Today, Ty organized an open-ended Table Talk to discuss recent happenings, including personal, campus-wide, and external ones. I was honestly a bit hesitant to go in the beginning; future-wise, major things have happened to me recently, and a part of me was scared to talk about them.
I’ve only mentioned it a few times up until now.
First, to a part of my family. Their reaction has been, up until now… a bit weird. Supportive, but wary. As if a part of them hopes to convince me otherwise due to fear I’ll regret my decision.
Secondly, to a few friends here and House Fellows. When the subject appeared, I told these friends and spent the next few seconds/minutes observing their reactions. Supportive, though somewhat shocked. The House Fellows were always very supportive, and I appreciate that.
I also kind of wrote about it in a couple of my posts here, but not in a very specific way.

But I haven’t told many people who are close to me yet, or many people who are in Physics with me. Haven’t told my major advisor. Or my Physics colleagues. Or my dear friends from Brazil. Or even one of my brothers.

So, once again, today I was anxious/scared about saying out loud, in this large research university, that I’ve given up on the idea of going to grad school and of becoming a Physics Professor at a university. That I care about teaching way more than I care about research. That I decided to become a high school physics teacher (who also prepares students for physics competitions). And that I want to inspire as many young students as I can, and lead them as best as I can.

But I’m so glad I said it. Lea and Ty were so incredibly supportive, and that just made my day completely. Thanks, both of you

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I should probably talk more about the event (or at least give some context), and stop making a monologue about myself. Sorry (not sorry) O/v/O

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To give some context, we started out by briefly talking to our neighboring colleagues about recent happenings, personal, campus-wide, and global. I honestly didn’t have much to say here, because staying in touch with the “external world” has been super hard for me. Keeping up with everything going on in Brazil right now is already pretty mentally taxing to me, and when joined together with my own personal struggles that I mentioned earlier and with my classes and extracurriculars and work, it becomes really difficult for me to give the attention required for things like the Hong Kong protests, US news (like the impeachment hearing and upcoming elections), and other news. It seems other students shared a similar struggle, so at least I wasn’t alone in this! 🙂

Afterwards, Ty gave us each a sheet of paper to write down positive and negative news about our lives in Cornell and in our personal lives, which we’d then share with a colleague. Most of mine were related, directly or indirectly, to my decision to change my future career path (unsurprisingly). I also loved hearing Lea’s takes about their classes and their work, and how they essentially made a positive thing out of some of the negatives they’d written down. Lea’s comments were super constructive and inspiring!

This was a great way to close this semester. I wonder what different events next semester will bring and, similarly to my now-defined career, I look forward to these changes~