What do you think about when you shower…? I cancel my snooze and walk zombie-like to my bathroom. Stumbling with blurry vision, I turn the knob in the shower and wait for the water to heat up. As I stand waiting, I walk over to the sink and stuff my contact lenses awkwardly in my puffy eyes. With my vision restored, I open Spotify, put “daily mix 1” on a shuffle, and step in. ...

First Look “Burning out.” When I search online on the etymology of burnout, I get something like the following: Burn until fuel is exhausted […] meaning “mental exhaustion from continuous effort”. When we examine this a layer deeper, we notice two things: Fuel is replenishable, but the most critical component in burnout. You spend fuel with effort. Throughout my life, this definition resonated. However, I don’t think I knew what real burnout was—and how it felt—until last year. ...

first period - pages 374 - 382. second - the three-page worksheet. third - two projects, one due next Friday. fourth - … I had so much confidence in my memory that I never wrote anything down; I could conjure all my assignments on cue. This was in high school. Once I entered college, I began tracking things more carefully. With some assignments and tests making up 20-30% of the entire grade, I couldn’t afford to make a silly mistake, especially with how much busier I became. Still, I rarely took detailed notes in class. To be clear, I always listened attentively—notes just weren’t all that helpful. ...

When I first started recognizing imposter syndrome myself, I found a lot of “help” online with encouragements like: “Overcome it” – healthline “Combat it” – Ted-Ed For a while, I thought it made sense; just like any problem, it certainly felt like there was something to overcome. Yet, even after reading these articles and temporarily feeling lifted, the dreadful feelings still lingered. Since then, I’ve found what imposter syndrome really meant – and came to realize that our society unabashedly demonizes imposter syndrome. Indeed, it’s often seen as a source of unnecessary anxiety that impedes progress. Those who experience it are also told they’re infallible! I’ve seen so many encouragements like this online: “You’re just not giving yourself credit! You just need to believe, because you’re good enough!” ...

NFT != Digital Art. It’s true–you can create GIFS or a portrait of an alien worth $140 million, but that’s not the point. Currently, I’d argue most NFTs fall into two categories (I won’t go into details here but let’s be honest, it’s mostly true): A cash-grab sponsored by celebrities, 12 year olds, random people on Twitter, etc. Money laundering. Yet, it’s so. much. more. CryptoPunks Let’s start with CryptoPunks. Why is this pixelated alien on the market for $140 million dollars? ...

I have an odd fantasy; what if I were locked in a room with nothing but books, a notebook, and pen for 2 weeks? Maybe a month…? Why would anyone put themselves through some voluntary solitary confinement? The reasoning is simple: I want to be stripped of all other choices but to read, learn, and analyze. Why? Because I find that I’m easily distracted when I read–even though reading has given me unbelievable returns on my investment. ...

What? I want to try two new things this month: Record how I’m utilizing my time (Attempt) to spend an hour each morning doing nothing. Why? For a couple weeks now, I’ve realized my mind’s been rather unfocused and scattered–likely due to my spending a large part of the day on and off social media. I’m hoping this will help me re-ground myself and help organize my “monkey-brain.” I’ve also been curious as to how I’m actually using my time, rather than how I perceive to be using it. Finally, it’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while. ...

When my parents call me asking about X, I know we’ve reached the critical inflection point of a bubble. Yesterday, GameStop was exactly that. I’m not going to focus on the details of Short-Squeeze, Melvin Capital, and the history of reddit user DFV since a simple Google search can give you more information than what I can provide. Instead, I’ll be talking about my views on the ordeal and how our future markets could be re-shaped by the recent turn of events. ...

It’s your first week of “real” computer science courses (none of the if statements or for loops). You walk into your class and on the board–your professor has written: Polymorphism. You take a seat close to the front and he begins– “Today, we’ll learn about one of the most fundamental principles of Object-Oriented-Programming; Polymorphism” A classic example follows: public interface Animal { String name() void speak() } public class Dog implements Animal { private String name; public Dog(final String name) { this.name = name; } public String name() { return this.name; } public void speak() { System.out.Println("Woof"); } } public class Cat implements Animal { private String name; public Cat(final String name) { this.name = name; } public String name() { return this.name; } public void speak() { System.out.Println("Meow"); } } At this point, you can sort-of see the how this can apply to “programming.” Either way, it makes perfect sense; a dog IS an animal and a cat IS an animal. In fact, starting from this point on, it becomes ingrained in your mind that all abstractions are an “IS-A” relationship. ...