My Projects
Here's what I'm working on
Inspired in part by Scott Young's "My Projects" page, I wanted to have a page where you can see what I'm working on. I also wanted to be honest and public about my goals. I see it as a way of being honest about who I am. I see it as a way of putting myself out there and being vulnerable, saying, this is what I'm trying to do, and yeah, I might fail.
This page was written in November 2021 — my plan is to come back and update this page in the future, perhaps once per year.
Some background: I lived in China from 2017-2019. When I moved back to the US from China, I had a moment where I kind of thought to myself, there's a number of hobbies/pursuits (like speaking Spanish, playing soccer) where I've gotten pretty good, and then later they fell by the wayside and I lost some of my skills. But, I realized, I want to truly master a few things. So I started working on that. Here are the projects I've been working on since then. For each project, I've noted:
when I started
why it interests me
how much progress I've made
what sort of progress I'd still like to make in the future
my "realistic" goals and "stretch" goals
1. Learning Chinese:
I started studying Chinese when I moved to China in 2017. Learning Chinese interests me because (1) it's a skill that could help my career (or become a new career in itself), (2) it expands the world of people that I can communicate with (including which authors I can read books by), and (3) it's an interesting and challenging intellectual hobby.
1. 1 Current progress:
Roughly, my daily goals are:
Study vocabulary flash cards (review old cards and learn ~10 new words per day)
Read Chinese for 30 minutes
Listen to Chinese content for 90 minutes
Write for 15 minutes OR spend 15 minutes creating new flash cards
I have about 10,000 vocabulary flash cards that I already more-or-less know. I can read chapter books for kids/teens without needing a dictionary (there are words I don't know, but can skip without getting completely lost), but I have more trouble reading more mature/literary books. I can usually understand most spoken Chinese. I feel the least confidence in my own speaking ability since I haven't had much practice in the last few years.
1.2 Future plans:
I plan to continue learning new words, practicing reading, and practicing listening for the next few years, at least. I'd like to at least double my current vocabulary size. I'd like to feel confident in my ability to read a random book written for adults without needing a dictionary by my side. Some day, I'd like to improve my spoken Chinese as well.
In my experience so far, improving my Chinese skill has been relatively "easy". If I put in the hours to read (and re-read) books, study flash cards, and listen to audio content, my skill in listening/reading Chinese continues to slowly get better. As long as I keep putting the hours in, I feel confident that I'll continue improving.
My "realistic" goal is to get a job (and be successful at it!) where I speak Chinese at work. (But obviously if my career takes me in another direction, I may set a different goal.) My "stretch" goals are to write a book directly in Chinese or to translate a well-known Chinese book into English.
2. Ultimate Frisbee:
Ive been playing frisbee since 2017, more seriously starting in 2019-2020. Ultimate frisbee interested me for a few reasons: (1) I have friends who play, and wanted to be able to have fun with them. (2) I wanted to have a physical challenge to go with some of my other projects that are mainly mental/intellectual challenges. I want to maximize my athletic potential while I still can. (3) Sports are fun, and being good at them is even more fun! And it's a good way to make new friends.
2.1 Current progress:
Roughly, I try to practice throwing the frisbee for an hour per day, and play frisbee as much as I can (~4-5 times per week). I haven't played for a club team since I moved back to the US, but I play against club players in local leagues and feel like I can hold my own.
My throws have improved a lot over the past 1-2 years of throwing practice, although I'm not sure how to quantify it. Playing against solid players, what sets me apart is athleticism and field sense/quick decision making; my throwing skills are relatively weak compared to most players who've been playing for 8+ years (i.e., a typical experience for someone my age or a bit younger who started playing in college).
In order to be a better frisbee player, I've tried to become more athletic (something I've already written about here). I can run a ~5:50 mile (hasn't changed in roughly 1.5 years), and I can dunk a tennis ball on a 10-foot basketball rim.
2.2 Future Plans:
Obviously there are a number of different aspects to being good at a sport. If I want to excel at frisbee, I'll need to improve in a number of different ways. I've broken down some sub-goals below:
Get more athletic (cardio): Realistic goal is to run a sub-5:30 mile. Stretch goal is to run a sub-5:00 mile
Get more athletic (jumping): Realistic goal is to dunk a basketball, jumping off of both feet or off of my right foot. Stretch goal is to dunk jumping off my left foot.
I'll also need to improve my top speed and change-of-direction ability. I haven't set any specific goals here since I've been more focused on the other aspects of improving my athleticism.
