The Ivy Experience: The Working Man

Halloween is almost here, and with it comes this weekend's Halloween events. I'm going to Yale and Columbia with some friends, then enjoying some activities in Hanover with the leftover weekend. The clocks are about to change too, so we'll see how things go.

A Bigger Sports Fan than I Thought

The Bears are 5-2 as of writing, and Ferrari is currently trying to hold on to P2 in the constructors and P2 in the 2026 F1 Championship. Was hoping that Hamilton could get an edge over Antonelli but it looks like there is more car development (and definitely strategic development) needed from the team. They're really only year two from his programme, but I have high expectations for 2027. If Hamilton can hold off Leclerc and Verstappen, I think they are in a good position for next year, especially if they get the engine right.

I'm a much bigger sports fan than I expected. Watching the White Sox rebuild, the Bears starting to look like Super Bowl contenders with the Jeffrey Simmons trade, and Ferrari going to race tomorrow, I think it helps me get away from all of the crazy programming stuff I've been doing. Because I've been doing a lot - whether it's the Magnuson Center startup programs I've been drawn into, or the cold outreach of various CS Department Professors about the crazy things Claude and I hack away at in the wake of night, things are going to be exciting over the next two months. I already released by first preprint of Bytebox in September, so we'll see what happens.

The First Month is not the Second

The First Month was definitely intense. Loafing between groups and friendships can make it feel more intense than it actually is. The second month is not the first, and the first is not the second. Things have definitely plateau'd in terms of both academic and social intensity as of recently. I also realized that I have GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), which could explain some of how programming became such a big part of my life (a sense of control) and why I like talking to people so much (gaining as much information as possible in order to make a logical next decision). That doesn't mean that my entire life is made out of malice or comes from the disorder - I just think that, me personally, It helps when I can label my own behavior.

Dartmouth? Holistically, it's been really good the last few weeks. Going out on Monday and Wednesday nights is something I would never expect anyone to say, especially when you only have about 3-4 classes for an hour during the week, and me specifically, I have nothing on Tuesday or Thursday. I think it's a very well-designed and pretty cool system. Though there are a lot of kids here complaining about grade inflation and it being too easy to pass classes - dude 😭 - please don't make my life harder than it already is.

Do Things You Never Thought You'd Do

I pierced my nose about two weeks ago. Never thought I would do that, until I decided to pierce my ears in April and wanted to see how they felt, then would probably do that when I was on my own for a bit and felt comfortable. Mostly positive reactions; a couple of "it suits you" from the people over here, and I largely think that a lot of the people back home (other than my family) don't know about it.

Never thought I'd go back to getting braids, mostly because my hair is very tight and has crazy shrinkage, but got some good photos out of it. I took them out about two days ago because they don't hold, and I prefer twists and locks anyway. Pretty cool stuff.

Never thought that I'd go through so many friend groups in such a short amount of time - and given GAD - that probably exaggerates how it felt during those times. But I think I learned a good amount of social lessons, as well as a genuine realization about how to communicate and how to talk to people, some of which is applicable to nowadays. I recently tried to ship a PR to TeaVM and the maintainer was like "i'm not reviewing this becuase it's too big" with some weird contradictory anti AI philosophy (when the man uses Claude himself), but I'm not going to go too deep into that. My response is documented there; that is enough, and it'll be annoying if Bytebox because significant from a systems-research perspective (it will, because of Drupflare), but who knows.

You Will Probably Not Have This Much Time

I think one of the best traits that I developed was really good time management. Calendar, Homework Time, Studying Time, and the age old question: "what is the sweet spot between the least amount of time I can do this, the least amount of effort I can spend doing this, and the maximum result I want to get that is acceptable to me." For me that's mostly either development work or studying for Midterms. My grades are fine: As and Bs galore, or at least I'm in the "expected median from each exam/class", though my professors want to describe how they're going to curve stuff. I just have a different thought process for how I value a 4.0 vs a 3.8 vs a 3.5 vs a 3.0, especially internship and job wise versus an actual occupation. Though that viewpoint could change, depending on what I want to do and what programs I want to try and participate in.

What Am I Doing Now?

Lots of systems research mostly, and trying to figure out what I want to do with The Earth App. Drupflare, gmitch215/folio, GMUX, and a lot of my other repositories around this time period are starting to have decent progressive development runs, and The Earth App is mostly stagnant from the viewpoint that it is either a "failed success" or a "prototype that was never going to be profitable." Both could be true. I created it for an award, then I won the award, then I tried to see if people would actually use it, and they largely don't - though that claim is weak, because most of the people on it are people I DMed over Instagram and forced them to download and use for 15 minutes. If anything, at least I know how to actually make a mobile application from scratch, properly make it performant and design it, the behavior rules when it comes to mobile UI/UX design, and the engineering behind push notifications, emails, stripe, and whatever else exists out there.

I'm also rollerblading and running a bit more, just to stay in shape. I'll be in the Shamrock Shuffle this year with my mom! So we'll see how this weekend plays out, and how the rest of the term comes, because I have this long-ass winterim period where I end around a day or two before Thanksgiving and come back in January. Toodles.