A Year in the Life: 2024-25
Highlights of another lap on the third stone from the sun...
A year ago, I wrote a review of my age 27 year, basically covering everything that I did at a high level:
I would say that year was the start of a transition in me, where I began to explore life after post-secondary education.
Now we are here, March 14, 2025. I have successfully made it around the sun yet again, and as a result, I get to celebrate being another year older. So, let’s go through last year and highlight the key things that have happened in my life.
Leaving Physics Behind (for now!)
For the past 23 years of my life, I focused on one goal: becoming a physicist. This, on the surface, seems simple enough - do well in grade school, get accepted to college, enter the physics program (and throw in mathematics for good measure), get the bachelor’s degree, then enter a graduate program and work on the PhD. Then once you get the PhD, find a post doctorate program or lab that’s willing to take your talents and then do research and/or teach the next generation of students.
Of course, there is a lot of work involved. At the graduate level, this involves doing the “core” classes which includes classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics, a lab (which I thankfully did as part of my undergraduate work), additional courses to round out my education (quantum field theory, solid state physics, and general relativity) and a research project which leads to a thesis being written. I generally did not have much issue with the classwork (the only blemish being in the first semester of quantum field theory, where I got a A- instead of an A), and I enjoyed my time as a teaching assistant, where I taught the introductory labs and did the recitations for the introductory physics courses. Where the trouble lied was with the research component.
During my course of study I worked a couple of projects in high energy physics, including one involving computing the master integrals for a “tennis court” topology with massive legs1, and another involving higher order corrections to the production of Higgs bosons in a next generation lepton collider, ie the process
where e denotes electrons, H the Higgs, and γ the photon.
These proved to be challenging for me, as I am dealing with stuff on the frontier, where we do not know exactly how to compute these things. There is a standard procedure which involves constructing all of the Feynman diagrams related to the process at a certain order, and then evaluating them to get a matrix element2. Squaring this gives the cross section of a process.
There are tools to construct all the necessary integrals; the tricky part is to evaluate them. This is where my troubles lie. For a long time I was stuck, and I didn’t make much progress. Furthermore, there was relatively few job prospects within the local area for being a physics professor; I would likely have to move to find work. Both of these stressed me and brought me to a state of burnout.
As part of getting out of the burnout, I decided during the summer of 2024 to put my physics studies on hold. Might I return to physics in the future? Possibly. I am still interested in the subject, and I am certainly interested in imparting my knowledge to people, but I’m not looking to do research, per se.
Making My Mark in Public Health
Over the past year, I’ve continued to be part of the Niagara County Department of Health as a disability specialist. One of the key things I did with the department was talk about the Community Engagement survey that we did in 2023, which was presented at the 2024 Preparedness Summit in Cleveland as a virtual session:
I attended the summit as well, which was quite interesting and had a number of talks related to the disability and/or access and functional needs (DAFN) community. The conference itself also had a good number of talks involving artificial intelligence to enhance the capabilities of local health departments, including designing exercises for testing out emergency plans. There was a pre-conference workshop prior to the actual summit which dealt with radiation. During this I was trained on a game called This is a TEST.
The summit itself was the first major event I went to with the Sunflower lanyard on me (I will get to the Sunflower in a moment).
In addition to this, I also took part in assisting with several projects that the department is doing, including distributing Narcan, building maternity kits to improve children’s health, educating people at various events and health fairs (including the Niagara County Fair and Celtic Fest) and I partook in a course that the New York State Public Health Fellows take during their fellowship called the NYS Public Health Essentials course.
Spreading the Sunflower
I had mentioned the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower in the last year in the life post, where I had began to wear it and start to convince others within my local area to get onboard with the program. Since last year, quite a lot of progress has been made in this area.
Firstly, within Niagara County, a pilot program was run in the Health Department. This consisted of two parts - one, getting the staff trained in the program (which is very quick, as it consists of a couple of videos which take approximately 10 minutes to watch) and two, getting the word out at the various events that the health department takes part in. This proved to be a great success. During the pilot, 93% of the department successfully completed the training, with nearly everyone saying that the program was beneficial. Sunflower materials have also been distributed at various events throughout the county, including the County Fair, Peach Fest, and Celtic Fest.
Agencies that the Niagara County Health Department are partnered with also received word of the Sunflower. One of these agencies is the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA). This agency implemented the program, which went into effect in January 10 at the Buffalo Niagara and Niagara Falls International Airports. They are also planning to expand this to include the Metro bus.
I have also started to get in touch with some elected representatives in Albany to make the Sunflower a state symbol. Representative McMahon, who serves the district I live in, is interested in this program, per a meeting with her during a town hall hosted by the League of Women Voters just prior to the 2024 presidential elections.
Getting more into the Disability Community, both Online and Offline
As I’ve gotten more entrenched with my work with Niagara County, my involvement with the disability community, which I am a part of, has increased as well. This is a dual pronged beast, as disabled people network through a variety of means, including in person meetings and virtual meetings on the Internet.
