2022 Goals: January Check-in

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Berkeley, USA
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At the beginning of the year, I wrote out my goals for the year to keep myself accountable. These ranged from vague to strictly specific, from ambitious to beginner-level. This is my january check-in for how I’ve been doing at some of them.

I started a few side-projects!#

Been putting time aside to actively pursue developing side-projects, and that’s been serving me pretty well. In January, I made these: - Pyscal: A Pascal compiler + interpreter, written in Python. Ignore the topsy-turvy logic of making a low level compiler in a language as high-level as Python — it’s all for the fun of learning. This project isn’t complete, but has been a complete delight! You can take a look at it here. - Legos: What the heck is a blockchain, really? This question lead me down a rabbit hole that ended with me making my own blockchain. It’s been a really fun experiment in attempting to understand these opaque concepts. I might be minting my own coins soon? (WHAT? That’s crazy.) Keep an eye out for that. You can take a look at it here. - Dependence: A helpful tool that accepts a block of code and returns a graph showing which variables are dependent on other variables, and in what way. This has been my venture into program analysis for my research position, and while intensely complicated, been a joy to try to understand. You can take a look at it here.

Technically speaking, I surpassed my year goal — 2 projects a month. But I have to call myself out here — only one of these projects is complete. Legos and Pyscal are still WIP. I have to be careful in leaving projects half-done — I don’t want them to stay that way forever. Something to keep in mind in February!

I read a lot.#

I crushed my January reading goal. I read 8 books this month — giving me a much needed headstart for February, now that uni is back in session. I particularly enjoyed reading Sapiens, Range and the Code Breaker! (Yes, this is a recommendation. Give me one in return!!)

I met people, but not enough of them.#

I didn’t meet as many people as I would’ve liked this month. That is, in part, the result of being halfway across the world for 23 of the month. It is also my fault, for not being forward enough in chasing this goal. I met 6 people this month (half of what I’ve set my goal as). We’ll do better next time.

I started researching!#

That’s definitely a thing I was terrified about — because I thought that I’d either be terrible at it and get kicked off the team immediately, or that I’d love it and be stuck between my startup and new research ambitions. That second is thankfully more a reality than the first, and I’ve really enjoyed my research experience till now!

Proactiveness, and the Need to Chase After What You Want#

I think I was pretty passive in January. I did what I was good at, and I took a few swings, but mostly I stayed in my lane. I don’t want to do that for next month. This February, we grab our baseball bat and we swing for the fences.