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LONGER WRITINGS PHOTO GALLERY ​

7/15/26 (5:00pm) it's been so long since i've updated this-- mea culpa, mea culpa. i'm debating whether or not to turn this into a proper academic website; it would be nice to make the whole thing more serious and attach it to my name and CV especially now that i have one published publication and another in the works. perhaps i will, and will simply password-lock this blog. it's an excellent log of what i've been up to in the past year, but maybe not the most strictly professional. in any case, i'm starting my masters in physics at GWU in a little over a month, so i'm officially an incomming physics grad student. don't worry, i'm still getting my phd afterwards. the only thing yet unknown is where-- i'd love to be at CUNY's physics phd program because of their integration with the flatiron institute CCA and the AMNH, plus there are a great many professors there at CUNY proper whom i'd love to work with. on the other hand, part of the reasoning for doing a masters and phd separately is that most european universities require a masters degree to consider you for their PhD programs, and there are a few places abroad i'd be equally eager to do research at.hopefully in 2 years the federal funding problem will be abaited, and my path is clearer. until then, i'm glad to be living in my favorite neighborhood in DC and am excited to start hunting for antique furniture to fill the studio space with.   12/8/25 (2:55pm) the returner! i got back a little over a week ago. the cold has been nice. i've become fixated on the song "merry christmas, please don't call" by the bleachers as for some reason it really fills me with the yuletide spirit (despite being objectively a bit of a sad song) speaking of the yuletide spirit, i'm planning another one of my solstice feasts for the 21st. it's the first time i've been able to make the winter solstice instead of just the summer one, even though these feasts have been a tradition of mine for the last three years. there will be much drinking of mulled cider and eating of warmly spiced foods and perhaps i will be making ample use of the fire pit my parents have outside. did you know that apparently in iceland christmas celebrations start on the 12th and last for 13 days? seeing as the 12th is when my first phd applications are due, maybe i should take a page from their book and start celebrating then. i hope im visited by the impish troll of academic good fortune. anyway. go with good wintery tidings and i'll see you in the next entry!   11/24/25 (2:15pm) i leave in 4 days! feeling excited, but i know i'll miss my time here. had a good meeting today about the catalog of AGN data i've been using. im glad i get to keep working on this project even after i leave; it's really interesting stuff. recommenders are confirmed, faculty emails are being sent out, statement of purpose is being drafted. feeling solid.   11/10/25 (5:55pm) hey! guess who has two thumbs and finally remembered to post within a reasonable time frame? (me, of course. who else?) on the grad school application front, i feel like i still have a direction in hand and my spreadsheet is well-populated. the main two things i have yet to do are 1. message my recommenders again, and 2. send out emails to faculty, both of which i'd like to do before this friday. i must give credit to the iron-fisted organizational skills of my mother, who i have taken to calling near-daily so she can pester me into doing what i need to do. anyway, im working at my favorite coffeeshop in the city now, and just had a delicious iced vanilla latte and a toast with a mysterious but delicious mushroom patee (pate? paté? who knows). till next time!   11/6/25 (2:53am) oh hello again-- time sure does fly. im working on research for a meeting i have tomorrow morning, and it looks like it'll be a late night. things are going smoothly, though. it seems i've blinked and it's november, and i'm returning to the states soon, and it's very surreal. i feel like i have a much longer to-do list than i have time left to complete it. other than that i'm okay. very settled. i feel weirdly hesitant to return to the states, like im not finished yet. probably once i get more done i will feel more closure.   9/29/25 (4:04pm) well, i suppose I should begin with a more pleasant update than last time. i do think i am beginning to settle in, but much has happened in the four weeks i've been here!! the weekend after my last update, my dad (who coupled his few-week trip here to visit family with the beginning of my semester-long stay) ended up having to go to the hospital and stay for over a week. i spent every day going to the university to pick at my research, then heading straight for the health clinic, leaving mainly just to sleep at my apartment. it was a rough week but now it's over and my dad is thankfully just fine. after that week was the fiestas patrias here in chile (essentially independence week) and i was able to celebrate with my family and with others at the university whom i'm becoming good friends with. at the end of the week, my phone was stolen though, and i got so stressed out that everything caught up to me and i immediately got sick. LOL! (i hope apollo got a good laugh). anyway, the following days were pretty unremarkable and thus have been a welcome respite. my largest stressor is of course grad school applications. que sera sera though, as they say. ciao pescado.   9/04/25 (11:22am) i arrived in Chile this past Sunday morning, so i've been here for around 5 days so far, and just started on my new research project at the university. through my position here doing research, i've actually been given the opportunity to join informally a group of students here doing an undergraduate exchange program in addition to being part of the research group the professor i'm working with leads, which is exciting. i haven't had much opportunity to meet the exchange students yet, but hopefully will soon. to be truthful, i really wanted to be able to write about how well things are going and how great it feels to be somewhere new but familiar, since most of my family is here after all, but i wouldnt be honest if i wrote about that. i feel ittle isolated, discouraged with my language skills, and lost. i know it will get better in the coming weeks but right now things are a little shaky. im kicking myself for how shy i can be even when doing someithing as crazy as starting a whole new semester-long research project thousands of miles from where i grew up, all in my second language, and all while applying to PhDs. i feel strangely juvinile. i dont know. anyway, that's the long-winded update for today. cheers to being on the up and up.   8/8/25 UPDATE life has been quite busy since the last entry. i vow to improve my diligence posthaste. i'm currently in costa rica attending a (spanish) language learning program in preparation for going to chile to do AGN research in the fall (and because it's about time i made the final push to become fluent in the language half of my family speaks exclusively). i'm pleased to report that the progam worked! ya se. nunca mas no sabo. you get it. below are some pictures from my various escapades. 5/23/25 I GRADUATED YESTERDAY! pictured below: 1. a rather low-res picture of me shaking the university president's hand 2. a rather high-res picture of me in my cap and gown, after-the-fact 3. the decor on my cap, inspired by old illustrations of the "harmony of the spheres" as an homage to my interest in ancient grecoroman cosmology, astrophysics (of course), and tangentially, music 5/20/25 (12:53 AM) T-2 days until i official graduate with my B.S. in physics. home with family, including my aunt and uncle visiting from the PNW. tired but mostly contented. need to figure out how to run the code i wrote to get the fisher matrices and SNR for the BBH mergers catalogs, since gratuating has put my active work on research on a slight pause.... top of the to-do for tomorrow. 5/12/25 first full free day of life post-end-of-classesas and i've used it to go around to all my favorite coffee shops in farther off parts of the city that i dont usually have time to go to. excellent nosh all around. had a chicken caprese sandwich finely crafted by the gods themselves (cafe employee who is stunningly good at making chicken caprese sandwiches) and inhaled it. been spending most of the day editing this site. 5/11/25 had work at the planetarium today and it was soooo nice outside :-) i got to enjoy walking around afterwards and soaking up the sunshine 5/11/25 (12:34am) last night at 11:59 pm EST, i turned in the last assignment i'll ever turn in as an undergraduate student. and i have strange feelings about it, i think.   i am definitely excited, but obviously there's that characteristic bittersweet feeling that comes from being in a transitional period.