Also, the specific footwork and way you move is very very important. That is what has caused me the most issues, everything is much more specific than I am used to, and even though I think I’m doing it correctly, I always get called out for the way my feet are pointed not parallel, too close together, or that I’m using my right hand too much. But it’s still fun and the people are nice, which adds to my social circle. The only thing that I would change is that practices end at 9 or 9:30pm and I live far from campus, so I get home late and eat even later. I do see myself doing this long term, and hopefully all the stuff I keep focusing on now will become second nature soon.

Sunset at Kits Beach, Vancouver, B.C.

Vibrant Sunset over the Hudson River, West Village, NYC

Sunset from a friend's apartment, Vancouver, B.C.

Sunset from a high rise in the financial district, Manhattan, NYC

Sunset from Jericho Beach Park, Vancouver, B.C.

Sunset at the University at Buffalo, North Campus. Amherst, N.Y.

Vibrant, but clouded, Sunset over the Hudson River, West Village, NYC

Sunset from the Rose Garden, University of British Columbia. Vancouver, B.C.

Sunset and the Little Island. Chelsea, NYC

Hopefully I didn’t doo too bad in taking these.

I’ve put a few quotes in the quotes page of this site, but I think my favorites have been my Advanced Computational Linguistics Professor (600 level class) professor go, “literally any reason you email me that’s not “I don’t feel like coming to campus today” will count as an excused absence, and my Introduction to Graduate Studies Professor going, “emailing professors for research opportunities is like dating apps. If all you say is ‘whats up’ then you’re not going to get anywhere”.

So far my class on CS pedagogy, while it could be useful and on a high level is interesting, does seem the most boring. It might be that I don’t really plan to teach in my future, and I’m still getting used to reading research papers. This second point is the most time consuming part for me since I don’t know how to pick out the most important pieces of the paper, and then I have to reflect and synthesize the information as part of my grade. So far we’ve only read four papers and two seem to be on basically the same thing. I really hope we do get some moe variety.

I do feel the pressure this semester, mainly because of TAing Operating Systems. I don’t really remember a lot of the material, which is going to be tough when I hold office hours and field questions about the project. What I’ve been trying to do is study the material so that I can try and be on top of it. I’m also informally auditing the theory class to prep for next semester, which adds another thing I need to do. I think that after this semester everything will be better (at least I’ll have less threads pulling me in different directions).

But I did find some time to explore Elmwood Village, which is the neighborhood where I live. Ask anybody I know and they’ll be able to tell you how little I enjoyed living in Buffalo the last time I was here (for my masters degree) but I’ve found several good coffee shops and places to eat around here.

I do have some qualms about my apartment: the kitchen sink is comically small (I’m trying to make due with a dishbin on a rolling cart), the fridge is a bit too small so I can’t food prep (I bought a second fridge), and the floors are uneven. I think I can make due but I’m hoping the first floor apartment will open up so I can move down. It is pretty easy to get to campus (only like 20 minutes), and this apartment is a really good deal, but I’m unsure if I can stay here for multiple years. I’ll keep an eye out and hope a similar price apartment opens up at some point (even if that means the hassle of moving).

• French Roast Ethiopian Harrar
• New Orleans Coffee with Chicory
• Moca Java
• French Roast Mexican Altura Coatepec
• French Roast China Yunnan
• Porto Rico Importing’s Cafe Blend
• Santo Domingo

I also tried a bunch of more commercial brands you can typically find in various supermarkets:

• Trader Joe’s Medium Roast
• Trader Joe’s Dark Roast
• Trader Joe’s Bolivian Blend
• Kicking Horse Three Sisters
• Kicking Horse Kick Ass
• Kicking Horse Grizzly Claw
• La Colombe Corsica
• La Colombe Nizza
• La Colombe Monaco
• Santo Domingo Coffee
• Oslo Coffee Odin Espresso Blend

And I tried a few other ones:

• Kopi Luwak
• Kismet Coffee Dunewood Roast

So far my absolute favorite beans have been the French Roast Mexican Coatepec, but out of the ones from supermarkets I think the La Colombe Monaco or Kicking Horse Three Sisters or Grizzly Claw. These are good in a Moka Pot but for cold brew which uses a much higher amount of coffee at once I really like the trader joe’s medium roast because it has a good flavor and a good price compared to the others.

