update

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post on here (my custom domain even expired and I can’t seem to repurchase it for whatever reason). I’m currently flying back from SF to NYC, and, although I really need to study for my Series 7 exam (it’s this Friday), I figure now is a decent time to sort of rehash this previous year before I forget everything and set goals for my near future.

I didn’t do a similar New Year’s post for 2023. This is sort of weird to me, as it feels like this year sort of flew by, as in my head I still had unfinished set goals (but these were actually set back in 2021 for 2022). Anywho, I can sort of recap 2023 into three distinct regimes, which I’ll summarize/write out any quick takeaways I had.

startup

At the start of 2023, I was still working on my startup that I had started back in 2022. The only sort of blog post/note I can find from that era was a startup log from the week after New Year’s. It seems like the break was just surrounded by work, and during the winter holidays itself, I must’ve just relaxed at home for a few weeks (and correspondingly didn’t log at all). I wonder why, with all the free time I had, I didn’t write a New Year’s recap/personal blog post. My best guess was that I was feeling overworked at the time, and that writing another blog post probably felt like pseudo-work that I was unwilling to do (I would’ve rather just done startup work instead). So my brain just refused to do work altogether.

Honestly, this section of my year is pretty well covered by my previous blog posts, so I will refrain from hashing out every single detail. We stopped Orchard sometime in March, I eventually left my startup in May for reasons I describe in my previous blog post.

asia

I had a bunch of time between when I quit my startup (May) and when I would start my job (September). I planned to move into NYC in August, but ultimately this left me with a large chunk of time where I could do anything I wanted. I’d spent most of my life up to that point working, and I figured this was probably the first and last time in a while where I could travel for an extended period of time. So that’s what I did, and I loved it.

I first went to Hawaii for around a week and a half, where I hung out with my girlfriend and her family. This was honestly a relaxing time. I had been assigned some work from Citadel to do before my start date, but I procrastinated on this since my start date was so far away.

I then went to Japan with my girlfriend for around 2 weeks, which was honestly awesome. I felt like we have similar travel styles, and I got to eat so much excellent food/see so much of Tokyo/Osaka. After this, I met up with some of my friends from high school in the grade below me, who were going on a big post-grad trip throughout Asia. In Japan, we went to Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto—the entire experience was amazing, albeit extremely exhausting. One of my friends and I fell sick at a certain point, and between staying up all night clubbing/waking up early to travel to a new city, I just never managed to fully recover. This sort of travel pushed me to some of my physical limits, but I had some of the most fun in recent memory on this trip. It was rather cathartic for me, as I finally got over some of the fomo I had been passively feeling over the past 2 years from missing out on college. Country-wise, Japan was simply amazing. Kyoto is probably the city I enjoyed the most ever—my best clubbing experience ever was there, which is super unexpected. I think Tokyo is the best designed city I’ve ever experienced, and the quality of food was utterly insane—if I could speak Japanese/had friends who would come with, I would move to Japan for their draft beer alone. Everything is super cheap too, and everything to do is great—nothing ever missed for me.

Afterwards, I went to Korea for 2 weeks, which had been hyped up for me for quite a while. I don’t know if it was because I had just come from Japan, or because my expectations were so high, or if I was just recovering from my Japan travels, or I was just mentally more exhausted with travelling, but I didn’t really enjoy Korea nearly as much as I expected. The group I travelled Japan with also sort of split up by this point, so I primarily was with only one person at this point. However, I met a ton of his friends during this trip, and a lot of them I’m still friends with in NYC (same with the random friends I had met in Japan). I made more new friends in Asia that I had during my time in Palo Alto, which alone already made the experience super worth it. But yeah, generally, I wasn’t too impressed with Korean food (I think this is personal preference), and everything felt generally more expensive. I also wasn’t that blown away by Seoul itself, which I felt like was a downgrade from Tokyo (but still much better than NYC).

I travelled with a different group for Southeast Asia, where I went to Thailand and Vietnam. I didn’t have any expectations for either, but Thailand honestly blew me away. The food was utterly amazing, the culture (Royal Palace) was super cool, and the cost of living there was dirt cheap. Bangkok felt like such a crazy city to me, and we ended up going to a random town to hike some waterfalls, which was one of the best adventures of my life. We also went to a random island, where we did a bunch of typical beach/snorkeling activities—this felt like Hawaii but much cheaper/unique. Again, the food was incredible, especially for the price—I ended up liking Thailand much more than Korea. I think there’s a trend here—how much I like a city depends on my prior expectations + quality of food. But I swear Thailand is goated haha. One of my favorite memories was being on a rooftop bar in Bangkok at sunset with giant flying fox bats overhead—I’d never really seen bats ever before, and seeing such large creatures flying around was a super cool experience.

