2022 Update

It’s been around 2 years since the last post and I need to come clean about some things.
As we all know, life is a roller coaster ride and as with every other roller coaster, there’s no fun without both the ups and downs. But towards 2020-2021, I had a bit of bad luck with all the downs coming at me together. For a moment I thought I should give up writing, and for sometime I did. However, writing never really left me I guess. I’ll try to describe all that has happened since the last post as shortly as possible (so that you guys are not bored by this random update post and can focus on the great content to come soon).

So the last post was somewhere in December 2020, soon I kind of became busy with my MS thesis work and filling out more and more graduate application forms (finally got in, but that’s for later). Me and a few of my friends also started a small startup (which is still very small), so that kept me even more busy. Among all these, I finally completed my MS thesis and appeared for interviews in Apr-Jun 2021 for graduate admissions. For some personal reasons, I aimed for colleges in India only, not abroad. Although I did apply to one abroad and never heard back #sadlife.

In between all these moments, I had the thought of writing but I never got the time and slowly I started enjoying music more than typing random stuff on my laptop. For a moment there, right before I got into my PhD, I was kind of the most frustrated with my life. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t really want to write about anything. I was down with COVID and had lost my grandfather, both of which left me kind of devastated mentally and physically. Soon, I gave up thinking about writing. I had lots of drafts saved up with titles and what I thought I should write about but I never could complete them. Nor did I get to do that interesting simulation about luck and skills (yes I remember that and still want to do it, it’s just such a fascinating topic for me).

After going through grueling interviews and written tests, I finally managed to get admission offers from two departments at IISc (Centre for Ecological Sciences and Interdisciplinary Brain Research). Out of my love and respect for brains, I chose not to dissect them (just kidding I don’t like brains that much, nor was I going to dissect any in the PhD). After considering all the options and interacting with people from both departments during the course of the interview, I decided that CES would be the next home for me. I am glad I made that choice! P.S. There’s a kind of detailed (I am not allowed to be very frank about the questions) post coming up on my interview and admission experience at IISc.

Anyways, soon MS thesis turned to PhD coursework, I still had some of the work from our startup going in the back burner and by this time I had forgot all about writing. Then something happened. One day I received an email about a writing internship for IISc students focused on science communication. I wrote a small article for them and they liked it, then I got the opportunity to write more articles and be mentored by some of the finest and most passionate people I have met. It kind of rekindled my love for writing and I just went a bit crazy with the interviews and articles towards the end. P.S. There’s a detailed post about the writing internship coming soon, so stay tuned if you’re interested.

So, yeah, I ended up writing about stuff again, mostly about science and then I slowly started writing up diary entries again and its been very helpful lately. But yeah, the story doesn’t end here. Things took a little dark turn recently, I had a ligament tear in my knee while playing recently and that kind of motivated me to write here again. I had all this time and nothing good to do. All I did was just watch Netflix and wait for something to happen. Finally, I decided nothing was going to happen till I make it happen. So here I am. Expect another post detailing my experience with an ACL tear and the recovery process.

Signing off after a very long rant I guess. Stay tuned for more (hopefully better) articles in the coming months. As Steve Jobs says, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”