Once there we did some “sightseeing” around the town (a very small town with maybe like 20 businesses) before going over to the whale museum. We decided to drive around the island for a bit and ended up all just taking a nap in the car in the parking lot of a national park on the island. To me it says a lot that a group of people that had just met were comfortable enough with each other that we could all just sleep (and snore) around each other within a few hours of meeting.

THe last thing we did before heading back to the island was the main selling point of the trip by the organizer: nachos. To be honest none of the food on the island looked to be that amazing, but the organizer did a really good job of selling the nachos from this sports bar on the island. To be honest they were pretty good, maybe partly because of the anticipation but also just the company. Overall a very fun trip and a very college experience: going on an adventure for some random thing with a bunch of people.

Throughout middle and high school I think there was a small mismatch between what I really enjoyed and what I was better at. While I enjoyed science (and to an extent math), I think I was more gifted in the humanities. Even during my time during the international baccalaureate in high school, I spent less time studying for them (and less time overall) but did really well. I think my highest grade was in english, outdoing my predicted score given to me by my teacher.

My high school was also kind of a mess in the math and science departments, which left me severely behind in math: I never took any sort of geometry, and was apparently supposed to learn some level of calculus but never really did. I also never took chemistry, I was supposed to take some in 10th grade but the teacher (a diehard physicist) taught us the bare minimum and then went straight back to physics. However, despite this I still somehow arrived at the University of British Columbia wanting to major in Biochemistry. However this all changed during my first chemistry class. While this has been changed since then (for the better), at the time my only option was to take chem 111, which was designed to “catch up” students by a crash course of high school chemistry, then all of first semester college chemistry (chem 121) in the same time that those who already took chemistry in high school got to take chem 121. This seemed to be somewhat punishing us by making us learn basically 3 semesters of chemistry (1 at the college level) in 1 semester, while those who had taken chemistry had the relatively easier (not easy, its still college) task of just 1 semester’s worth of chemistry in the same time period.

That coupled with the fact that I also had to struggle through Calc 1 ended up with me dropping chem and having to reevaluate my life (or so it felt). I also had the added stress of being in the faculty of arts and wanting to transfer to faculty of science, where I thought I would have a better chance. This proved basically impossible for someone in my situation due to my abysmal performance in calc 1, and I was stuck with trying to find a major in arts that I liked. I did get lucky that my schedule was a more science-y one, and that my parents pushed me to take CPSC 110: intro to computer science in my second semester, which I ended up really enjoying.

However, I did have one small problem: getting into the Computer Science major at UBC is a herculean task, where you need an A average to have a chance at getting in, and because of my performance in Calc 1 and 2 this was never going to happen. Thats when I learned of the Cognitive Systems major, which combined Computer Science, Psychology, Linguistics, and Philosophy and I decided to aim for that. I was able to get in (again not a guarantee there were 60 slots in arts and who knows how many applicants). This allowed me to focus on trying to get as many computer science electives as possible due to the way the major was set up, and also basically cherry pick all the interesting sounding classes from the other disciplines.

When I was in my last year I started thinking about what I wanted to do in the future, and realized that I wanted to pursue a career in Computer Science but with my lack of internships (somewhat due to the Covid Pandemic) and how hard it was to get into some CS classes, I would need more school. This led me to enroll in a masters of computer science and the University at Buffalo. I didn’t end up getting an internship again and started reaching out to professors to see what research I could do (trying to earn some money and build my resume). I really enjoyed the research I was doing and continued through the next school year (and part time afterwards while I searched for a job). This research was exactly up my alley, approaching the social sciences from a computational perspective.

