One of my love languages is sharing books, blogs, and ideas. If anything in this post resonates—or if it sparks a connection to something you've read—text me your recommendations!
Year Recap (with pics).
Jan - Feb:
Got into Stanford early, met my Admission Officer, mulled over “what’s next”
Wrote a paper applying Feminist Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles to boost female interest in higher education for tech fields—and built an app inspired by it.
Visited the happiest place on earth: Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA
March - May:
Befriended 40 awesome girls in CS at NCWIT in North Carolina
Explored colleges during admit weeks—NYC stole my heart, but Michigan, Boston, and New Jersey came close
Attended my first “high school prom” with Coke Scholars (and went semi-viral on TikTok!)
Flew out to Chicago for the Elks Scholarship
Said goodbye at my high school graduation
June:
Discovered my workout trifecta: Barry’s, solidcore, CorePower (worth every penny)
Went corporate and played golf at LinkedIn’s HQ for 3 days
Presented policy proposals to the California Commission on Women and Girls
Random: Met a senator and received an honor?!
July:
Jane Street: figgie, poker, Broadway, new friends
Also caught up with East Coast hackathon friends, like Kunal
August:
One month until Stanford!
Witnessed HOT TO GO! live at Outside Lands
Developed a Twitter addiction and reconnected with old hackathon friends
September - October:
Started interning at Afore Capital
Every Stanford student has a story that makes you go, “Wow, there’s a reason why you’re here.” (Seriously, 10 minutes with a stranger here is eye-opening.)
Interviewed faculty at Stanford’s Defense and Cyber centers for research paper on increasing undergraduate interest in defense
Btw thanks Bilal for the inspiration!
Dressed up as myself for Halloween
Changed my opinion on AI Companionship and co-wrote about the Character.AI death for the Stanford Review (read here)
November - December:
Organized an Alexandr Wang look-alike competition—and he judged!
Hosted dinners, while making new friends
Ran my first 5k and passed my driver’s test
Rabbithole-ing into defense, consumer AI, and much more—will report back in 2025!
Some blogs I love.
(Note: Most of these are from the latter half of the year when I started bookmarking regularly.)
We Are in Need of Renaissance People - The Free Press
The Problem with Reasoners - Aidan McLaughlin
Cities and Ambition - Paul Graham
Fried rice - Tommy Trinh
The Tinkerer’s Box of Dreams - Arena
The $3.6 Billion Bet: How Polymarket Called the 2024 Election Before Anyone Else - Tesvara Jiang (check her out!)
Eye Contact - Chris Lakin
P.S. If you’re up for hosting an eye-contact event, let me know
Not a blog, but a Dwarkesh podcast
Some books I like. (Emphasis on “some.”)
The Golden House - Rushdie
Great bits on personal reinvention
The Maniac - Labatut
Shoe Dog - Phil Knight
Lying - Sam Harris
Educated - Tara Westover
This book destroyed me. And I re-read it every quarter
The Courage to Be Disliked - Kishimi and Koga
Cat’s Cradle - Vonnegut
educated is in my desk right now! paul graham also recommended it
i think my favourite book of the last year was Czapski's 'inhuman land: searching for truth in soviet russia'
I LOVE your assortment of bright pink dresses, truly iconic!