Hi friends,

It feels like time is flying by because we're already halfway through September! On top of this, I am writing on the anniversary of my moving to California! It's honestly crazy that it has been a year already but I'm made it work especially thanks to my strong support network!

Rose Bud Thorn 🌹🌷🌵

🌹 This week was filled with so many small moments that brought me joy! I caught up with three close friends — Irene, Nathanial, and Becca. I had lunch with Irene at Dooby's in Baltimore, and that was lovely because we have experienced a lot together, and we always wander into very deep and reflective topics. As I drove to meet Irene, I passed Nate at Hopkins, so I immediately stopped and called him. Seeing him was special and made me tear up a little bit because he's a senior now, and he's really an incredible young man. It's been really awesome to watch him grow throughout Hopkins, and while I'm a little hurt that the pandemic abruptly separated our physical time together, I'm thrilled I got to see him. Finally, Becca is one of my closest friends from high school! Once or twice every summer since HS, we get Rita's and catch up about life. We weren't able to get Rita's this time around; however, we still caught up! She's a full teacher now, and it fills my heart to see her doing what she worked so hard for during undergrad (even if she stays up till 2 am sometimes!).

🌷 I moved back to campus this week and met a few new students! I'm excitedly (and a little nervously) anticipating fun and busy last year of grad school (and maybe school ever?)

🌵 No, real cacti/thorns this week, but if I had to nitpick, I'd say it's that I did not get to work out much this week due to all the traveling, but it's okay! With school starting soon, I hope I'll develop a routine I'm happy with!

Book Talk📚

I spent this week in the sci-fi world of The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and it was fantastic. I enjoyed nearly everything about this book, especially the story and how it got me thinking about environmentalism and what we as a planet would or could do if we learned about the existence of alien life forms. One criticism I have is that there is very little character development, and it's hard to form any attachments, but with a plot-driven book, that's okay! Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to talk about the book without spoiling anything, so I'll just put my Goodreads review below!

Enjoyed this a lot more than I expected!! The story is fantastic and it has me thinking about what I would do if I lived in this universe. I never really thought about alien life and what our relationship with them could look like but this def got me on edge. The metaphor about bugs at the end of the book (not a spoiler -- def needs context); has me so excited for the next few books!

Intentional Content Consumption📰

TV— Engineering the Future and Dream the Future

• HBO Max has a few cool educational series — some of which are from CuriosityStream! For example, I watched an episode of Engineering the Future which focused on Wind Energy. It was really awesome to see the challenges in designing and constructing clean critical infrastructures like land and offshore wind farms! It inspires me also to do good work and contribute to shaping the future. I actually immediately looked up careers with Siemens to see if I could work them!
• The second series I watched was Dream the Future which looks at a broader range of innovations that will shape our future. The episode I watched was broadly on Cities of the Future. One cool thing I learned was the application of crowdsourcing data. For example, imagine we place pollution detectors around our cities. We can access that information to decide which route would be the cleanest or minimize our exposure to pollutants. I wonder what this kind of data could influence the urban design and mobility design. Also, what can we do with other data beyond pollution — for example, what about noise?

This Week's Video 📹

I had a lot of fun working on my first video for my Climate Injustice Series. This video is on Extreme Heat! Y'all, I'm really proud of the thumbnail for this video because it took some magic to make it look the way it does. Just because I won't be able to post it anywhere else, here is the before and after of the pictures! Anyway, enjoy the video and share it with someone who would be interested!

Blooper Reel 🎞

• Arsenal FINALLY won a game this season. We're four games into the season and we won our first game. It was definitely scrappy but we did it. I hope we can start to build some momentum!
• The Retrospect (this newsletter is growing)! We're averaging one new sub every week, and it brings me joy to reflect publicly. If you have any ideas on if I should focus on anything, let me know. Right now, it's a mix of personal and educational (kind of) content! Reach out to me if you have any suggestions!

Thanks for reading and reflecting this week! If you aren't subscribed to get this in your inbox weekly, you can here!

Best,
Awoe ✌🏾