Hello friends!

Hope this email finds you all happy, healthy, fulfilled, and giggling! It’s been a long time since my previous newsletter, so I figured I’d give you all an update on the shenanigans I’ve been up to in the last year. To unsubscribe, just reply to this email with a vivid description of the moment your soul was swallowed by the dark side.

I just got back from Israel about a week ago after an impromptu solo escapade to Jerusalem, Dead Sea (Masada, Ein Gedi,...) and Tel Aviv. It was a transformative trip-- some highlights were philosophizing with strangers at the Carmel Market, stuffing my face, body and soul with israeli hummus, and strolling through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (props to our boy JC for inspiring the creation of such jaw-dropping art!). To top it off, Tel Aviv was unapologetically crunchy--I’m not ashamed to say I felt right at home. More pictures are up on Facebook for any of those who may be curious as to how mediocre my photography skills still are despite training.

It’s been a lovely and wonderful year at Axial thus far. When I first started with the company, the majority of the analytical work I was doing was geared towards increasing the top of our funnel (a primary focus in what we call acquisition--”mo’ leads, mo’ $$”). About six months ago, the scope of my work widened, as I started asking questions about how to make our sales process more efficient / profitable. Today, I am working mostly with our production data, analyzing usage / engagement trends of our network and working on models that can predict them. I started taking a machine learning class about 5 months ago. I know what some of you may be thinking-- but no, this is not my attempt at engineering myself a better sense of humor.

I’ve started throwing around the idea of going back to grad school. At first, I was asking myself: where can I go to shower away buckets of money and entertain my metaphysical meanderings for a living? So I crossed “getting an MBA” off the list. All sass and jokes aside (yeah, right)-- I have started thinking more seriously about getting a masters in Statistics (and, perhaps) also a masters in Public Policy. It feels like the sweet spot intersection between my curiosity with numbers and my passion for prison reform. And regarding the latter, I’m still involved in the same mentoring program @ Queenborough Correctional. Only change is that now it’s called The thinking experiment. As if I weren’t abstract enough.

Any thoughts, advice or updates from your end are eagerly welcome. Wishing you all a wonderful-- everything.

Always with love,

Alda ​

❤️