I mentioned I might in 2026 but things were moved up. This was decided a month or two ago, I just didn't update on here.

So yeah. Surprise!

Just came back from a business trip in Japan a couple weeks ago. It was also my first time in Japan. It was amazing! My Japanese coworker was afraid for some reason that I would be disappointed. But nope, I'm actually even more excited now.

The role I'll be taking on is global-facing, and so I'll interface with CTOs from various group companies in different countries (including some international business trips). So I won't be in an engineering role, but adjacent. More like strategy for global engineering efforts.

So my career is now at a point right now where it might really start to accelerate if I make the right moves.

It's a little bit overwhelming.

... Thanks to the assistance of AI. Honestly, without it, I'm not sure if I would have been able to do it. Having my textbooks read to me while doing other things. Summarizing key points. Helping me sift through >25 page long research articles. Generating practice questions for exams. Etc. It really helped while working full-time and learning Japanese. (And also relearning how to study after 6 years.)

Part of the struggle is realizing which chapters I need to read directly for the homework and shifting around my catch-up schedule a bit. But it's also just a lot so I'm trying not to burn out.

I didn't meet all of my plans, but I was smart enough to schedule in miscellaneous catch-up times for myself ahead of time. Well, I didn't do much of anything yesterday (its own story) so that is going to come in handy. Plus, I don't explicitly schedule catch-up time during lunch but that's usually available to me, too.

*deep inhale* It's all good.

I'm still on track to be fully caught up by next weekend.

I only scheduled ~2 weeks in advance. But basically once I'm caught up I'll have 1 week still of slightly brutal catch-up from the catch-up (because new material is still churning out!). But after that my goal is to pre-read on the weekends and just review before the lecture on that topic.

My classes vary between 1-2 chapters a week for each of my 2 classes (sometimes multiple partial chapters which is a little confusing). They seem to be 15-25 pages each so I basically have anywhere from 30 to 100 pages to read per week (as a part-time student). I could go do the math to find out the real amount but I'd rather not waste the time lol.

I had to relearn to study again. Partially because I graduated from undergrad about 6 years ago (kudos to anyone still here lol). But also because grad school is a different beast. I'm really trying to prioritize understanding and taking good notes because everything is open book anyway.

So I don't really have to memorize anything, per se. But overall it does directly benefit me to take good notes (1) to make the open book exam easier and (2) so I can reference them in my job, which my courses are highly relevant for now.

But remember, good notes aren't necessarily pretty. They don't need to be at all. And I'm certainly not putting in any special effort to make them pretty unless it directly assists understanding.

It's funny. I wanted to start making studyblr type of content again (probably mainly on Instagram) but since I do everything on my computer it is kinda boring to look at haha. I was actually thinking of upgrading my iPad (mine is a 2017 Pro) because I saw a lot of good content on mindmapping for grad school. That might be cooler to look at, but I'm thinking about it so that's not the only reason I get one haha

~ be a financially responsible adult ~

So I should be on a normal schedule for grad school in about 3 weeks. Which sounds shocking. But I have limited time outside of work and I'm utilizing as much of it as I can. So you can imagine how brutal grad school can be, especially part-time.

Sigh.

Last night I spent some time time-blocking my calendar to figure out when I would need to study to catch up on grad school work. I should be able to catch up by next weekend and get a little ahead by the weekend after ("ahead" in this context meaning I read the chapter and whatnot before the class).

I did fail to wake up early today. Maybe it is the lingering sleep debt/rhythm from last week or maybe it was the warm purring cat. Or... staying up a bit late to plan. Idk.

However, I did the work I was planning to do in the morning during my lunch at work and managed to finish the assignment I was working on tonight in 30 mins less time than I anticipated, even with breaks (though I also started a little later).

I have some "catch-up" time scheduled in and am trying to leave lunch breaks open so I have that extra hour, if needed. I tried to give myself reasonable breaks, but they are shorter for this first week.

I have been using ChatGPT and other tools like Speechify to read my books aloud for some study assistance. I use it to help me with things I already know/studied or answer clarifying questions. So I'll read the book and ask a clarifying question on the topic or double-check my homework after doing it manually. It's very similar to asking a tutor. And I still have to be able to explain it myself, so I'll quiz myself on these topics, too.

Obviously the point is to learn, not to cheat. Especially now that I'm doing a degree where I know directly how everything I'm learning will apply to my job, unlike undergrad where it was occasionally hard to care because some things seemed irrelevant.

Plus, it's probably super obvious if someone puts 0 effort into the work and just asks AI.

Honestly, though, I've gotten the impression that a lot of my professors are pretty old school and don't even understand things like literature citation graphs or AI tools. Using these tools properly is a required skill for the future of work, so it's better to use them properly than throw your hands up.

MS in Psychology, Human Factors, all paid for by my company. The university does have on-campus students (which I got to meet in-person the first week of classes), but they also have a fully remote option which I'm doing since I don't live in the state.

