Week-42

Writing/A December Letter/Reflecting/Informative

A December Letter

(this blog post is a little different than our usual ones 🥹 but i wanted to take a moment to remember 2025) 

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dear readers, 

I’ve been staring at this page for a while.

Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to say,  but because I didn’t want to say it in a way that felt rehearsed, or neat, or like I had everything figured out. This year didn’t feel like that. Writing this shouldn’t either.

December has always been my favorite month. I love Christmas in a way that’s hard to explain without sounding childish, the lights, the music, the rainy nights by the fireplace, the feeling that the entire world softens just a little for this period of time. Even when things are busy, December always gives me the sense that it’s okay to pause. That it’s okay to look back before rushing forward.

So that’s what this is. A pause.

At the beginning of the year, Faces of Silicon Valley felt like a project. I had just completed one year of working on this project, and I was still eager for it to grow so it felt comfortable to work on. It was felt like something I worked on. Something I updated.

I don’t think I realized when that shifted, but somewhere in the middle of writing about CAR T-cell therapy at night, or rewriting an explanation of genetic disorders because it didn’t feel clear enough, or deciding to post a piece of poetry or fiction, pieces of my heart, even though it felt risky , this space became more personal than I expected. Not personal in a “journal” way. Personal in the sense that it started reflecting how I think, how I question things, how I learn.

Some posts came easily. Others took days of second-guessing. There were moments where I wondered if I was explaining something too simply, or not simply enough. If anyone would care. If anyone would notice.

And then people did.

Not always loudly. Sometimes just quietly through views, through time spent reading everything, through the fact that the numbers kept growing. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that feeling. It still surprises me every time.

I learned a lot this year, but not in a “checklist of accomplishments” way.

I learned how hard it is to explain something complicated without talking down to the reader.
I learned that science writing requires humility because you don’t really understand something until you can explain it clearly. It took me a long time to write my articles on medicine and physics. I went to multiple resources, and tried sharing the ones that helped me the most, in the hopes that you'd understand it too. 
I learned that history can be confusing when you stop simplifying it but it can also be intriguing when we delete the dates, and think of the story.
I learned that systems we accept as “normal” were built by people who made choices, and that means they can be questioned. I feel like that really shone through during my August post, when I shared the origin of our school systems. Growing up in the Bay Area, math and science have always been put first. But through my website and my research on blog posts, I've learned to embrace my literary callings, and be more open to publishing my work. Whether that's through Scholastics Art & Writing Awards or Young Writers' Project or Medium, or here. 

I also learned that it’s okay to step away from daily activities, and try something new, learn something new. 

Sharing fiction (that wasn't my poetry) this summer felt like letting my brain breathe after holding its breath for months. It reminded me that thinking doesn’t always need to be productive to be valuable. Sometimes it just needs space.

If you’re reading this, you’re part of why this year mattered.

Whether you found one article through a link, or you’ve been reading consistently, you gave your time. And that’s not something I take lightly.

Seeing the stats go up was exciting, yes. But what mattered more was realizing that people were willing to engage with long explanations, with nuance, with ideas that didn’t always have clean conclusions.

That told me something important: curiosity still exists. Patience still exists. Thoughtful reading still exists.And knowing that changed how I wrote. I'm forever grateful, to all of you for conveying that to me. 

If December puts you in a reflective mood too, I really encourage you to scroll down and walk through the year.

Some pieces that meant a lot to me:

• CAR T-Cell Therapy

• Cracking the Code of Genetic Disorders

• Scanning Electron Microscopy

• Why School Looks the Way It Does

• The history pieces on New York, Halloween, and Thanksgiving

• Or even earlier, in 2024 with my hateful research on painful expanders, or my explorer series where I wrote about my time traveling the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. I shared things about my time, my favorite sites, our itinerary, what I recommend such as the amazing David Copperfield magic show at Caesar's Palace. 
• Maybe you remember our other mini series within this website. The Trailblazers series where we highlighted important figures whose stories are often untold like the pivotal Ms. Rosalind Franklin. 

Each one came from a different question, a different moment, a different version of me this year.

It’s strange and kind of wonderful to see them all sitting there together.

I’m ending this year grateful...

Grateful that this space exists.
Grateful that people read.
Grateful that writing still feels like something I get to do, not something I have to prove.

And I’m genuinely excited for what comes next.

I can’t wait to start Year Three of Faces of Silicon Valley with the best readers I could ask for. I don’t know exactly what the next year will bring, but I know I want to keep asking questions, keep learning out loud, and keep writing honestly.

That feels like enough.

Thank you for being here.
Thank you for reading.
And thank you for letting this space grow with me.

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See you in the next chapter! 🫶