The past five months (since I wrote last) have been filled with family and friends, the ups and downs of uncertainty, and a lot of moving around. It took me a while to reflect on all the experiences and feel confident explaining how they led me into the next step in my life, given that I myself felt a bit lost. But now, as I am bursting with energy and have just launched into a new phase of my life, I decided to get back to writing. Being far away from my friends and family again, I realized how this medium helped me feel less distant and gave me concrete chances to reflect. So I’ve updated my introduction (I’m no longer just out of college!) to reflect my current outlook on life and am ready to pick this back up. As always, thank you to everyone who has followed along, been a part of, and supported me on this journey.
The last few months have been filled with all kinds of emotions. On the one hand, I traveled a lot and spent quality time with some of my favorite people in the world. But on the other hand, I struggled with a slow moving job hunt, plenty of rejection, and the feeling of being aimless. I came back to the US in August knowing that I had just gained a huge variety of experiences, but not entirely sure how I planned to channel it. Deciding that I needed some time to unwind, I first spent a busy three weeks visiting friends and family up and down both coasts of the US. Then I settled into a few weeks at home and began focusing on my next steps. In my head, I was ready to try something out a bit longer term, to see if I could translate all the diverse projects I’d done into one cumulative job experience. I built a web portfolio, wrote emails and cover letters all day, and spoke to as many people as I could. But I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for and nothing was feeling like the right fit. I was trying to take my career to the next level, but didn’t know what that looked like. I felt the recurring urge to just secure something and stop wasting time, but I tried to counter that with the perspective that job hunts take time and it would be worth it to wait until I felt really excited about something. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, a couple weeks of unemployment shouldn’t be a big deal.
Well, being the problem solver and active adventurer that I am, every day of not having a job felt disproportionately long. I decided that if this job hunt was going to take time, maybe that was beyond my control. But what was in my control was how I spent my time until then. To satisfy my urge to feel productive (emails don’t fill this urge), I decided that while software development isn’t my long term passion, it could certainly be a useful skill to help me keep busy, provide an income, and allow me to keep adventuring. So, I began working with a company I had worked with a few years back, TechChange. I know the team well, I respect the work they’re doing, and the job would give me flexibility in so many ways. Before I knew it, I was set up with them and on my way to London, both to explore some potential opportunities and to spend time with Natasha and Dustin (my best friend and her husband). And thus began my routine for the next couple months. Spend part of my day coding, part of my day enjoying different parts of the world with friends/family, and part of my day continuing to research new companies and producing as many cover letters as I could stand.
After an incredible month in England, I visited a good friend in Prague, and then fulfilled a dream of living in France for a month. Because almost all my travel destinations were motivated by friends, not tourism, I was continuously reminded that connecting with people is my favorite way to experience a city. Whether it was through cooking dinners together, getting to meet their friends and families, or dance parties before bed, the friends I lived with over the past few months filled me with love and happiness. Day to day, I knew how lucky I was to be having these experiences and tried to calm my existential worries with the knowledge that this time I was spending, seeing more of the world and strengthening amazing relationships, was what I needed right now. I repeatedly felt the need to justify this time that I was taking for myself by saying that the career progress would happen, and when it did, all these free-spirited working-travels would come to an end.
Weeks went by and the waiting game was tormenting. On the bright side, I had slowly figured out the kind of job I was looking for, that those jobs exist, and that I’m qualified for them. I just was out of sync with when hiring was happening. But still, the narrow misses weighed on me. Meanwhile, I decided to fly home to Seattle for Christmas and surprise my family. I caused some serious shock when I landed up on my doorstep and then we preceded to have a quick, but lovely holiday week, complete with a white Christmas. Barely a week later, I flew to India, to be part of a family reunion, birthday party for my grandmother, and several other family visits. At this point, I was living in the moment as much as possible, but knew I didn’t have a plan once all these visits wrapped up. But then, very suddenly, I found myself talking with the co-founder of a solar start up, exploring the idea of doing firmware engineering in Cambodia. Not exactly what I had anticipated, after months of pursuing a pretty different train of thought, but I thought I’d least get on the call and see how I felt. Spoiler, the call went very well.
I realized that I had turned away from hi-tech engineering because I had been focused on international development contexts and had ended up working on projects where fancy, technical solutions weren’t appropriate. But this company integrates cutting edge technology with the mission to provide reliable and affordable electricity to villages in Cambodia. It’s a tight knit team, everyone bringing advanced skills in a variety of areas, and focused on constantly learning from each other. They needed a firmware engineer, which would build off of the work I had done in my final year at university and also support my desire to expand my technical expertise. A few calls with various team members later, they offered me the position and were looking for someone to start as soon as possible. Within a week of accepting, I was on my way back to Cambodia.
I’m going to leave the details of my work and the stories about settling in to my next post, but I’ll end by saying how excited I am. I’ll be busy, I’m still working part time at TechChange and the startup is in a really important phase of its growth, but I already know that living here will be good for me intellectually, emotionally, and physically. There is of course the chaos of settling into a new place, but after months of uneasiness, I feel very at peace with myself. I’m looking forward to having the time and space to build a well-rounded life and embrace a kind of stability that feels positive rather than claustrophobic. I am so lucky to have the flexibility and freedom that I do, and it’s a great pleasure to embrace it so wholly and share my experiences with you.
Warning on the photos from the past few months: I wasn’t as good as I have been about taking photos, but here are a few!
The first three rows are from London. I loved walking in this city, from the beautiful parks to the canals and just everyday streets.
The next four rows are from Czech Republic. A stunningly beautiful city to walk around and explore. I saw many of the iconic sites, but I also enjoyed partaking in a political rally for the presidential candidate whom my friend was working for. A very unique way to get a historical tour of the city!
The next five rows are an assortment from my time in France. I spent the vast majority of my time in Paris, but snuck away for a bit and visited the South and Southwest. I loved seeing more of the country, but my favorite memories are by far the time spent with my friends in Paris, learning about their lives, culture, politics, etc…
Finally, the last two rows are from my grandmother’s birthday celebration and family reunion in India. Four generations together in one photo, and no one is missing!
