I’m back

As 2022 approaches, I thought I’ll give a quick update (but see News for more).

Introduction:

For me, as for many others, 2021 has been a tough year. I haven’t really published any new posts since early January, partially because I’ve become more risk-averse about the things I publish online (for various reasons) and partially because I’ve prioritised other things in my life this year. I’ve also removed from public view most of the old, more personal, posts of the blog and now I think of this as a professional website rather than a student blog.

However, I think that writing, which I quite enjoy, is also a very useful skill to have for my career interests. I expect the content of my future posts here to be fairly less personal than what it used to be, but a paragraph or two probably won’t hurt.

Updates:

This year, I finished my masters in Maths at Cambridge (though it was all online, except exams). And I got vaccinated for Covid-19 the day after my final exam! Over the summer, I was a quant trading intern for SIG, in Dublin. This was an amazing experience, as I got to experience a non-academic job (and a pretty unique one!) for the first time, explore a new country, and meet amazing people. In October, I started my PhD, still in Cambridge.

There are too many things I could say about the academic aspects of my PhD, so I won’t discuss them for now. For my PhD, I moved from Christ’s, where I did my undergrad and masters, to King’s College. As much as I adore Christ’s, moving Cambridge Colleges is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. King’s has been amazing (despite the four weeks without Wifi) and I’ll always be grateful that they were willing to “adopt” me.

Rowing and more:

Back in Easter this year, when I was preparing my final exams, I tried rowing with Christ’s Boatclub. Rowing in Easter term was lovely: the weather was nice and I was waking up quite early at the time regardless. Anyways, I somehow kept rowing through this term (when the weather was definitely not nice) for King’s College Boat Club, and it’s been a bliss! I’m so grateful to Anissa, who proposed we try rowing in the first place, to CCBC for teaching me as novice, and especially to KCBC for getting me addicted to rowing and their wholesome vibes! I can’t wait to get back in the Cam.

Last term, I did the Beginner’s course on Science Improvisation from CUSI, which made me laugh more than I had laughed in ages. It’s also been awesome to start training olympic gymnastics (which is certainly better suited to my 160cm-long, flexible body) with CUOGC and now I can almost hold my handstand without any support, as well as cart-wheeling in a balance beam!

Looking forward:

As the New Year comes, I’m excited for what 2022 will hold for me. Omicron makes everything uncertain, and I hate uncertainty (though playing poker at SIG made me better at coping with it!), but I’m hopeful even just for 1-to-1 walks with cool people, rowing outings, as well as enjoying my wonderful PhD.

I want to write more this year, but I can’t tell if this will be mainly in the form of more papers, private journal entries, blog posts here and/or in LessWrong, or tweets. I also want to read more this year (aiming at 52 books!) so if you have any book recommendations for me, please do let me know.

Finally, thank you to the Gates, EA Cambridge and Emmy Noether Soc communities for giving me things to fight for and people to fight them with. And especially, thank you to everyone who helped me get through the first half of this year.