one week (january 13, 2025)

A lot can happen in a week. In my personal life, I feel extremely lucky that there's nothing particularly eventful to report on. Because right now, it feels like everything that's eventful is so utterly horrible.

I wasn't planning on writing a journaling post, especially since I have actual academic writing that urgently needs to be finished, but I can't seem to get myself to start writing. So, maybe something low-stakes to build momentum might help.

These thoughts won't be organized — I don't feel like I have the energy or mental capacity to nicely tie everything together and make this post cohesive in any way. As always, this should just be treated as kind of a brain dump exercise where I simply put the first thing I think about on the page. In this particular moment, I find myself struggling to do even that, and it's extremely frustrating... it's like I have so much I want to say, but the words just aren't coming out. It's writer's block, as usual, except I think this is a result of being "out of practice" for... merely a month? I guess that is considered a long time in some ways. A lot has happened...

I spent this last month travelling, with most of my time spent in Asia. For about a week, I was in Indonesia for my cousin's wedding along with some rare family time with folks on my dad's side, and then I stayed in Taiwan for a bit over two weeks by myself. Surprisingly, even though I used to have a job where I flew around all the time (mostly within the US), this was the longest period of time I had spent by myself in a different country. The key here is the descriptor, "by myself," since I have travelled internationally before (not often, but a few times), but those times were with the accompaniment of friends or family (especially when I was much younger). In fact, I'd have to say that this was my first time in Taiwan on my own, which gave me quite a bit of anxiety as I was getting ready for the trip.

I have an endless amount of things to say about being in Indonesia and Taiwan, but mostly I'm just thankful that things went alright. There's a lot that could have gone wrong that I had been worried about, and luckily any small hiccup in the trip was relatively easy to deal with. I had a good time, which I find is a thought that I rarely have. I ate well, saw different things, tried to live in the moment, and kept my mind off work for a few weeks. It really was a vacation in a real sense, where I went at my own pace, rested when I needed to, and still enjoyed all the things that I set out to enjoy. Even in the moments where it was unbearably hot and humid (Indonesia was still around 80+ degrees with 90%+ humidity), I felt really in tune with my body and the moment, filled with a sense of thanks that I'm still here, still alive, still feeling things.

Because a lot of people aren't, anymore. So many people have died, whether from sickness from ongoing failures in global health, or from a continued genocide that will only stop once all of Palestine is completely wiped out. I felt spoiled to be "on vacation" when all of this continues to happen. I acknowledge that we all deserve times to rest, but I know I haven't done enough to justify rest. Does everyone need to do enough to deserve rest? (My therapist in my head asks me.) No, but it's not as if I haven't been rested throughout the year already. All I do is go to class, read, and write papers — my life is pretty incredibly restful at this moment.

The time between 2019 and 2021 gave me quite a bit of perspective. I won't go into it here, but I remember many of those moments clearly. From struggling to get out of bed in my cold Fruitvale apartment, to taking orders at the local Taiwanese restaurant for hours on end... being able to just sit at home or in the office and think about research is such a privilege, such a luxury. I don't take this for granted, and while there are moments of incredible stress that still arise, I remind myself that it's not all that bad at all compared to so much of the stress and struggle I've faced over the years. It just simply... isn't. Writing papers and being worried I could fail out of the PhD program is definitely stressful, and a PhD program is absolutely no joke, but I guess I'm at a point in my life where... I realize it's just not something that bothers or worries me that deeply. There have been moments of intense emotion and pain — and yeah, I did end up in a psych ward for a bit over a week in 2023 at the peak of it — but I hold onto these struggles from the past to remind myself that I can still keep going in the future. That I have the means and the strength (or even, the laziness) to continue on. (Because sometimes it's more work to give up.)

I face another obstacle this weekend, which is trying to get over my writer's block to revise a paper and submit it for publication. I'm a week behind on my edits, and the abstract needs to be submitted by this Wednesday. There's a lot that needs to be fixed, including re-running some of the statistical analyses (luckily all the data is there) and deciding on more concise and tractable interpretations to make from those results. I should have spent time in Asia working on this, but perhaps the few weeks completely away from any and all academic work will prove to be better (more sustainable) in the long-run. Or maybe I've really made a mistake in not practicing any of my writing right before I'm tasked with doing a pretty hefty revision to a paper that wasn't that great at all. In any case, the local stress continues, but I have to remind myself that I've got this.

The more serious things on my mind right now are about the SoCal fires, the crumbling of our social media infrastructures, and the huge political shift that's set to come into full effect in a week. I've been seeing endless takes online about all of these, but it just sounds like a cacophany to me at this point. What are we actually doing beyond talking and giving our hot takes? What am I doing?

Before I feel comfortable speaking more in depth on any of these things, I want to do more, first. This is a moment where the actions are more important. But against all the endless GoFundMe's and the powerlessness of being simply a user on these social media platforms... it feels futile... if we go at it alone. This is a moment where collective action is needed more than ever. We need things to change, and I want to be more intentional with figuring out in what role I can best contribute to a collective cause. I think it's time for me to get far more serious about this social media co-op idea, but I'm still extremely unsure of the impact that will make (not only in the sense of whether it will have impact at all, but whether it will be positive impact).

Who knows what emerging challenges will continue to come about this year. It all just seems like a lot, but who knows what's to come? A lot can happen in a week.