Pride Love, 2024

Friends,

I've been working on my Pride Love, 2024 playlist for the last few weeks and it's now ready. The theme for this year is: "A reflection on love, loss, and finding hope." 

The full story behind the playlist can be found here.

Dedication

Friends,

Pride Love, 2024 is Pride Love, 2024 is dedicated to Mao-Lin's mother, Kitty, who passed away early in the morning on January 1st of this year. Her passing came after seven of the most traumatic days that Mao-Lin and I have ever experienced as individuals and as a family unit. Mao-Lin spent two weeks a month in Maryland for at least 3.5 years as a caretaker. I started spending one week a month with him down there as well, which I did for close to three years.

Kitty is the closest thing I'll have to a mother in this life and helping take care of her these last few years will go down as most important things I do in this life. She was one of the few people who consistently asked about my long covid; she remembered my birthday, even with her dementia getting worse; she always had my favorite snacks in the house when I arrived. "Like mother, like son" she would say to me.

I see her in Mao-Lin everyday and I'm grateful that she was able to see us get engaged before she passed away. If Mao-Lin and I decide to have kids, they will be raised in the name of the House of Shen and in her honor, with her tenacity and overwhelming compassion imbued in them.

Life Changes: Her passing has led directly to a lot of changes in my life. Bullet point updates are below; detailed updates (written as freeform thought; different topics in bold) can be found below the line.

• In March, I found out I'm 11% ethnic Jew; I will begin the 12-18 month conversion process in the fall at a local reform synagogue. 
  • Reform Judaism doesn't require the conversion of spouses and Mao-Lin will not be converting (I wouldn't convert if he was then required to convert as well; that would be a dealbreaker for me). 
  • Ken's first reaction when he found out: mazel tov!
  • Mao-Lin's first reaction when he found out: mazel tov!
  • I thought this was strange so I texted a Jewish friend and you know what his first reaction was? All together now: mazel tov!
• I'm going back to grad school to get my masters in data science from the CUNY school of professional studies . I will focus on neural network theory and applications and hope to land a new job at the intersection of deep learning/LLMs and product management. 
  • I'm currently teaching myself python and hope to start some intensive neural network projects in the fall. I have a portfolio website coming together that I'll share once it's ready. 
  • I'm also relearning algebra 1 and 2; stats and probability; and calculus 1-3. I have a math tutor I meet with once a week to help work through challenging bits