feruza.dev
I’ll be speaking at the ivybek admissions marathon this sunday at 7 PM Tashkent time (10 am Eastern Time). I’ll be covering college admissions, life at college, and everything I’ve learned over the past four years.
There are two sessions each day: 7:00 PM and 8:30 PM (Tashkent time).
Join here:
@ivybek_marathonbot
@feruza_dev
My brother,
Nur
, got into Stanford.
His path has been truly an unpredictable one. Coming from Kokand, education abroad was something we had never heard of. If someone did in fact go abroad to study, it meant that they came from a family of power and wealth. Instead of following our father’s footsteps and going to транспортный in Tashkent like many sons would in an Uzbek traditional household, Nur was quite intentional and determined in his decision to go abroad. He graduated from a public high school and lyceum, where rigorous courses like IB or AP were never a concept; in fact most Uzbek schools still don’t offer them. I remember how WiFi was also something privileged families had access to. I’d watch him sleep for a couple of hours before midnight, so he could stay up to use the unlimited night internet service offered by Beeline, called “Do It,” for about 8 cents. He spent two relentless years learning the ins and outs of building a life beyond borders. I remember the days when the electricity would be cut off for two hours for every two it was on, and how we would share candles at the kitchen table to do homework.
He eventually landed on Georgetown’s campus in Qatar. Pursuing international relations, he always kept his entrepreneurial spirit alive. He won multiple grants to fund our non profit school back home, where we taught local kids English and coding free of charge. He’s one of the most caring, generous and giving people I know, whether for his family, friends or even strangers. He never stopped helping everyone around him, not because he had an abundance to give, but because he has the ability to truly care about others. He never failed to show up, not once, not even when he was quietly carrying his own weight, far from home, figuring things out with no safety net. Frankly, I would not be where I am today if it was not for him. He’s the giant whose shoulders I continue to stand on. Stanford is lucky to have him.
From building legos to building unicorns together!
Cheers
🥂
@feruza_dev
Looking for volunteers: - Highly skilled in both Uzbek and English - Experienced in uzb-eng and eng-uzb translation tasks This is for a LLM research project with potential publication. If interested, please reach out:
I'm just glad it didn't autocorrect to uzpakistan
@feruza_dev
Just met Paul Graham.
Co-creator of Y Combinator, computer scientist, essayist - among many other things.
It's crazy how things work out. One moment you're religiously reading his essays, the next you randomly get to talk to him.
He's quite different from what I expected. Super down to earth and jolly. Nothing like many of the investors and founders you meet in SF.
A couple of things he said that I think are relevant:
- Don't let AI do all your work. Especially writing, because writing is what helps you think. Write well to think well. (One of the reasons I started this blog, I was terrified of forgetting how to write proper Uzbek.)
- CS students, you didn't make a mistake. Even if AI writes all the code, you'll still end up as the engineering manager. And to be a good manager, you have to know how to do what your people do.
- To get into building companies, relax the constraint that your first project needs to make money. Just do it because it's cool and fun.
- Don't drop out. College is valuable because you can do things for no reason. When you drop out to build a startup, there's only one thing you have to think about, all the time.
and many more thoughts he writes about at length in his essays. Definitely worth reading through all of them:
https://paulgraham.com/articles.html
@feruza_dev
I don’t feel 'home'.
The not so often talked about part of moving abroad at a young age is that you will never feel home again. The first couple of years, you are still exploring and excited to be out there, making friends and seeing places. You’re naive and innocent. You trust everyone and see the best in people. But sooner or later, that feeling of thrill fades. You simply get used to being a foreigner. You visit home once or twice a year, but you won’t feel at home. Everything is the same in a relative way, but you’ve aged in ways that are hard to explain. You feel it in every conversation you have. Would you stay if you knew this would happen? Probably not. Because at the end of the day, you chose this to create a better life for yourself and the people you love. Soon you lose the idea of what a better life even means for you. It is certainly not the unease of never belonging. But you will keep going so that you can provide that promised better life for others. It comes at a cost of losing what could’ve been a better life for you. The loss of moments in the hopes of giving back.
Moments of washing the dishes in the kitchen with your siblings. Experimenting with a new recipe with your mom. Discussing worldly affairs with your uncles around the big family table. Listening to your father’s stories from when he was in the army as he grilled kebabs. You would give a lot just to have back one of those plain afternoons when you didn’t know what to do and ended up wandering around the house for hours. Early spring, when the apricot trees would bloom and fill the whole backyard with their scent. Watching С лёгким паром every new year’s, over and over again, and every time find the capacity to criticize Женяʻs character. Sitting around the messy table to debrief over freshly brewed green tea once the guests leave. Eating оливье and Шуба for days after the 31st, every time putting all your faith into not getting food poisoning.
You desperately search for this sense of home in everyone you meet. You trust, and try to see the best in them, with the innocence of a child. Because this is what we used to do at home, no? But you soon realize that it is not how life works. You grow more and more skeptical, a version of yourself you donʻt quite recognize. You desperately try to hold on to who you were once. I often yearn for that older, innocent self whose entire goal for the day would be to carve sculptures from yesterday’s snow or to somehow successfully ration the bus money to feed the dog I’d pass every day on my way home form school.
It is a sacrifice that will last a century. If you were to ask me what my favorite sound is, it would probably be the engine sound of VAZ-2017. Because it would mean dad is home. The only sound that could make me run. And how much I would give to hear it now.
And yet, the beautiful thing about being human is that no feeling is final. There is always a glimpse of hope that maybe one day you will feel home again. Maybe not in the same way, but it will feel okay. That there will surely be someone or someplace that will make it alright.
@feruza_dev
Looking for volunteers:
- Highly skilled in both Uzbek and English
- Experienced in uzb-eng and eng-uzb translation tasks
This is for a LLM research project with potential publication.
If interested, please reach out:
UX for setting stock alerts in Interactive Brokers is horrible so I built a mini bot in telegram to set alerts and build your own watchlist. It doesn't have many features, but I'll add them as I go.
Check out the bot here:
@Buffetindicator_bot
@noordievdev