This is a nice write up. The only thing I found a bit distressing is the "sense of academic achievement" or how one would call it. In my idealized world (à la Hamming's You and Your Research), a great scholar would feel great from doing great science and having a real impact:

* An applied scientist would feel great from solving someone's important problem -- i.e. saving lives, increasing revenue and/or decreasing costs at the end of the day.

* A theoretician would feel great from solving a recognized important problem.

On one hand, the author writes enthusiastically about her side-projects / internships / hobbies. On the other hand, almost all academic remarks end with:

"Our paper got rejected / accepted at [top venue]. We felt sad / relieved."

Without any further remarks about that work -- i.e. it's all "publish or perish" no matter what.

In that way, it sounds as if one was doing research for the sake of producing papers rather than solving important problems / contributing to our civilization by increasing its stock of knowledge. Perhaps that is the sad state of the current academia.