A traveler documents his first days in the US, packing light with beef jerky and a neck pillow, missing a connection to San Francisco, then buying eco-friendly shoes and exploring the Berkeley Art Museum. He reflects on an AI talk he gave, sharing three lessons: sign up for challenges before you feel ready, do thorough research, and trust what you know.
Chapters
All right, so it's quarter to 1, or 12:30 AM, so, so past 1. I'm packing for the US. Check out this layout. And I'm staying up late because there's jet lag and my flight lands at a certain time and I want to be at least awake for it when I get there. Long story, I can't work out time zones properly. I'm packing light. I've got shirts here, jeans, only taking about 3 shirts, underwear, socks, beef jerky. Gonna put it all in this one bag. This is just a mess still, but I'm gonna wake up in the morning and finish all that. Editing another video here. I wanted to get that done before bed, but I'm in a state right now and I can't edit properly. But we'll see at the airport.
Look at this mini toothpaste. It's so small.
It's like $300.
You know what, I think we're done.
I've got everything ready. Clothes I'm going to wear to the airport, neck thing, bag. Packed. Camera bag is practically empty because my new camera's out here.
Check it out, yeah!
Got some cash, phone, but that's it. 3 weeks in America. Oh yeah, I'm ready. Me. Second checkpoint made. Read an answer on Quora. It says if you wait until close to the end of, of boarding time, you might get a row in the— to yourself. So I don't know how packed the flight is, but I'm going to give that a try. And I've never really gone shopping in airports because you think about, you're at an international airport, you're tired, you've just got on a flight, What do you want to do? You don't necessarily want to shop. It'd be good if there was like a gym or a fitness facility or some kind of place to lie down and sleep.
That's just the health geek coming out of me.
Hello. Excellent, how are you?
Good, thanks.
Ah, do you want your passport? Just because you checked in online.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. See ya. A little bit of a hiccup, but we're getting on the plane. Good morning. How are you, sir? Excellent, how are you?
Good, good, thank you.
Oh, you're right. Your seat is in 4C8K, sir, which is a window seat in the second aisle of your right. Thank you. All right, 2 flights down, 1 missed flight. Yeah, I missed my flight from LA to San Francisco, so I got on the next one, and we're about an hour late now. That's all right, I'm going to find an Uber, get to San Francisco, and then start exploring. After 14 hours of not moving, you got to take the stairs, not the escalator. I don't have a SIM card yet, so I'm going old school, look at the map. I'm going to catch this, this train into the city and then figure out where to go from there. All right, SIM card sorted.
We got— we're plugged back into the matrix.
Got an AT&T. In T-Plan unlimited data, which is important. There's this shoe store in this alleyway that my friend told me about. Apparently they do really comfy shoes, and all I bought were these, so I need something closed in. Maybe this is it. All burbs. This is definitely it. I've got some decisions to make. Did you notice the new kicks? Just like that, new pair of shoes acquired. Possibly the comfiest shoes I've ever worn. I think they're made out of tree or something. There was another type which is made out of wool, but these had holes in them so it could breathe, and I live in a hot climate, so these are going to last me for the whole trip. All right, I know I'm in a public bathroom, but yes, it is, it is, it is pretty clean. I'm gonna brush my teeth. I've been traveling for the past 21 hours and my teeth feel weird. If I feel a little cleaner, maybe I won't be as tired. I'm trying to stay up until a normal sleep time and then reset the body clock.
Ding!
Let's get some coffee.
How cool is this stairwell?
It's completely painted red, right? And I'm at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. That's what it's called. And it's really cool. I've been walking around looking at these different photos. There's an art— there's a gallery of photos by Peter Hajav that are all black and white, and they all tell a story. Which is fascinating to me because I love artwork so much. And what you saw me writing before in the clip, in that time-lapse I did at the cafe, was an email I sent out. And in it, I told the story of when Athan and I did a talk on AI at UQ. When I first read the email, I was scared to do it, right? But in the one that I wrote, the newsletter that I sent out, you can sign up on my website, by the way, I said 3 tips. To taking on new challenges. And the first one was sign up when you're not 100% ready. If you're 100% ready to do anything, you've waited too late. Sign up when you're about 70% ready. Take on the challenge when you're a little bit too scared. When we first signed up, I didn't think we'd get it done. And then the people we talked to rated our talk as excellent. But I'm gonna get out of this stairwell Go check out some more artworks, and then I'll tell you the next two points. Now, just because you're signing up when you aren't 100% ready doesn't mean you don't do your research. Now, one of the reasons we were able to talk is because we spent the whole weekend— so we got the email on the Friday asking us if we wanted to sign up, and the talk was on Monday— spent the whole weekend preparing for it, doing, doing research. So even though we weren't 100% ready, we still put in the effort to try and get there. You'll never be 100% ready, but The research that we did was enough to do the whole talk. So sign up when you're not 100% ready. Do your research. Point 3. Check it out, someone must have broke this skateboard. Okay, so you've signed up, you've done your research. What's point 3? Well, after you've done your research, Trust your knowledge. You're probably not giving yourself enough credit for how much you actually do know. So if you've got the research done, if you've signed up, if you've said yes to it, now commit to it. Now that goes with anything, not just giving a talk, but a talk especially because most of the time you're going to have to get up there and you're not necessarily going to have someone holding your hand. It could be just you. You might have some slides, you might not have some slides. You might end up using your slide notes, you might not. So, they're the 3 takeaways from the talk I did at UQ. Sign up when you're not 100% ready, do your research, and trust your knowledge. Now, I'm at, I think it's the University of Berkeley. It's a really cool campus. Now, there's a really awesome patch of grass over there. Probably going to go sit down and enjoy this, enjoy this really bright sun for a while. Getting in a Mustang tomorrow.
