Reflections in 2025
Wow… It’s been now several months since I wrote the last time around. At the end of May, it felt like I had not done enough, and that’s why I was avoiding writing a little bit. However, now looking through my camera roll I see that this semester had its own adventures.
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It started with us, me and my friends, going to Andela Cantina to watch the game between the Bills and the Chiefs. To be honest, this game was way more exciting than the Super Bowl, and I am not exaggerating when I say it was a way better game than the Super Bowl’s either. At the end of three years at UB, I finally started understanding football, but more importantly became a full on Bills fan.
Now I have my first Bills jersey and a shirt.
Many Friday nights were spent hanging out with friends, watching shows together, cooking or just talking. My friend dyed my hair this semester when I needed to freshen up my color, and we all started working out regularly. On the other hand, I started cooking a lot more at home this semester.
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In terms of academics, it was challenging. I took both CSE486: Distributed Systems and CSE445: Coding Theory, especially 486 is notoriously known to be challenging. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, I did learn a lot from both of the courses. While it was challenging, I am also really grateful for the structure of the courses because the instructions and guidelines were really straightforward, and the homeworks/projects directly related to what we learned in class, and challenged the application of the information learned in class. The midterm for 486 was rough, but I managed to double my score for its final. I also was living at Hadley this past semester, where I work as a Community Assistant. Having my own place on campus has been tremendously helpful for me in terms of life quality as well. I loved coming home, and cozying up after a long day at my place or just having my own room to isolate and do work in when I wanted to. Besides that, I also have been utilizing Jesse’s office or the conference rooms at Davis Hall to study as well.
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Other than that I have been spending the summer as a Community Assistant for South Lake Village, Research Assistant for Dr. Atri Rudra, and a Student Assistant for the Asia Research Institute.
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My job as a Community Assistant over the summer is a lot more relaxed compared to my time during the semester. I enjoy living at South Lake, and my roommate is Maria, who also is a Community Assistant at Flint Village during the semester. On the other hand, working with Atri has been a very rewarding, great process. I have been in training since January. I finished the training problem I was working on, and produced a write up on it. The problem had two parts, and it related to the relation between the sparse product width of a atrix factorization and its linear arithmetic circuit. Now, I am working on another problem. Compared to the beginning of the semester, I definitely feel the growth in my intuition and how I approach problems.
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Spring fest this year was really enjoyable. Normally artists come to the university and perform, but this year it was in a different form where there were food trucks at the university, beer stands, and carnival machines, which ended up being a lot more fun. After the day was over, my friends and I went by the pillars to watch the fireworks. Followed by that, as UBHacking we hosted an interest panel where I also passed my directorship onto the next people. I will continue to be part of UBHacking as an Advisor in the upcoming semester.
Working as a Student Assistant for ARI has also been really rewarding. We have students who are studying a language program for four weeks here at UB from Gyeonngi province of South Korea. Through my interactions with them, I started learning a lot about Korean culture and about their lives. On the other hand, through my job I get to explore and do more things here at Buffalo.
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Summer definitely has been a great time to explore Buffalo, and see what it has to offer. I have been spending a lot of time at Caffe Aroma in Elmwood Village. It is a café that has more of a European essence to it, which I enjoy. Also, the owners of the book store right next to it, The Talking Leaves, are beyond nice. There has been several days, during which my friends and I spent time at the beach. So far, we like the beach at Beaver Island and also the Woodlawn beach. They have been enjoyable. Also, I finally had wings at Barbill this past Wednesday. The Cajun Honey BBQ was phenomenal, and I ended up having 17 wings, which I was surprised at. Then, with ARI, we went to Truck Tuesday, during which I had a phenomenal reuben. Korean students and us as staff ended up dancing to the live music, and just purely making memories. My friends and I also went to the Taste of Buffalo, which was beautiful. I had no idea that Buffalo had that many restaurants and tastes. The event was by the City Hall, and it was basically all restaurants in Buffalo had tents, where they served food. We also had beer, which was a peach flavored Genesee. Truly amazing! (and finally the perks of being 21!) After Taste of Buffalo, we ended up taking the train to the Canalside, which was free. When we stopped by the Southern Tier restaurant, we learned that they were having a Love Island finale watch party, so we stayed for it. This was like the Super Bowl, but for reality TV. I also forgot to mention, a few weeks ago, I visited one of my friends that I met at UB down on Long Island. We ended up going to a Yankees game together, which was the first professional baseball game I watched. My friend patiently taught me the rules of baseball and the pure strategy and luck behind it. Seeing it through that lens, I can now safely say I am slowly becoming a Yankees/ baseball fan. And, just a few days ago, I also went to a baseball game in Buffalo, Buffalo Bisons. It was really enjoyable as well. After the game, there were beautiful fireworks.
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Another life update, my reading glasses finally gave up on me after 4 years and they broke a few weeks ago. I was putting off going to a doctor or optometrist, but I finally brought myself to go this Saturday. At first I was nervous, but I ended up connecting with the staff at the store, and they also had a deal for anybody that got two pairs of glasses. So, I went glasses shopping with my friend and also got an eye check-up. Now, I am waiting for my pair to come back from the lab.
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These are my life updates so far. I have been spending the last few weeks looking at different programs and advisors for my doctorate degree, I did some work, but as soon as the applications come out I need to do stronger work on them. I am excited for what the next chapters will bring, but also at the same time nervous about the uncertainty at this point, but I guess that is where the adventure begins.
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About the near future, I will be packing up South Lake soon to move back to Hadley. Also, we are planning to go to a Kesha concert with my friends on the 31st. I will be traveling back to Jersey on the 2nd, and will come back to Buffalo on the 8th. Then, on the 10th my training for my job starts. One of my friends is joining me as a CA at Hadley this upcoming semester, so I am excited about that. I forgot to mention, on the 6th I am volunteering with the Department of State for the KL-YES program’s arrivals, and I will be facilitating sessions. My friends and I also bought tickets to a Bills game happening on September 18th. We will be watching the game against Miami Dolphins, so really really excited about that.