probably the best way to characterize how i’ve been feeling lately is extreme restlessness
the mit admissions blogger app was released on 7/1. i’m not really expecting to be accepted since i don’t exactly exude the brand of wholesome mit energy i think they’re looking for, but i thought it’d be an interesting application to try regardless. i spent 6+ hours a day writing, which i haven’t ever done for consecutive days before, and then submitted on 7/5 to avoid using revising as an excuse to procrastinate on other work. which sounds kind of nice in that i wrote relatively quickly by my standards, but i think i was fueled by negative energy the entire time and don’t believe that’s particularly desirable; there were many hours where i felt like i was writing furiously in both senses of the word
i’ve also been too impatient to watch movies. granted this has been going on for a while now (ever since my film music class ended) but it’s become more noticeable this summer. in no more movies the author argues that after watching ~800 movies they’ve basically seen all the good films. i don’t think i’m anywhere close to having watched all the good movies as i’m probably at the ~150 mark myself, but the list of movies i currently feel any enthusiasm for watching (life is beautiful, cinema paradiso, koyaanisqatsi, her, in the heights, the wind rises) is much smaller and more obscure than it used to be. the only movie in the past month that i watched and was significantly surprised by was my dinner with andre, which was two hours of scenes exclusively featuring dialogue (the conversation becomes quite good at the 50 minute mark, and is watchable on 2x speed if you need to)
some other points the author mentions are that they have become too good at instinctively anticipating filmmaking tricks in a way that dampens the watching experience, and also that tv shows have taken over as the primary medium for meaningful or ambitious onscreen storytelling. i’m definitely starting to feel the first point myself, and probably agree with the second one as well (eg. you can’t capture bojack horseman in a movie, rick and morty is notable because it’s managed to keep exploring similar sci-fi tropes for 4+ seasons without getting old, there seem to be far more good anime series than movies despite the latter being easier to produce). i think this is somewhat similar to how composers gradually moved away from believing symphonies were the pinnacle of all composition, and maybe an analogous process with writers and novels
all of which is to say that i’m losing interest in movies as a storytelling medium, and there are some shows i hope to watch (attack on titan, midnight gospel, tuca and bertie) but haven’t started because i’m too busy to give any of them the time they deserve
i think most of the restlessness i’m feeling is being caused by my job, which i continue to be extremely unenthused by. i did get to meet the google translate nlp person i mentioned a few posts ago, and they invited me to the ai core team’s weekly hangouts, but aside from that work has been going poorly and i’m glad it’s halfway over. on weekends i sometimes get very anxious when i remember i have to go back to thinking about finance soon
on a related note, a recent call with ben kuhn also convinced me that i can do much better than earning to give and everything i wrote about it a few posts ago was probably wrong or not applicable to me. so as a result i no longer see any major reasons for me to be a quant, which is a nice realization to have, as i was previously only 80-90% confident in this
i still need to deal with job-induced anxiety for the next five weeks but there are some good options so i’m not worried. breathing helps, and meditation probably would too but i haven’t tried it in earnest yet. running helps, especially the shock that comes from alternating between running in 95-degree weather and being drenched in sweat and then slamming face-first into the cool blasts of my neighbors’ sprinklers. unhappy anime tracks backed by electric guitars (think katharsis / red swan / kodoku) have also been surprisingly good. i’m not sure how to explain why other than that electric guitars literally sound like freedom to me. i’ll try to elaborate in the future when i’ve learned more about timbre
A Slice of My Mind 
exude the brand of wholesome mit energy i think they’re looking for » do you think my application was wholesome mit energy
which i continue to be extremely unenthused by » rip
i no longer see any major reasons for me to be a quant » nice
unhappy anime tracks backed by electric guitars » this is such an oddly specific yet wide genre
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do you think my application was wholesome mit energy
» LOL good point
this is such an oddly specific yet wide genre » indeed do you have any recs ❤
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damn i would say i have recs but nothing comes to mind D:
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you’ve seen me advertise yorushika before but let me do it again because I think they have stuff that fits “unhappy anime tracks backed by electric guitars” really well :p
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oops wait these are good but rather upbeat (excluding lyrics)
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> i’m not really expecting to be accepted since i don’t exactly exude the brand of wholesome mit energy
1. Be optimistic
2. To be fair, they have a certain brand and public image to uphold. Don’t want to turn away potential applicants.
> some other points the author mentions are that they have become too good at instinctively anticipating filmmaking tricks in a way that dampens the watching experience, and also that tv shows have taken over as the primary medium for meaningful or ambitious onscreen storytelling. i’m definitely starting to feel the first point myself.
