As I write this, I’m scrolling through my camera roll to refresh my memory of the past few weeks. June has been quite the eventful month, to say the least. Honestly, it started out rough—I had some difficult but necessary conversations that gave me both clarity and closure. And then, in the most perfect timing ever (not being sarcastic!), things got really busy…and really fun.

The second week of June, my company hosted its first in-person conference since the pandemic! It was internal-only, and they flew in a ton of remote employees for the week. I got to meet several of my coworkers who I’d previously only seen through Zoom, and the week was filled with team-building activities, free food, lawn games, and plain ol’ goofing off. The whole purpose of the conference was to foster togetherness, and we definitely met that goal.

It also made me want to go into the office more! Despite the shakeups in my personal life, I wasn’t feeling as down as I’d expected to because I was 1) really distracted, and 2) just having a great time with my coworkers. Socializing in-person was more tiring than I’d remembered—a seemingly universal sentiment, as this was a common topic of conversation throughout the week—and by the end of each day, I was simply too drained to dwell on the past. In general, I realized that the distraction-free nature of WFH really lends itself to rumination, and I was more than happy to put an end to that.

A few snapshots from the week, pictured below: high-tech rapid PCR tests that my company provided to ensure the conference didn’t become a super-spreader event, my new “corporate” headshots, overnight oats (one of the breakfast options they catered—I was such a fan!), fully-stocked snack drawers in the HQ kitchens, and my #lewk for the end-of-conference party that took place at Boston’s House of Blues 🎸

At 5:30 AM the day after the conference ended (aka last Saturday), Coconut and I were in the Boston Logan airport to begin our journey to Texas. Irving—specifically, my grandparents’ house—will be our home for the next 2.5 weeks, after which I fly to NYC.

While it was difficult to be fully remote again after such a fun week in the office, I’m happy to be home. I’ve really enjoyed spending time with my family, driving down familiar roads, and eating delicious Vietnamese food (à la Grandma and Grandpa Le). Everything feels a lot simpler here.

The Texas sun has been scorching, though. I feel like Boston has lowered my heat tolerance, and the humidity here (when did Dallas become humid!?) has made it feel even worse. I’ve had to be strategic about my morning runs, as it’s already in the mid-80s before 8 AM. I’ve shortened my distances, lowered my pace, and been extra careful to only go down streets with a decent tree canopy.

I’m also so glad I gave Coconut a haircut before coming here, as long fur in this weather would’ve been unbearable. His short cut also makes him look like a puppy! 🐶

One last thing I’ve been trying to fine-tune during my time here is my schedule. Now that my summer class—”Advanced Operating Systems”—has begun, I’ve had to once again think about how to carve out time for grad school. In Boston, I maintained a pretty limiting schedule, which involved waking up at 5:30 AM and sleeping by 9:30 PM. It was great for school, exercise, Coconut, and work….but not my social life. I was either rescheduling or straight-up turning down invitations to fun events that would’ve ended past my bedtime (which, honestly, most would), and that was not ideal.

In this stage of my life, I really want to invest in my Boston community: doing local activities, forming a local friend group, etc. I hadn’t really done that in years past due to various reasons—the pandemic, a long-distance relationship—and now that I can, I’m itching to catch up. So as much as I wanna excel in this grad program, I’ve also decided that I’m not gonna let it eat up all my free time.

Below is the schedule I’m trying out now:

• 6:15 AM: Wake up.
• 6:30-8 AM: Study / work on grad class.
• 8:15-9 AM: Run / exercise.
• 9-9:30 AM: Walk Coconut.
• 9:30-10 AM: Shower, eat breakfast (if WFH — there’s food at the office), commute if needed.
• 10 AM: Start work.
• 10:30 PM: Sleep.

I’ve been following this schedule for the last three days, and it’s worked out pretty well. Given, it’s pretty easy to get to bed on time—my schedule here is much less busy than in Boston—and I haven’t had to worry about commuting.

I’m also slightly nervous about the 90-minute slot for studying, since that’s half an hour less than what I was doing before. My current class requires lots of programming in C, which I was never good at and haven’t touched since sophomore (?) year of college. Professionally, I’ve only ever had to code in Java and a little bit of Python, so relearning how pointers and memory allocation works has been a journey. We’ll see how things go though! I’ll adjust as needed.

Anyways, I’ll end this rather long update with a shot of Mustang Park from a few days ago. I hadn’t been since high school, so it was neat to visit again—my mom and I have actually been walking the dogs there after dinner most nights, which I’ve really enjoyed.

Until next time! 👋