I’m reviving my Substack. Ish. I need to set some weekly goal here.
I’ve been doing a lot of cool, different things and I’m very proud of myself.
Is this what it’s like to be an adult?
For a good chunk of the first year out of undergrad, I felt a lot of regret. I thought about all the things I wasn’t able to do during my time at MIT — glassblowing, building things, classes I never got to take. I always felt (and sometimes still do) like I squandered my time at MIT.
But when I look back at my four years, it’s hard to really feel like that time was wasted. The days that I didn’t go into lab or maybe skipped a class here and there, I was chatting with friends or going to a party or spending time in the house with my sisters. A lot of those moments where I didn’t “push myself academically” or “go learn a new skill” were really spent just socializing instead, and I don’t think that’s something I can say I regret.
There was also this unfounded belief that I would never be able to get to do these things ever again once I left MIT. Woodworking, glassblowing, building things — all of these things, while easier to do and most importantly free at MIT, are still things I can pursue even outside of college.
And these past couple of months, I’ve been doing precisely that!
Pottery
I remember during my time at MIT, I always wanted to take art classes. The school offers these art classes during IAP and I never signed up for them.
Well, about a month ago, I began pottery classes at Studio Calmplex - an art studio that recently opened up in the area.
Pottery has been really relaxing for me. As expected, it’s very therapeutic to be able to sit for 3 hours and just really focus on making something. Pottery is also incredibly difficult and requires a lot of hours of experience to make anything worthwhile. I’ve found the activity to be good exposure therapy, as I practice a lot of patience with myself in learning something new and making sure I don’t just drop it right away because it’s hard.
I’ve really loved the activity and I honestly wish I had more hours to dedicate to it. With work ramping up, I unfortunately have a lot less free time than I’d like, and pottery is one of those things where you need to sit for a while and go multiple times a week. I’m hoping that I can find more time for it in the future, and I’m debating on whether or not to renew my lessons for it.
Gardening
This is a new one and it’s still developing, but a couple weeks ago, I cooked a pasta where I used store-bought herbs like rosemary, basil, and sage in it and it was so delicious and I felt like it really elevated the flavor.
Then I realized that I shouldn’t spend money purchasing herbs every time I want to cook something fancy and instead finally bite the bullet and garden.
I went to a really lovely place in Brooklyn called Gardel’s Garden and the owner of the store helped me pick out these plants, potting soil, and then gave me a wealth of information to get started. I purchased rosemary, spearmint, sage, basil, and lavender.
I still haven’t been back because of my work schedule, but I’d love to go back and let him know how the plants are doing (my basil is dying and I’m really sad).
Running
Running is something that’s always been very complicated for me growing up. A lot of my running feelings were primarily associated with my experiences in middle school PE classes, having to run laps in and always being at the back of the pack, or be picked last for kickball and dodgeball teams, or just in general being a little heavier and shaped a little bit more differently than my friends or classmates.
Needless to say, I had a difficult relationship with running, athletics, sports, and just general body issues. This was somewhat alleviated when I began lifting in college. For the first time in my life, I felt strong. Lifting also gave me a lot of practical abilities that helped with my independence. I was strong enough to do small things like lift my luggage into the overhead bins, to open jars, to carry boxes up and down multiple flights of stairs.
Some time earlier this year, though, lifting began feeling like a chore. I was frustrated with how my body clicked and clacked and snapped when I would lift, like how my shoulder would pinch during lateral raises or my hip would feel tight when I squatted. So, in some effort to save money and also just give my body a break, I ended my gym membership.
As a result, I had to find some way to move my body without a gym membership, and I eventually found my way back to running. I had tried my hand at running a couple of times post-college. I ran that first September after I graduated in 2023, but often found myself just super out of breath and not having a good time at all, and so I dropped it.
I then returned to it again last year in 2024 and found this attempt a lot more successful for whatever reason. I think I was just a bit more consistent and really focused on actually running instead of splitting it between lifting and running like before. I actually was supposed to run a 5k last December, but then my grandmother passed the weekend of the 5k and I instead decided to run an unofficial 5k in the area of my childhood home. I felt oddly close to my Nona in those moments, I guess maybe just because she hated it when I would run around my neighborhood, always insisting it was really dangerous.