Get better at throwing. I don't have any specific goals here.
For ultimate frisbee overall, my realistic goal is to play (any amount) at club Nationals. My stretch goal is to be one of the best players on a Nationals team (or equivalent AUDL team).
3. Meditation:
I've been meditating on-and-off since 2019, making it a daily practice in 2020. Meditation interests me because: (1) I've often felt like my brain is "on" all the time. I want to get better at letting my brain have some time off and just being in the moment. (2) Experienced meditators say they can achieve pleasant, or even blissful, mental states through meditation. I'd like to try to achieve them for myself. (3) Being able to have a little more 'control' over my brain is useful in daily life — like staying calm in stressful situations or staying focused in distracting situations.
3.1 Current Progress:
I meditate for about 30 minutes per day. That number has gone up or down a bit over the last couple years, and I've sometimes split it up into a few shorter sessions each day, and at other times, did it all in one session per day. Meditation is by far the most difficult of my projects, I'm not sure I've made any progress at all in the last ~2 years. I still feel like my mind gets too easily distracted during my usual meditation session.
To learn the philosophy behind meditation, I've also read a number of books about meditation over the past few years: The Wisdom of No Escape (I read it in 2021), The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness, On Having No Head, 10% Happier, The Power of Now, The Surrender Experiment, Buddha’s Office (all in 2020), and Why Buddhism is True, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Right Concentration, and Waking Up (in 2019 or earlier). For now, I feel like I've gained what I could from reading about Buddhism/meditation, and I'm not actively looking to read more books along these lines. If anything, reading about meditation has had a bigger effect on my mindset than anything I've gained from actually doing meditation — it's given me a different way of looking at/interacting with the world that's useful to me even if I still let my mind wander too easily when I meditate.
3.2 Future Plans:
I plan to continue meditating 20-30 minutes per day for the foreseeable future. I've never done a meditation retreat; I think that may be what I need to break out of my beginner-level plateau. For now, I'm a little more focused on my other goals so I don't have any plans to do a retreat, but I think after another year or two of improving in other areas, it may be time to go deep on meditation and do a retreat.
A (very) stretch goal is to become "enlightened". A realistic goal is to be able to consistently enter a state of sustained, pleasant, calm focus in my daily meditation sessions.
4. Writing:
I started writing in late 2020. Writing interests me because: (1) It can be a skill that helps in my career, whether it's in becoming a writer, or just getting better at communicating my ideas to others. (2) For a long time, I worried a bit about how I was always better at being a consumer of media than a creator. I looked up to the people I saw online creating things, and felt bad about being the guy who was just sitting in my chair, reading someone else's blog post or watching their video. Writing is my way to be a creator. (3) I have some ideas that I'd like to share with the world, and/or I'd like to help popularize the good ideas of others!
4.1 Current Progress:
I started my blog in early 2021. I've averaged about 2-3 hours per week of writing since then, and that's resulted in about 25 blog posts (and a number of other drafts that haven't been published yet), about 20 of which are book reviews.
I try to not just write, but to get better at writing. Aside from "write a lot", my main methods of attempting to improve are: (1) critique my own writing and note down what I liked or didn't like about a particular blog post. (2) Read others' writing advice: I try to spend about a half hour each week doing this.
4.2 Future Plans:
I'd ideally like to average 5-7 writing hours per week, but writing tends to be the first thing that I "drop" when I don't have time to do everything I want to in a day. A short-term goal is just to improve my average by an hour or two per week.
A realistic goal is just to continue writing, trying to get better, and publishing on my blog. A stretch goal is to become a relatively well-known blogger (vague, I know) or to publish a book.
5. Potential Future Projects
I hope that over the years, as I improve at the things I'm doing currently, I'll need to spend less time practicing to keep my skill level up. Or in other cases, I may just find new interests that I want to pursue. I always think back to this SMBC comic (excerpted in the image above) about living life and mastery. Anyways, here are a few other projects that are on my radar for maybe focusing on some day:
Aerodynamics. (My professional expertise). This was meant to be a "current" project, but it's fallen by the wayside, unfortunately.
Master another language. Perhaps Spanish (which I've studied before) or perhaps something totally new.
Master another sport. Perhaps basketball (which I've played for years) or perhaps something totally new.
Become a coach (basketball or ultimate frisbee).
I have noticed that most of my goals are inward-focused: they are more about improving my own skills than about improving my community. I do want to focus more on my community in the future, whether through helping create political change or working with local organizations to improve our community.