Afterwards, I ended up in Hanoi—there was a storm that made it such that we spent less time than we originally intended there. The random nature expeditions in Thailand sapped a lot of my energy, so I ended up having a relatively chiller time in Hanoi. I had a core clubbing memory in Hanoi with the group (this was the first time we went out), the food was also really good/cheap (I discovered bun cha there), they had bats (my newly favorite animal to witness in the wild), and they just do coffee so well in SEA. I had my craziest coffee experience ever in a random cafe in Hanoi (I stumbled in by accident), which felt more like a high-end cocktail bar. They make the coffe in front of you (using super fancy techniques), the cafe itself is decorated like an expensive bar, and the best thing was that you could pay whatever you felt like. I went to a few war museums in Vietnam as well, which was a cool experience. On one of the final days, I went to a cafe by myself—I realized that this was the first time I had been alone in over 2 months, which was a weird thing to think about.

Ultimately, I was really glad I went on this trip. I think it helped refresh me from the burnout I had felt from my startup, and it was an experience that I wouldn’t have been able to have had I stayed in my startup—I think this alone made me feel a lot better about leaving, as it was a signal that although I wouldn’t have a startup experience, I will have all these other experiences that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to have. I am really looking forward to the next time I can have a trip like this. 10/10 would recommend.

new york

The long awaited return. It’d been over 2 years since I had left (during COVID), and I had spent so much time whining about wanting to go back that I was actually rather anxious about what awaited me. My expectations for NYC were super high—essentially, I expected it to solve all my unhappiness/problems, but what if my impressions of NYC were heavily biased by undergrad, a significantly different regime from post-grad life? I was also anxious that a lot of my college friends would move on with their lives, as everyone grows up into adult life.

A lot of these concerns were resolved by my first housewarming party. I actually distinctly remember the exact moment. I had a bunch of people in the apartment (a lot of people who I had just met came around half an hour early, which made it a little awkward), and I was offering the first round of drinks to everyone. At Stanford/Palo Alto, doing a round of drinks typically results in most people politely declining, leaving just me peer pressuring a similarly alcoholic friend into doing shots with me. Here, when I asked the room, someone asked “uh, do you have vodka?” I indeed had vodka. In fact, I had lots of it. The party ended up being a huge success in my opinion, and I was reassured that moving to NYC would indeed be even more fun than I had dreamed for the preceding 2.5 years.

It’s hard to say exactly what I do in NYC that I didn’t do in the bay that makes it so much better/more fun. I think it’s just the people/ease of doing random fun things that makes it so great for me. I really enjoy it, I plan on staying for the next couple years at the very least, and I encourage all my friends considering moving to NYC to pull the trigger and do it!

citadel securities

I started my new job the second week of September. I was weirdly super nervous prior to my first day (even though we weren’t going to be doing any actual work). I’d been graduated for quite a while, and even further removed from my quant/math days. I found out that among NYC trading, I was the only non-returning intern, but I managed to become friends with everyone rather quickly, which was nice (it helped that I had met one of them in Seoul through a mutual friend). That first week was quite tiring actually, but primarily from a socializing perspective (meeting a ton of new people). I also hadn’t worked in quite a few months (travel), so readjusting to that was interesting.

We had 6 weeks of training before hitting our desks in our own little building (it was actually quite a large building but the only Citadel people there was our incoming cohort of traders). It felt like school all over again—all the traders/fundamental analysts from global offices (Hong Kong, Sydney, NYC, Miami, Singapore, London) were in a classroom-esque setting. We all had our own desks/computers, we had lectures with the instructor at the front of the room, and we had a bunch of competitions/games/associated project work. I made a bunch of new friends through this experience, but unfortunately a lot of them left to different offices. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, which is sobering to think about.

We then hit our desks, which was originally at 350 Park (the options floor had been flooded briefly so they were still repairing it when we first hit the desk). Learning at this company does feel a lot like drinking from a fire hose—the expectation is that once you’re taught something once, you master it for any time it pops up in the future. IMO, that’s kinda an insane expectation—I manage, but there are times where I slip up and get correspondingly flamed. It did feel nice that I got a lot of responsibilities right off the bat—there’s no real easing into things at this firm, which is both good and bad.

I had one insane week where I crammed for the Series 57—I worked all day, then went home and studied more. Repeat this for a week straight (including studying on the desk)—I took the exam on my birthday, and then went home and threw a party. That was honestly really relieving/fun—what an insane week.

