, and have projects related to each.
I fall into the latter category, as do a good chunk of my friends. I have become widely interested in many topics throughout college, and this was one of the main reasons I did not immediately pursue higher education. While I love mathematics, I cannot see myself devoting a majority of my life to only studying it for the next five years, and wanted the opportunity to do many things I did not do in college, or double-down on some of the projects I started then.
In addition to this blog that I am trying to keep up with better, there are the podcasts Operation: Have a Conversation and Comical Start. There was the joke-blog I announced a couple of weeks ago. I’m trying to read more, and still keep up with doing some math so that I can be more effective at my new job I am starting soon. I have been playing tennis more, and joined a softball league while I’m still in Minnesota.
These projects keep me busy, and keep me happy. I like to have a variety of things to work on, because I’ve always loved each subject I’ve been introduced to. My passion for them may diminish at times — I’ll always  be more invested in math than in biology — but being able to have conversations or read a few articles about new ideas is exciting. Writing this blog is exciting, and talking with my friends and editing podcasts is invigorating. Playing newer and older sports to me is always a good time, because I like to stretch the muscles I’ve worked all my life, but also pick up new skills. The internal growth I want to achieve is being reflected in the growth in new activities I’m participating in. There will be more to come about that last sentence.

I recently graduated from college, and while I may touch on that or write a longer post about my experience and what that means for me, all it means in the context of this post is I now have free time.
While I objectively had less “scheduled” time during college, I always felt that I needed to be doing something towards my degree and my future. I only read a handful of books for fun during those four years, as I felt it imperative that I instead spend the time working on my programming skills or looking through math textbooks. I did not want to “waste time”, and this greatly affected how I spread myself out.
I will be moving onto a full-time job fairly soon, and while this obviously eats up a chunk of every day, it is a consistent chunk. I know the time I have left, and all that time is spent on projects that I am invested in. I get to decide on what to do. This summer, I’ve finally gotten back into reading. I’m also hoping to record my podcast more frequently, especially now that I have taken over editing duties. I began playing baseball again (kind of) and playing music a bit more. There is a lot I can finally begin to do which I put off during my time in college.
What that means for my writing here, is that I’m going to try and post consistently. My plan is to write a post every week. There is truth to the idea that making a schedule out of something takes the fun out of it, but I know I am the sort of person who needs deadlines to be productive. My goal is to post on Mondays (as I am doing now).
I’ve also removed my Facebook link to this website, so I don’t have an effective way to share it. This was mainly to take pressure off of the writing process. If those who have read it in the past stumble on it again, that’s great. But this is just meant to be a place to put my normal “personal” writing, while allowing it to technically be accessible for those who care. If it obtains a following, that will happen organically.
The posts are going to vary as widely as the current posts do. Sometimes it will just be a small piece of math that I find interesting. It may be an explanation of how I work, or what I do in my free time. I want to keep it open, and allow a slog of a week to have a shorter post like this (sub 500 words).
For anyone who comes across this, you now have a bit of context for the posts that will (or will not) appear in the future.