After I ran that 5k, I was really surprised. After starting and stopping running maybe 4 or 5 times at this point, I couldn’t believe I had actually committed to running and had done the 5k without stopping (I did something like maybe a 36 minute 5k). This felt like a breakthrough.
From there, I continued my running journey, training for a 10k despite having never signed up for a 10k. I had fiddled with the idea a lot, but was really scared to commit to another race out of fear that something would get in the way again. Also, I knew I would be out of town almost all of April this year, and wouldn’t be able to run. (This actually wouldn’t end up being true; I ran two or three times while in Japan which I was really proud of!) Eventually, I ended up signing up for the July 5th Firecrackers 10k, and the experience was amazing.
A 5k had always felt somewhat obtainable to me. 3ish miles is something that I think I always knew deep down I could do. A 10k, though, was a little more daunting. In my times during training, I had never been able to consistently run 5 or 5.5 miles, and toward the end of my training period, the New York June humidity really drained me and I found myself walk/run-ning a lot more (which I absolutely despised).
So, when the day of the race came, I woke up at 5:30am, hauled my ass over to Governor’s Island, and prepared myself mentally for the 6.2 miles I’d have to race.
The weather ended up being really chill, maybe a little warm, but definitely not as humid as I had been running in. I ran at a really doable pace (around a 12 minute mile), and the views were really beautiful.
I started crying at the 6 mile mark, the realization that I was really about to complete my 10k really, really settling in. For a lot of my life, I’d identified myself as someone who didn’t really follow through on things, where I had a lot of hobbies I would pick up and set down willynilly. Jack of all trades, master of none.
And I think that’s why this 10k was as impactful as it was. It represented my near 1-year of training. My runs I would do 3-4 times a week, even when I didn’t want to get out of the house or even when it was 88 degrees out with a 90% humidity. Running on vacation. Running in Japan. Running when I was sad, when I was mad, when I was stressed. Choosing a goal and chasing after it for a year until I finally got to do that thing.
I’m so proud of myself and love how my relationship with running as changed in this past year. I look forward to maybe running a 10 miler? Or a half marathon? But if this 10k is the longest distance I’ll ever run, I’ll still be proud regardless.
Yoga
Speaking of exercising, this one’s fun! Yoga! I felt spurred to do yoga after Collin and I went to London and I got a massage and the lady told me how my muscles incredibly tight for my age and I needed to stretch more.
So I began my yoga journey and tried maybe 3 or 4 different studios before I settled on mine, bought an unlimited membership, and now go 3-4 times a week!
I won’t talk that much about this one, but I was really nervous about yoga ‘replacing’ my strength training since I wasn’t explicitly deadlifting or benching. But man oh man, does yoga really work you out. I’m sure I would be seeing more muscle gain if I were lifting, but I was able to achieve my first push-ups after a few months of yoga. I’m currently working on my headstand and my crow pose and I really like the idea of having these poses as things to achieve instead of chasing specific weights.
It’s also a great way to get meditation in since yoga is for the mind just as much as it is for the body. I like locking my phone away in the locker, entering the studio, and just focusing on my body and the poses and breath. Not to mention, the instructors at my studio are really kind and wonderful and the community is so positive!
All of this is to say
I’m really proud of myself and of all the things I’m doing. Obviously, I wish I had infinite time in the world. If it were up to me, I’d be crocheting and playing guitar and learning piano and learning to knit and learning to embroider and learning to paint and learning to draw and learning music production and gardening and going to culinary school and woodcarving and metalworking and glassblowing and doing pottery and writing and sewing and doing yoga and lifting and running and…you get the point. But I only get 24 hours in a day and it kills me but I’m happy to try new stuff.
I am also slowly learning that it is okay to pick up hobbies and drop them, that this isn’t an evil or bad act, but just something that is a fact of life. And that the full quote is in fact Jack of all trades, master of none, but often better than a master of one.*
love you!!
a 10k! nice