This seems like such a shallow take. Film is a constantly evolving medium. We had silent films with nothing but black and white, then color film, and now CGI. Of course there are common tricks to build e.g. suspension/tension (ex.: slow zoom on a person’s face) and tropes (ex: jumpscares) but there are ways to still keep them fresh and use them sparingly. Irrespective, there are still many permutations of camera angles, tricks, stunts, dialogue, etc. to explore. Besides, what fun is it to watch a movie when you’re constantly nitpicking and whatnot. I mean I only do that with bad films or films where there are noticeable “what?” moments, but there is still fun in ragging on the film with friends afterwards.
> i think most of the restlessness i’m feeling is being caused by my job, which i continue to be extremely unenthused by. i did get to meet the google translate nlp person i mentioned a few posts ago, and they invited me to the ai core team’s weekly hangouts, but aside from that work has been going poorly and i’m glad it’s halfway over. on weekends i sometimes get very anxious when i remember i have to go back to thinking about finance soon
I feel similar anxiety but for diff reasons. I work at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) for the summer, but it sounds way sexier than it is. Really, I’m working under a prof. at Stony Brook and several people at UIUC profiling databases. I don’t work on “hot” things like quantum computing, the National Synchrotron Light Source II, etc. and I feel a sense of imposter syndrome. That’s not to say the work isn’t interesting, but I find myself procrastinating a lot and pressure to deliver reports, presentations, etc. and soon write my first real research paper with potentially almost no results. But at least the experience will be a great stepping stone. I guess we all just have to power through.
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This seems like such a shallow take. Film is a constantly evolving medium. We had silent films with nothing but black and white, then color film, and now CGI. Of course there are common tricks to build e.g. suspension/tension (ex.: slow zoom on a person’s face) and tropes (ex: jumpscares) but there are ways to still keep them fresh and use them sparingly. Irrespective, there are still many permutations of camera angles, tricks, stunts, dialogue, etc. to explore. Besides, what fun is it to watch a movie when you’re constantly nitpicking and whatnot. I mean I only do that with bad films or films where there are noticeable “what?” moments, but there is still fun in ragging on the film with friends afterwards. » i think the bigger issue is with anticipating the plot? eg. accidentally inferring “there’s still 1h left in this film so current character’s plan won’t work / main character is not actually in danger / etc”. but yeah, i agree there should still be ways to keep films fresh
I feel a sense of imposter syndrome » oof okay 😦 good luck with your research!
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I mean there are still films that surprise me in terms of story twists and themes. I mean stock-film writing is a thing (there’s a video of people watching 3 Transformers movies at once and they line up pretty much the same in terms of story beats) but there are films that try to keep things fresh (just look at Uncut Gems) where (spoilers) you think you know where the plot is meandering towards, but for a brief moment you don’t, and then the big punch of an ending comes. Even with things like young-adult novels or video games, stories can often seem recycled and formulaic. It’s up to the creators of these stories to, well, be creative. I wonder if the person who’s watched 400 films has ever tried or succeeded in film-making.
Also thanks for the luck!
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as someone who does not watch movies that (by the author of ‘no more movies’) is a very interesting viewpoint. i guess it depends on an individual’s idea of what comprises a “good” movie (idk if one might be considering too narrow of a genre, or only like certain genres and neglect the rest, but then that sort of conclusion is a bit ham-handed). what really rubs me wrong about that conclusion is the very notion that watching movies is for them being “good” rather than enjoyment. idk it just made me think, i spend a lot of time reading fanfiction but experience a phenomenon to the opposite of that viewpoint (so tl;dr i think that author ruined it for themselves), though i do notice the amount i read waxes and wanes. i totally support your lack of interest in movies LOL how did this one thing grow so many words sorryy,,,
big mood on the ‘weekends -> think about work resuming again soon’ rip. i guess that’s really what happens when you don’t like the bulk of what you’re doing.
holy fuck you run in 95 degree weather you are a god
ooh electric guitars are a good time i like that
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what really rubs me wrong about that conclusion is the very notion that watching movies is for them being “good” rather than enjoyment » depends on the person? movies are genuinely unenjoyable for me if they’re not sufficiently good so idk
i guess that’s really what happens when you don’t like the bulk of what you’re doing.» F
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