January

• I woke up in a small cabin in Grandson, where I'd decided to spend the week before New Year's alone, since my previous New Year's plans had involved my ex. It was peaceful and scratched my much-needed itch for a change of scenery, but I did start to feel lonely.
• January 1st marked the first day in almost one and a half years not sending a daily poll. This felt fine until the end of January, when I noticed I missed my polls and didn't have a coherent reason for ending them.
• On January 5th, I went to Casa Tilo in Spain—a coliving community/retreat center I found through the 'tpot' network on Twitter. I spent about two weeks there, and it really was lovely. I felt like my nervous system relaxed and remained at a steady level for the first time in many, many months. The change of scenery again just felt so good. There weren't that many people there (six when I arrived) and by the last week, it was just me alone with the couple that ran the place (Rich & Nati). I felt quite shy and awkward at times and ended up spending a lot of time reflecting on why I tend to feel so awkward. An interesting experience was doing a one-on-one circling session with a circling facilitator, where I kind of live-recounted how awkward I felt, and how constantly self-aware I was of where I was looking, the amount of eye contact I should be giving, what I should be saying, etc.
• A lovely outcome of being in Spain and having no work to do was that I actually kickstarted some habits that felt genuinely good. I started running again for the first time in years (and did not cough up blood!), I started meditating daily again, I started doing my morning pages each day. This felt super nice, and all these habits ended up continuing throughout January.
• I also started reading again—I read six books and also discovered my new favourite book, "The Hour of the Star."
• The Visa phrase "what you do is what you do" became somewhat of a motto for me this month. I'd be laying on the carpet, thinking, "Should I go for a run?" And then I'd tell myself, "What you do is what you do. If you go on a run you are someone who runs. If you stay on the carpet you are someone who stays on the carpet." And this was incredibly motivating.
• I had submitted my first two master's applications while in Grandson, then finished the next two in Spain and submitted them once home. All the programs lie at some intersection of computational social science, sociology, and human behavior. I got accepted to UCL already, which is nice.
• At the end of January, I expectedly started to panic about my master's choices and decided that AI would basically automate all of data science (even though I still believe there is room for people who know how to use the tools and ask interesting questions, and that going to school will remain valuable purely for a change of scenery, to meet new people, etc.). But I decided that with this whole AGI thing, maybe something related to AI societal impacts or ethics might be more pertinent. So I decided to submit two more applications in February.
• I fell a bit in love with Claude Code. After many attempts of setting up a blog, first on Wordpress, then with Replit, Claude and I ended up building a much better iteration together on github/netlify/decapbridge. The process of building this blog, and iterating through bugs together, was the first time I felt like I was in a genuine flow state in years!? I loved it. Being reacquainted with how good it feels to "build something" is maybe the biggest takeaway of this month.
• I also started trying to build a Chrome extension called "AlgoSwitch" that would, in theory, let you experience the YouTube algorithms of hundreds of different hand-crafted user personas. This was slightly less fun than the blog-building process, because I started running into far more complex bugs, but I am still excited about it.
• I did try to actually finish a bunch of my unfinished blog posts, but keep getting stuck here. I wrote a twenty-page draft of my polling blog post, which has been in the works for maybe several years now, but after feedback from my brother made me realize the piece was far too bloated, I kind of left it to the wayside. I really don't want to let this go. I have like seven blog posts in mind and hope to actually make more progress in February.
• I started this MITx course called 'Data Analysis for Social Scientists.' The rationale was something like: hey, you learned this stuff five years ago in undergrad, and it might be good to brush up on these skills before your master's. But I pretty quickly started to feel unmotivated, because (a) learning R felt useless because Claude can literally do everything now, and (b) I caught myself doing this thing where I optimized for completion rather than actually understanding the material, and this left me feeling deeply unsatisfied. I eventually switched to actually sitting with the questions and trying to answer them, and that actually ended up feeling good. I need to use the logical part of my brain more. But I still decided that this was not my priority—this was me hedging for making my CV more legible, and I really wanted to first focus on doing things that genuinely light me up. I don't want to feel like I'm doing homework for eight months.
• I got a desk! I went to Ikea with my mom to redecorate my room back home, as I will be living with my parents likely for at least a few months, until or if I decide to go travel. Having a space that feels good, with good lighting, helped a lot. Unfortunately, this lasted maybe a week, and then the claustrophobia began to kick in again. I do think I ultimately will not find whatever it is I am looking for in Geneva, and really hope I end up getting away at least for a few months somewhere.
• I signed up for Chômage, met my Chômage officer (who is very kind, luckily), and started filling out a bunch of forms. I think I spent an entire day on paperwork. I also started applying to my mandatory two jobs a week—and focused on sending out mediocre applications so that I do not actually get a job. I am apparently going to be signed up for intensive French lessons, but am still waiting to hear when they start.
• In the process of doing these semi-fake job applications, I spent time updating my CV. It was strange: when I looked at it alone, I actually felt proud of myself. I do not think my CV is legibly impressive by any means—I've worked at small non-profits and have gaps in my employment and a pretty random bachelor's degree—but I just felt like hey, you did do some stuff. But then I ended up asking Claude for his opinion and started spiralling about my own mediocrity and what a failure I was and this was terrible and the lesson is: STOP OUTSOURCING YOUR THINKING TO OTHERS. FEEL WHAT YOU FEEL.
• Claude did point out to me that the deeper reason I stress about my career is because the things that I have done do not represent the things I would like to be doing or am truly interested in. This seems apt.
• In doing my fake job search, I also felt quite sad about the types of jobs available to me, especially here in Geneva. So many random social media officer jobs gated by needing a master's degree in communications—which is, frankly, retarded. Europe is far too rigid, and I hate it.
• I cancelled a trip to Munich and Berlin—Munich to visit my brother and Berlin to visit my friend Alex, with whom I am building an app—due to Chômage appointments back home. It is technically illegal to travel while on unemployment, but in retrospect, I could have easily gone and still fulfilled my obligations. So this was an interesting exercise in understanding how much I value my Swiss citizenship.
• On the personal end, I muddled through what I assume are the final stages of a breakup, met up with some friends here and there, rekindled a friendship with V, and continued making friends with C. I did not do therapy this month, because I felt like autumn had therapied me out, and I was in a stage of needing to live, not analyze. I literally texted my therapist that I didn't think I had anything to say. That felt nice. I think this is already changing, though.
• I helped my grandma reorganize her entire password system. Reflected on the state of being an elderly person, and what I would want if I were her.
• I remembered that I was in fact on a gap year and should think about what I want to do, so I started a 'time off doc'—and then this became incredibly stressful, because I started trying to turn this gap year into a to-do list of things that could be legibly impressive on my CV in a year's time. I decided to still reflect on some overarching intentions and goals and keep a running list of potential project ideas, but overall, trust myself to follow my curiosity week by week.
• I had a few big aha moments early in the month, where I observed my body and mind as they went through (a) really bad instances of deep jealousy and (b) a daylong instance of feeling deeply unsettled panic. I basically watched my emotions from a godlike perspective, and distancing myself from them made me see that they really do eventually end. This aha moment was hard to recreate at the end of January, where I had a few really bad days of just completely breaking down and crying all day - about my breakup, about how lost I felt in life. It is so painful, and there is no way out but to sit through it.
• I think finding joy through building this website, and writing, and reading my new favourite book—all reminded me that life could be filled with beauty and things I enjoy doing. I just really have to keep noticing and keep trying.