In terms of in person meetings there were two of them that I took part in. The first one was the SANYS Western Region Self-Advocacy Conference, which occurred in June. My friend
also took part in the conference. Here I heard about various activities that self-advocates throughout my region are doing to advance the rights and opportunities that people in the disability community have, particularly in the arenas of education, technology, and transportation. Transportation is particular was of interest, as I rely on Paratransit services to get around. Stephanie Speaker, a prominent self-advocate in the Buffalo area, managed to get a bill into the NY assembly that would expand the Paratransit coverage area.In September I partook in the Self Advocacy Institute, where I exhibited growth in other areas. This was notable as I utilized Amtrak for the first time, and I traveled on my own for the first time. The institute offered strategies in order to effectively communicate my needs to people in power, including using baseball as an analogy to pitch my ask to leaders.
Online, I joined a number of groups that focus on either autistic culture, or culture of the disabled community. These include CASY (Cultural Autism Studies at Yale, which has a variety of talks per month from members of the autistic community or from researchers that work in this space),
(which hosts Crip Arts Gatherings for people who are Deaf, disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent and/or mad) and the remote body, who often partners with RestFest for events and hosts a weekly craft club over Zoom.Returning to Reading
When I was in grade school, I read almost incessantly, trying to gather as much information as possible about the world. I sought the newest developments in the science world, particularly in the physics realm3. I didn’t really care too much for fiction books, even though much of the English curriculum focused on fiction. Some of the books that I recall reading in grade school include some of the Shakespeare plays, Life of Pi, Heart of Darkness, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
When I went to college, the amount of reading I did for leisure effectively became zero. All the reading I did was for my classes or for my research.
With my studies on hold, I finally had some time to fill. A lot of it has been spent on my hobbies, which include chess, computer games and cooking. However, I have been slowly working getting back into reading again. I started with branching into the vast literature that autistic and disabled folk have. The first book that I read in this area is Girl Unmasked, which you can read my review of here:
It was interesting to read and draw parallels between her life and my own experiences.
I wanted to continue reading stuff in a similar vein, however, it’s prudent to expand my horizons and explore other forms of literature (‘less I want to be a one-dimensional person!).
I started to build up my collection of books further in December, starting with two classics, Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”. I further added to the collection in February with “Under the Eye of the Big Bird” by Harumi Kawakami. I am presently in the middle of both Jane Eyre and Under the Eye of the Big Bird.
During December I also signed up for an ARC (advanced reader copy) of a poetry collection called “tender teeth” by Valerie Eden, which I was selected for. She wrote a very poignant collection of poems, including some that relate to my experience with my stepfather. You can check out that review below:
Other small tidbits and miscellaneous stuff
I participated in 2 5 mile races in preparation for a half marathon which I plan to run this year. These were the 2024 YMCA Turkey Trot in Buffalo, NY (which I completed in 68 minutes flat) and a pancake prediction run hosted by the Runner’s Roost, which I completed in 68 minutes 31 seconds.
With my housemates I partook in a trip to Baltimore in September, which was fun, albeit a bit dangerous as I almost got drilled by a Colton Cowser foul ball. I should chronicle the trip in its own post at some point…
I saw two astronomical phenomena - the total solar eclipse, as well as the blood moon lunar eclipse which occurred early in the morning of March 14.
I came out as asexual, which is perfectly fine!
I started the process to becoming an air traffic controller. I am not feeling super optimistic on my chances given the administration’s priorities, but, it’s worth taking a shot at anyway.
33 posts/pages were added to the Muse.
I began to write my second novel which is called “Dates for Donuts”. I hope to have it completed by the end of the year.
I printed my first business cards which I distributed at a few events, namely the Self-Advocacy Conference and the Self-Advocacy Institute.
I continued to bake and cook different dishes each week to improve my skills in the kitchen and to expand my palette of tastes.
What’s Next?
As a 29 year old, I am looking to continue my growth as a person. This includes the following:
Continuing to tell more stories about my life here on the Autistic Muse,
Continuing to seek stable employment and/or income,
Continuing to participate in activities that I like to do,
Connecting with as many people as possible from various walks of life and,
Fighting for what’s right, given the political climate domestically and abroad.
As part of this, I have introduced a way to support me financially!
Note, it’s completely optional to do this, and only do so if you feel like doing so and you have the financial means to do so. All the content that I will post here will remain free (as information should be free).
If you like this, feel free to like and share! It really helps me out. Also consider subscribing, so you don’t miss out on future content:
That’s all, and as a bonus for getting this far, enjoy a picture of the cake that I made for both my birthday, and my friend’s birthday (which was yesterday):
Such a topology appears, for instance, when computing the amplitudes at 3 loop order of quarks going to two pairs of leptons with an intermediate step of two vector bosons. That is,
where q denotes quarks, V denotes vector bosons (photons, W, Z bosons) and l denotes leptons (electrons, muons, tauons, and neutrinos).
There are a lot of complexities that have to be taken care of when doing the evaluation of the Feynman integrals, however, these are beyond the scope of this blog.
Well, as new as the books report.
Totally lost me at the end!!!
I can tell you’ve had a great 28th… now rock the 29th!
Add send me the recipe for the cake!!