We eventually had a pop quiz in education, after which our mock rooms got ranked. To briefly explain how mock works: you have an options board with all the corresponding strikes/expiries and a stock market written on a whiteboard. You’re in a room of your peers, and nobody has any scratch paper—you’re then expected to make markets for all the various options/customer orders that come through. Stock will move around, and you’re expected to adjust your markets mentally as well depending on the pattern of customer orders (all the fake customer orders are anonymous, but there are still expressed patterns/opinions). We’re split into various rooms—the fact that this started to have an implicit ranking + the knowledge that we’re being evaluated definitely upped the pressure in education. In fact, desk work is relatively chill—the reason why everyone in my cohort works so much is because of the pressure of education. The other parts of education are significantly less stressful—we play a good number of games (including poker) and listen to lectures.

My team is definitely interesting (they’re a bunch of characters), but I like them all as they have quite a bit of personality. I’m on block single stock options, which is more of a growth desk at Citadel Securities—a lot of things haven’t been fleshed out yet, so the vibes are actually quite similar to what I’d expect working at an early stage startup would feel like. “Entrepreneurial culture” is overused imo, but, after experiencing startup life, I legitimately believe that’s the case on my team. I’m still quite early in my development/career on this desk, but I already wear many hats + have started trading! Sometimes, I stop and marvel at how insane it is that I already have this much responsibility this early on—but I guess they hired me expecting me to be able to handle it without making mistakes, and so far I’ve been doing well! I hope.

Overall, I’ve been enjoying the job/being on the grind again—there’s something satisfying about both pushing myself, but also quick returns on the improvement front. I haven’t been writing personal logs, but everyday I recap what I’ve learned that day—and it’s been adding up! I also can feel myself improving in terms of the various tasks/responsibilities I pick up throughout my time. I’ve also made a number of friends at my company—this is good since I spend so much time at the office. For now, I see myself staying here for a while.

goals

I didn’t set goals last year, which is sad because part of the fun of setting goals is to look back in the future and see if I’ve actually hit them. As I said in 2021, however, a lot of my goals now are a lot less quantitative/set compared to college. I do think I can have more defined goals this year though, or at least habits that I want to pick up. I reviewed my 2022 goals, and I feel like I finally managed to hit my biggest one: figure out what makes me happy. Yay!

I think I’ll keep my goals simple this year around. I’ll figure out more concrete habits as the time progresses.

  1. Do well at my job.

    It feels weird that I’m back at a point in my life where this is the goal. Almost feels sad that the answer to my previous goals of what makes me happy was some cool, unique, spiritual thing. There’s something nice about being able to just focus on a singular task however, and for now, that’s getting good at my job/earning the respect of my colleagues! I do enjoy the job itself, and I think the pay associated with being good at it will unlock a lot of happiness in other regards itself. However, just from an ego perspective, I do think I derive happiness from being good at something that’s hard to do.

    The structure is actually super nice—I find it easy to be motivated to work really hard in an office setting, and it alleviates all my anxiety/potential regret about not working hard enough. The long hours can be annoying, but overall I’m aware of the pros as well. The rest of my goals will be revolving about how to balance the rest of my life despite work sucking up such a huge percentage of it.

  2. Fitness.

    Over the past year, my fitness levels have declined considerably. This year, I want to get back into my gym habits, which I used to be really good at. I’ll think about picking up a sport at some point as well, but this seems like added friction which I don’t need at this moment. Baby steps!

  3. Experience life more.

    This is actually a combination of things into one. I just want to get better at achieving work-life balance now that I am back at a point where work is structured again/this is possible. This involves socializing even when I feel lazy, exploring NYC and what it offers, and generally developing a good routine.

  4. Better mental clarity.

    I felt like my brain was rotting away the past two years. Now that I’m back in a structured environment, doing a job that I like, I’ve noticed my cognitive ability/confidence has increased a ton. Specifically, I feel like my memory, which went from a strong suit to a weaker point, is now my strong suit again. I think just working hard at my job will give me many new skills/make me smarter, but now I’m curious about improving the other areas that I used to pride myself on.

    Specifically, I want to get better at writing/thinking about interesting things again. I respect people with strong mental clarity, and I used to enjoy writing a lot (beyond rote logging). I don’t know exactly how/when I’ll implement this sort of blogging again, but it is a goal!

  5. Read just one book.

    I’ve given up on crazy goals. I haven’t read a book in a while lol. I need to do a dopamine detox at some point.

These goals are pretty much all the same from the last time I wrote them, so it’s nice to see some consistency in what I want. But I feel a lot more confident in achieving these now that I have structure to my life once again.

Happy new year everyone!