Letters
25 posts
Below are the weekly letters I've written so far. A little while ago I started writing weekly letters to my loved ones as a means to keep everyone updated and informed of my whereabouts and happenings. Soon I discovered that the process of writing about my week was beneficial in so many ways! It was meditative. It allowed me time to process what I've experienced. It helped me appreciate the good things that happened in a regular week. It gave me a permanent, detailed repository of the story of my life.
Week 25: Matane Japan
08 July, 2018Hi, Or Swa-dee-cap as it’s pronounced in Thai. At the moment I am sitting on a bean bag chair at a hostel in downtown Bangkok. I was beginning to feel a bit restless in Japan, so I decided to fly out. I think I was in need of healthier food options and an outlet for exercise, and I figured surfing…
Week 24: Hanging with International Friends
02 July, 2018Hi, Back in November I was staying at Loft Hostel in Budapest when I met a friendly Canadian named Andrew. He works for Canadian Airlines, which has the perk of being able to fly standby on any of their flights. I met him hanging out on the couch at a tiny homey hostel and we became fast friends. He…
Week 23: Last week in Japan with the Andrews
25 June, 2018Hi, I’m hanging out in Yokohama at the moment, watching some TV with Andrew Takao and his dad Hiroshi in their suburban home. Andrew (Wilson) flew out yesterday, making his way to Southeast Asia. I’m guessing he’s somewhere in Bangkok at the moment. We spent the first half of the week in Yokohama…
Week 22: 7 Day Japan Rail Pass Adventure
18 June, 2018Hi All, I just finished up a week long cross country adventure, taking me through shrines, sanctuaries, parks, ramen shops, food markets and culture-rich traditional neighborhoods all across Japan. Here’s a recap of everything I’ve seen, petted and tasted over the past seven days. Nara Nara is a…
Week #21: Deer Sanctuary
10 June, 2018Hi, So I was on a bullet train this morning, traveling from Higemi to Naoshima while I wrote my weekly letter. I did not have internet at the moment so I was crafting the email in wordpad, and forgot to save as the train pulled up into the station. My computer likes to turn itself off completely…
Week #20: What Is this?!
04 June, 2018Hi, Andrew and I stood at the flight ticket counter in the Hawaiian Airport. The ticket lady looked down at our two bags and backpacks, shaking her head. She regretfully informed us that AirAsia only allows 7kg on their international flight, and it would cost $100 to check a bag. Andrews bag weighed…
Week #19: Hello Hawaii!
27 May, 2018Hi, This week started by saying good-bye to San Francisco, and saying hi to a jam packed week of adventure and action in Hawaii. I had come back from Yosemite last Monday, squeezing in two work days before flying out to Hawaii. I grabbed lunch with an old college friend, Freya at Uno Dos Tacos in…
Week #18: San Francisco and Yosemite Weekend
20 May, 2018Hi, It was raining in Boston the day before we left. Andrew Takao and I drove through stop and go traffic as we made our winding way up through Cambridge towards Takao’s place. It began to rain in the afternoon, and only seemed to get more rainy and more sad as the day progressed into the evening…
Week #17: The Last S Whitney St Weekend
13 May, 2018Hi, It was just past 4am, and I was sitting on the aged leather couch in our Swhitney living room. A small handful of friends, steadfast in continuing the final get together, were caught up in nostalgic conversations. Steve, sandwiched between me and Andrew on the couch, racked his mind trying to…
Week #16: Josh Meets Computer and ODSC
06 May, 2018Hi, So I have some semi exciting news! Over the past two weeks Andrew has been putting in a big push for web development. He decided to build out a portfolio website for me, and this week marks the initial launch of Josh Meets Computer! www.joshmeetscomputer.com As a result, much of the early part…
Week #15: A Week of Boston Life
29 April, 2018Hi, As I write this, I am sitting at the dining table of my S Whitney apartment in Boston, racking my brain to think of what to write. I was convinced for a moment that I truly had nothing interesting to write about. Then, as I worked through the days of my week, pleasant memories started flooding…
Week #14: A Consulting Meeting in Boston
22 April, 2018Hi all, Made it back to Boston last night from the ski house. Perhaps the first time I drove home on a Sunday night. Turns out I left my computer charger here so I had to come back, but also Sugarbush is now closed for the week, so not too much of a reason to stay up there. Most of the week was…
