the renaissance woman

multa, sed una

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NYC Epidemiologist Writes (Archive)

freezing rain – 2/25/22

I never knew the difference between snow and freezing rain before today. When I took my dog out in the morning, it was neither snowing nor raining but maybe a hybrid. Instead of usual layers of opaque white dusts from snow, the ground was covered with a sheet of transparent ice. Later in the afternoon,…

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one year

This month marks one year since the World Health Organization declared the global spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic. On March 1, 2020, the first case of confirmed COVID was identified in NYC. Companies prepared for the looming storm and began allowing employees to work from home indefinitely. No one expected this to go on…

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Soul (2020): We all have this one chance called “life”

I put aside this post as a draft for longer than I would like to admit. I started blogging with a goal of publishing at least one post per month, but alas, three months have passed since I’ve published anything here. Today is the last day of a new year. This month we welcomed a…

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Blue State

October was packed with milestones and relishing moments that made the New Normal more bearable. First, I celebrated my 29th birthday. I reconnected with my high school in two ways- I caught up with two of my classmates who also found their ways to New York and gave a presentation on COVID as a guest…

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Remembering 9/11 in 2020

Today marks the 19th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. To echo the Reddit post, I grieve more deeply with the city where the event took place and the nation on this 9/11 anniversary. During the weekly COVID response unit meeting this morning, a colleague commemorated 9/11- she remembers it as one of the…

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Epidemiology, New York City, and COVID-19

I am an epidemiologist. I look at data and try to make sense of and apply them for a living. I moved to New York City a year ago. A pandemic broke out in March. I have been thinking and feeling all sorts of things as I was living and working in the city as…

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I started this blog during COVID-19 to document my experience as an epidemiologist responding to the pandemic. Over time, I stopped writing and let it collect dust. One day, I decided to repurpose it—to reclaim blogging as a creative outlet.

This is the original “About” page from when the blog was called NYC Epidemiologist Writes. It shares the inspiration behind the project as it first began.


I envy people of eloquence. Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Toni Morrison are some of my favorite writers of all time. They always knew how to assemble the right words to convey their original ideas and stories. I started this blog with a simple goal to write more, not to imitate such incomparable minds.
Writing to me means being vulnerable. It takes courage to write. I am often critical of my own and other people’s writings. Because of my criticism, I would spend longer than any normal person should on crafting a caption for an Instagram post or a Tweet. The people-pleaser and perfectionist in me was afraid of the scrutiny of my social media followers. I did not want to offend anyone or suggest something that I had not intended. The more time I spent on perfecting my posts, I realized that I was losing my authentic voice, myself. “What is the purpose of this again?” I asked.
Even though Instagram and Twitter are still good tools for brevity (that character limit forces me to use words sparingly) and social connections, I wanted to create a safe and honest space for my thoughts outside of those outlets. Here you will read about epidemiology, infectious diseases, politics, my brief stint as a barista, and living in NYC amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not here to teach or report. I just want to share my stories and perspectives on things. You could say that it’s like an open journal. Nothing is official.
I am not a professional writer. I will never be a Dostoyevsky or a Morrison. I will probably shudder at my old blog posts in the future. Instead of giving into my own fear of being judged, I would rather write now than regret later.
Thanks for stopping by.