The job search process continued to be tough, an I applied to about 1000 jobs unsuccessfully and only getting two interviews. I did get an internship through a family connection doing data analysis (cleaning, distributions, etc) but this got repetitive rather quickly and I got bored. I didn’t stop partially out of a sense of obligation of not wanting to jump ship first, and that I didn’t have anything better to do. However, at the push of my advisor I applied an accepted a PhD position at the University at Buffalo.

This isn’t to say that I would have jumped on a PhD with just anybody or in any area of Computer Science, I did think rather carefully about who I wanted to work with when initially applying to research assistant positions, and got lucky with how nice and supportive my advisor is. Also, I would encourage any readers considering a PhD to try working between undergrad and starting a PhD if at all possible, it gives you something to compare against. Ideally this should be in your field, or at least somewhat related. When you’re comparing studying what you like with flipping burgers or something then the choice may be easier. For people like me it may push you back to school, but for others it may have the opposite effect.

• The Americas
  • Cuba
    • Havana
    • Viñales
    • Trindad
  • Canada
    • Vancouver (5 years in university)
    • Kelowna
    • Victoria
    • Whistler
    • Toronto
    • Telegraph Cove
    • Ottowa
    • Montreal
  • Dominican Republic
    • Santo Domingo
    • Moca
    • Santiago
    • Jarabacoa
    • Manabao
    • La Romana
    • Punta Cana
    • Pedernales and Cabo Rojo
  • United States
    • New York City (born and raised)
    • Boston
    • Providence, RI
    • Amherst, MA
    • Various parts of the Appalachian Trail
    • Seattle
    • San Diego
    • Denver
    • Chicago
    • Buffalo (Masters and PhD)
    • Washington, D.C
    • Friday Harbor, Washington State
    • San Francisco
    • Maui, Hawaii
    • Puerto Rico
    • Virgin Islands
• Europe
  • Spain
    • Barcelona
    • Madrid
    • El Camino de Santiago (Leon to Santiago, then daytrip to Finiterra)
  • England
    • London
    • Brighton (day trip)
  • Turkey
    • Istanbul
  • Germany
    • Berlin
• Asia
  • Hong Kong
  • Vietnam
    • Sapa
    • Ho Chi Minh City
    • Hanoi
  • Cambodia
    • Siem Riep

Vancouver is a place a really miss and the more time that passes since I graduated from UBC and left, the more I miss it and want to move back. Hopefully I can find a way to move back, even if it means making less money it may help my happiness. I did enjoy the Camino as well, mostly due to the people I met along the way. I think if I had the chance I would do it again, but there are more places I want to visit before repeating a travel experience I’ve already had.

• Book Smart, where you are good at school
• People Smart, where you are good with people
• Street Smart, where you have lots of real world experience

However as I start my PhD I have come to realize that there is another type of intelligence: research smart. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have come up with this concept, but I think it combines being both book smart and people smart. Without being book smart, it is much harder to keep up with the current state of your field and have the fundamental understanding of the basics (so to speak, doing research relies on more than the basics). In terms of research, it rarely occurs in a vacuum (after all how many single author papers do we see). Wether in a student-advisor relationship, or multiple researchers (academic or industry) collaborating there is lots to navigate. First, you need to be able to stick to your guns when necessary, but flexible where necessary. There are a large number of question that come up when conducting research that many people don’t think of: how to pick a good topic, to both the authors and research community, There are also number of more logistic questions that often are not thought of: who to include as an author, what order do they go in, and an almost infinite number of grammatical or stylistic choices that people don’t realize they have a strong preference for.

Furthermore, I had the extraordinary luck to have a very supportive advisor who pushed me to apply even though I wasn’t fully sure I wanted to go at the time. Also, going back to the school where I did my masters means that I can cut a few years off the degree and continue with an advisor who I like working with and has similar research interests. According to many people, having a good advisor is what really makes or breaks the PhD program.