Personal

I’m writing this over the course of several days before Erin and I get married. I’ll note when these thoughts were written down. ...

I haven’t been to the Minnesota State Fair since 2017, just prior to my senior year of college. Since then, my travels home haven’t aligned with the event, so I’ve missed out on the fun and festivities I was lucky enough to enjoy for so many years. Finally, with Erin and I being back for our wedding, we were able to return. We only spent about 4.5 hours there, but we enjoyed an abbreviated version of the fair trips we looked forward to each year of college. It was genuinely exciting to go back, to have the familiarity of the sights and sounds and smells, and spent quality time together in the unique atmosphere the fair provides. ...

In sixth grade my mom took me to our local Hollywood Video so I could rent Fellowship of the Rings. I had started reading the trilogy, and wanted to watch each movie as I finished the corresponding book. Shockingly, my mom acquiesced — I’m guessing she wasn’t wholly familiar with its contents. More importantly, I saw a box of Buncha Crunch on the shelf. ...

I woke up with the chorus of Avril Lavigne’s punk/pop hit Sk8er Boi stuck in my head. Here is the result. ...

I went to a show by the Secret Improv Society this past weekend, which performs in an odd theater building near Union Square. It’s only the second time I’ve been to a professional improv performance, and I was struck by how special the experience is. ...

The tutoring organization I work with, Step Up, has focused heavily on the social and emotional learning (SEL) of the students in their program. To some extent, this is an expectation of any tutor who is also meant to be a role model. Just as with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, the goal is to improve the student’s outcomes in as many ways as we can; unsurprisingly, helping the student feel better about themselves and their place in the world can be a huge factor in their future success. ...

Turns out, this is pretty easy. Of course you’re dealing with a government service center, so the timing of everything is a little whacky. But, once we got to our counter, it only took a few minutes.1 One interesting aspect in Minnesota is that they suggest (require?) an online pre-application, which is all the information they need beyond a government ID to cross-check your birthday. This is the stage where you choose to change your name. It turns out, that information does not stick to the pre-application, and they just ask you again at the counter. Better safe than sorry, I suppose. ...

My best man got married (kind of secretly) the other month, and another groomsman of mine just got married last night. With my wedding coming up in a few months, we’ve entered a new chapter in our friend group. While in some sense, getting married doesn’t change much when we’ve all been with our partners for eight or more years, it is a significant step in life. I’m excited for my friends, and for myself, as we all support each other with our changes in life. I’m incredibly fortunate to have an excellent group of people around me, and going to a lovely wedding like the one last night helps me remember that.

It turns out that juggling leisure time can be as complicated as juggling projects. Deciding both how much time to spend, and what to spend it on, has been difficult for me this year. There’s a long list of shows I’d like to take the time to watch, yet any given moment it doesn’t feel “worthwhile” in some way. Part of it is a value judgement, similar to my approach to reading old or new books, fiction or nonfiction. I need to work on striking a balance, while acknowledging that I won’t keep up with everything. If leisure is work, then it’s not leisure. While that’s an obvious statement once spoken, I have a hard time fully internalizing its truth. I want to keep working at arranging my life so that I make good use of my time, where “good” is defined by how I feel about time spent. ...

I’ve dabbled with various programming projects over the years. Building a tool to add MP3 chapters to podcast episodes, creating a website using Python, Advent of Code, and creating video games. The list goes on. Nearly all of them were left incomplete.1 So, as I toy with the idea of yet another programming project, I’m faced with the reality that it is unlikely to succeed. ...