Week #13: Studying in Vermont
15 April, 2018Hi, Little late on this post, instead of writing on Sunday night I fell asleep on the couch while watching ‘Darkest Hour’ with Hochiang and Andrew. Anyways this past week marked significant progress with my side projects, Andrew started building out a portfolio website for me, and we had a record…
Week #12: Pond Skim Weekend
08 April, 2018Hi all, I’m going to try a new structure for my weekly write up. Before I tried to go through my week in chronological order, recounting memories from earlier in the week and working my way through. Though I’ve been reading this book called ‘Made To Stick’, which talks about how to share ideas in a…
Week #11: From Vermont to Maryland
01 April, 2018Hi all, So this week was a slow pilgrimage from the snow lodge down to Maryland for Passover and Easter weekend. Slow in the sense that I got a little bit of time in my three current homes, making the week pretty well rounded as far as a normal work week goes. First one, the snow house in Vermont…
Week #10: Mike Visits Vermont
25 March, 2018Hi all, Here I am back in the old farm house, amongst the snowy mountains of Vermont where these weekly writings began. At the turn of 2018, I had a hard time figuring out how I could possibly have a better year than 2017. 2017 marked a year filled with travel, adventure, amazing food and amazing…
Week #9: A week in San Francisco
18 March, 2018Hi all, As I right this, I’m sitting at the coffee bar of a hip café chain in downtown San Francisco, somewhere in the vicinity of Tenderloin and South Market. It was the first one I picked for my morning work session and as it turns out, not only does it have all the coffee offerings to make this…
Week #8: Vacationing, Colorado and California
11 March, 2018Hi all, This week will be all about vacationing, skiing and traveling. On my birthday last week, I flew out of Boston over to Denver Colorado to start my ski trip out west. I packed up my things with Andrew, we grabbed our best friend Lauren and convinced our roommate Hochiang to drive us to the…
Week #7: Birthday
04 March, 2018Hi all, I’m currently hanging out at Lauren’s house in Colorado, relaxing / decompressing from a pretty hard day of skiing. Lauren is one of my closer friends in my Boston / ski friends group — we met a few years ago outside her house at 6am on a Saturday morning. Andrew and I were heading to the…
Week #6: Vermont Guests and New York City
25 February, 2018Hi, As I write this, I’m sitting in the tiny (but cosy) apartment of an old friend of mine in the upper east side of Manhattan, NY. Been a pretty wild weekend so far, more on that later. Okay back track to last Monday: Up in Vermont, the crew was coming out of an amazingly fun presidents weekend…
Week #5: Life in Vermont, thoughts in Vermont
20 February, 2018Hi, Thinking back on this week, there has been this very interesting juxtaposition between the possibly unexceptional daily life, and the trans-formative discussions that occurred during the same time frame. Andrew and I made a routine of hanging out in the hot tub for a few minutes before the gym…
Week #4: VT and Just Josh, Volunteering
13 February, 2018Hi, A little late sending out this post. Slipped my mind on Sunday and I did not make time for it on Monday, so when you read this let’s just pretend it’s Sunday. Last weekend Andrew went to New York with his Aunt, then ended up deciding to stay there for the week. Our other roommate from Boston…
Week #3: MIT, Snow storm and back in VT
05 February, 2018Hi all, So this catch up will be rather short (maybe) since not too much action happened since last Sunday. The idea of a week passing by so quickly reminds me of the commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI ). In his advice to the newly…
Week #2: MIT Class, Volunteering and Bernies Birthday
28 January, 2018Hi all, Okay so here’s an update on the progress in life and work since last week. Last Sunday we were finishing the weekend up in Vermont. Andrew and I decided to work a full day on Monday before driving back to Boston. A long time ago my side view mirror had been broken off in the parking lot of a…
Week #1: 2018 and Project 12
22 January, 2018Hi, I decided to write a bit of an open letter each week (may be bi-weekly) on my comings and goings to keep my family updated as I travel the world, work on my side projects and other moderately interesting life events. So bringing everything up to speed, I started 2018 on a year long project with…