One unintended downside, though, is that all the assignments are due at 2:59am in my timezone. Or midnight in the school's timezone. Gotta be more mindful to make sure I don't confuse Friday at 3am with Friday night, because it's actually Thursday night. Yikes.

But at any rate, I'm a bit behind right now. In part because I was doing a projection arts festival last week which was all-day-everyday kind of work. It was something I already committed to in advance. But luckily one of my classes last week was cancelled for Labor Day and this week my other professor cancelled both classes for a conference. So I have some time to catch up.

But damn, the reading in grad school is no joke.

I've stripped away pretty much all of my other optional responsibilities at this point. I stopped mentoring sessions, I am no longer organizing Discord stuff for the communities I'm involved in (which were semi-professional). I'm really making an effort to put grad school first.

However, I also was told I'm on the short list for a work exchange program in Japan in 2026. So language-wise, I'm only focusing on Japanese. And, of course, not at the expense of grad school. It's easy to immerse in anime (but I have to avoid watching too much) and I have some videos that are perfect to listen to while driving to review what I'm learning.

I'm still trying to figure out how to organize my time the best, though.

So one thing I want to prioritize once I equilibrate back to normal sleeping times this week (not going to bed at 7am when the sun comes up for the festival) is waking up early. I would like the opportunity to do a little bit of school work before I go to work in the morning. Maybe go to the gym for a little bit. Whatever I can do to put myself in the right place to get more done early, then I can have a little free time when I get home to decompress before I go to sleep.

It's good.

I do get a little anxious about it sometimes. I'm trying to deliver some content that no one else is really doing. It can give me a little bit of imposter syndrome here and there. But I try to remind myself that I don't have to be perfect. If I'm helping and not giving out false or misinformation of any kind, doing it imperfectly is ok.

I've realized through this process that I both know more than I give myself credit and also don't feel like I know anything. Lol. It's humbling to say the least. But not necessarily in a bad way. Sometimes it's just hard to know what to focus on next when there's so much I could be doing. There's a lot to learn.

Just sometimes it feels a little ironic that I struggle to know what I should do next, and yet I'm helping other people with that.

I think I've just hit that stage where I'm not a beginner but I'm not advanced either. So I'm stuck in that awkward intermediate phase where you aren't skilled enough to just focus on the gaps.

And I don’t mean specifically because of the first episode. Although don’t get me wrong; the first episode is absolutely horrific to the point where that boilerplate “viewer discretion is advised” warning feels wholly insufficient.

Watching the scene in Season 2 of Quintessential Quintuplets where their classmates can't tell them apart because they have the same face (even though they have different hair) reminded me of being in school.

I'm a fraternal twin (i.e., definitely don't have the same face, body type, or even hair type as my sister) and yet people would confuse us all the time. Despite looking like regular siblings (and not even the type of siblings that look scarily alike despite being years apart).

After that, we walked to a restaurant downtown for Spanish-style tapas. And it was incredible. Good food and even better dessert (it was just sweet enough, very flavorful... something that's usually hard to come by in the US).

I sent in the box some time in early February. And apparently, the estimated processing time is in... end of May. 11 weeks processing time.

Would have been nice to know when their policies require items for a particular season. The season they asked for clothing for will be pretty much over by the time they even open the box I sent them.

If I can at least recover the processing fee, that'd be the bare minimum. But if I can't even do that I'll consider clothes recycling options instead in the future.

I don't actually buy that much clothing nowadays. But people like to gift me clothing (either my family during Christmas or my husband's family whenever we come to visit once a year) and so I unintentionally start to collect more of it against my will.

Overall, though, I'd really like to get to a point where laundry is not a battle. I'm experimenting with wearing only lilac clothing for professional events (may seem extreme, but it has worked to make people remember me) and I like that my professional event wardrobe is so simple.

I'm in a catch-22 where I want to leave but in order to do that, I need to have completed enough of the right type of work to do something like a portfolio presentation. I'm working on one right now and I'll be doing a mock presentation with a FAANG UXR tomorrow. So how that goes will determine short-term next steps.

I realized today that for all of my research life, I've been an island. Always in small places trying to do big things, usually by myself (partially because of my personality, but also because my research topics were usually a bit outside of peoples' expertise). Even in this endeavor, I'm still an island. My department "functions" on mostly individual projects with collaboration as needed, but it's minimal.

My boss confirmed that the type of work I do, while important and useful, is technically on a negative topic that doesn't exactly look good for the company. So obviously, I can't share it. He didn't exactly shoot down the idea of trying to discuss general topics with non-competitors in the industry but didn't exactly encourage it, either.

Even when I try to collaborate, I'm left as an island. Again.

I'm just sick of it. I'd like to finally be able to join a competent team that can actually work together, especially on topics that I'm usually the sole expert on.

Sometimes it feels good to be a big fish in a small pond, but honestly, I'm well over it. If I land my next job in a big company, that brand recognition would be more than enough. I'd still have to prove myself to them, but perhaps less to the outside world.

:s