Yesterday I returned home from Dublin, where I’d flown for another work summit. Even though travel’s always exciting and my team accomplished a lot during the week, I am so happy to be back. My homesickness was fueled by a variety of things, from missing Coconut to the social exhaustion of being constantly “on.” Maybe it was just me, but I found it difficult to relax even at night, knowing that coworkers were in adjacent hotel rooms. Even something as simple as getting ice down the hall became a task: better change out of my PJs since I might run into someone…

Every trip away also reminds me of how little time I have left in Cambridge — I decided to not renew my lease, which means that my apartment will be shown to prospective renters as soon as this afternoon. When September 1st rolls around, I’m off to…well, I’m not sure. Or, I’m not entirely sure — it wouldn’t be like me to do zero planning for my digital nomad year, so I’ve got a few cities shortlisted! I’m gonna take it one step at a time, but for now I’m leaning towards Austin being my first city (of several). I’ve always wanted to explore Texas more, and I figured it’d be the easiest place to begin this adventure: an unfamiliar city in a familiar state.

Focusing on the here and now, though, I’ve got a string of fun updates! First, I got promoted, which flooded me with both excitement and major imposter syndrome. (I know, I know, I’m working on it. 😅) My official title doesn’t change ’til the end of the month, so it still hasn’t hit me completely, but when the self-doubt creeps in I try to remind myself that titles are a lagging metric at my company. This means that nothing needs to change about how I operate to “match” the title — the title matches what I’d been doing already. *deep breaths*

Second, Coconut’s been doing well, especially as it’s gotten warmer. Recently I launched “Operation Marshmallow” to get him to eat his meds. Before, he would find a way to spit out his pills even if they were coated in almond butter or wrapped in deli meat. Operation Marshmallow involved hiding the meds in mini marshmallows, which are actually safe for dogs to eat and so sticky that it’s harder for him to isolate the pills. While there were a few failed missions early on — I’ve learned there’s an art to stuffing marshmallows lol — he’s now taking his meds pretty consistently! (Also, c’mon, it’s really cute. When I left for Dublin, I pre-stuffed a bunch of them, and my caretaking notes for my boyfriend were along the lines of: “After every walk, feed Coconut three marshmallows from the jar…”)

Third, I’ve decided I want to re-learn history, which may seem vague but is actually exactly what it sounds like. History has been my weakest and least favorite subject my entire life, and I’ve always been embarrassed by this gap in my knowledge. (Yes, I took history in school, but I was always learning for the test. My retention post-exam was shockingly low.) The main reason I hated history growing up is because I’d be treated like an idiot when I didn’t know the answer to something. Learning from a place of fear or shame is not fun at all, so I’ve decided to structure my curriculum in a way that I’ll actually enjoy. That means letting go of all notions and expectations of what I “should have” known by now.

I was inspired by the 5 Levels of Difficulty videos by WIRED, in which an expert explains a concept to a child, teen, college student, grad student, and finally fellow expert. While I won’t be following the exact structure, I wanted my source material to similarly start out being super simple and get increasingly more complex and specialized. Here’s what I was planning to read, in order:

1. Everything You Need to Ace World History in One Big Fat Notebook: The Complete Middle School Study Guide. This is literally for middle schoolers! Again, I’m approaching learning with 👏 no 👏 shame 👏
2. Barron’s AP World History. Essentially the type of book I would’ve used in high school. These are mainly geared towards test prep, so I’ll only read the content summaries.
3. World History for Dummies. Ha!
4. Pop history books geared towards adults, like Sapiens and The Dawn of Everything.
5. Up to this point, the goal was to get multiple retellings of the “big picture” of world history. Now, I’d like to read books written by historians on specific periods or places. I already have certain areas of interest in mind, like the Texas Revolution, Vietnam War, and World War II.

I have no set timeline for re-learning history, just a desire to do it and take however long I need. I can’t wait to better understand the news (i.e. why is this latest development groundbreaking?), and I’m especially excited for how my appreciation of certain media will increase as a result. Just in the last year, I’ve seen several movies that didn’t take place in modern-day America, and each time I felt like I needed an explainer on what the context of the movie was. (The most recent example was when I watched The Lives Of Others, which takes place in East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell. I would’ve loved to have known more about the Stasi and hyper-surveillance going into the movie.) Feeling like I didn’t know enough history has also kept me from reading certain books or even thinking they could be of interest — that’s actually why I’d put off reading Pachinko for so long (it ended up being incredible, btw). No more of that, please! ✊

It’s getting late here, so I’ll end with my usual set of snapshots: icy bike stations (early February was cooooold); a relaxed morning spent cooking; cardamom buns I’d baked with a friend; pancakes I made today with no recipe (I was so proud of myself!); and a lil cuddle with Coconut.

🥳