Refreshment and Resolutions
My family has always been into New Year’s resolutions. My mother had the belief that the first day of the year, whether it’s the 1st of January or Poila Boisakh (the 1st day of the Bengali New Year), we must spend the day as an example of how we want the coming year to go. So, as habits go, each December like clockwork I can’t help but do an audit of the year. This December was in many ways the same, but also very special.
2022 December saw the first relaxation of quarantine rules and mandatory Covid-19 testing protocols in Hong Kong since 2020. I know it’s been mentioned in plenty of newspapers all over the world, and for Hong Kongers like me, it dominated our social media feeds. I’m not alone when I say that it finally felt like the perfect time to take a break and relax for the first time in over 2 years. Initially I was riddled with guilt over not keeping up with my writing, and of course, for taking a slower and less rigorous approach to my data science projects. Then, I went to Boracay.
I didn’t have long in Boracay, but only a few days in one of the world’s most beautiful paradise islands surrounded by some of the kindest, friendliest people was exactly what I needed. This reminded me of many of the conversations I’ve had with career coaches with Springboard about working towards a goal on your own time. So as resolutions go, I’m determined in my desire to make my mark as a Data Scientist. So, I joined the AI Residency program with Apziva.
Sipping cocktails by white sandy beaches, digging into fantastic foods, I was surprised when I realised how excited I was by the prospect of being back at my desk. No longer was it stressful, no longer was the fear of failure starting to cripple me to eternal procrastination. I’ve seen first-hand the toll on my students’ mental health caused by the Hong Kong 2019 protests, and the continued disruption to their normal lives during the last two years during the pandemic. I’ve sunk into my sofa, cradling a glass of wine, watching my phone in fear of what news each buzz of the phone would bring during the peaks of the outbreak in India, where most of my immediate family resides. However, I don’t think I truly grasped how exhausted I was until 25th December 2022 when I was sitting in Café Maruja cracking open some crab legs, listening to a great live band, without any knowledge of where my phone was each second of that evening.
By the end of the evening, I was frantically jotting down ideas I had about new data science projects I wanted to do. On my birthday, I was lucky to get a glimpse of the world under the sea — something with my ear problems I never thought I could do. Breaks, holidays, self-care is important. By the end of my trip, I realised how much being away from a screen helped me motivate myself, helped me gain perspective on my goals, and inspired me to continue on a journey that will be surely filled with a hundred ‘no’s until that final ‘yes’ which is sure to come. I am now sure that the ‘yes’ will still come even if I take a vacation, so I’m thinking Easter in Siem Reap!
I’m lucky, as I’ve mentioned before, to be able to work from home for most of my working week. It really allowed me to immerse myself in the world of data science and machine learning in every way. I was listening to data science podcasts when doing errands around the house, I’d leave my notebooks to finish running when I had lessons with my students, I would read about data science every chance I got. It’s been an insightful and steep learning curve, and I really wouldn’t do anything differently. But I missed fiction. I always tell my students what sets a person who does maths apart from a mathematician is creativity. If we look at some of the greatest mathematicians and physicists, we’ll see they were humans who had passions in music, the arts, and literature. Somehow in the busy busy world, I have so many friends and family members who say they don’t have time for fiction.
My brother signed me up for an Audibles subscription in early 2020, and whilst Neil Geiman’s Sandman series amongst others had been the perfect dose of escapism in the stressful world of the pandemic, I missed reading. So, I took the holiday to make a dent in the Kindle Wishlist I’d been adding to for what seemed forever. I read ‘The Three Body Problem’, and if it’s on your list, trust me the hype is worth it. I read Bloodchild by Olivia E Butler, and her afterword about writing the story to find a way of handling her fear of botflies leading to one of the greatest science fiction short stories ever written was inspirational to say the least. Sitting on the train back from Hong Kong Airport, I realised how important it really is to take time just for yourself. To read for no reason other than just pleasure is important. I mean, we have all heard it a hundred times before. But I think given the uncertainty in today world, in times when we are pushed to ‘focus’, not just by our personal ambitions, but by hundreds of apps being advertised to make you more be productive, I think it’s easy to lose sight of what you want out of the time we have in the world. My final resolution is to make time to read, to go to the theatre, to go to the movies, and finally after three years of waiting, to go to Clockenflap 2023!
