Jamming to songs on loop
There are phases where I don't actively jam to music, but rather just play it in the background while working. I was in this phase for a while, until I heard two new songs last week and now I can't stop jamming to them:
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Piya Piya Calling by Karpe, Kaifi Khalil and Amanda Delara feat. Quick Style - I've been following Quick Style for a while and have heard a song or two from Coke Studio Pakistan, but I never expected their collaboration to be a song with my name in the title. Such a feel good track.
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Aasa Kooda by Sai Abhayankar and Sai Smriti - The chorus and hook step blows my mind every.single.time. The music video is also really beautifully filmed.
I wanted to add these songs to my playlist, so I spent some time refactoring a script I wrote to download songs locally with their metadata. It was fun looking back at messy code from 2 years ago.
Letting go of tuntcp
I think I got what I wanted out of tuntcp a long time back, but perfectionism kept coming in the way, so I kept adding/changing stuff and now I don't know where to stop.
Progress has been slow, and I'm loosing interest. This coming week is the last week I'll work on refactoring the code, after which I'll consider the project done.
Reflecting on one year at RC
I got accepted to the Recurse Center in July last year, but my batch started on August 7th, which means its officially been a year since I joined!
The batch felt like the tip of the iceberg in terms of my capability as a programmer. However, I find myself only slightly lower from the tip a year later, unable to go deeper on one/a few topics.
I worked on projects post-batch too, but those where chosen based on what I found fun in that moment, rather than learning things in a structured way. More on this later.
A pleasant surprise came in the form of the opportunity to work as a part-time moderator. Helping maintain a community that has been a subtle support system for the past year feels good (so does having some source of income while I figure how to make this "making stuff online" thing work).
To top it all off, my end-of-batch statement was added to the list of RC's Testimonials recently, which felt really nice! This might be the first time my blog has been linked somewhere.
Planning ahead
The last few weeks were hectic, and with those commitments now over, I'm ready to focus on projects again. Reflecting on my time at RC got me thinking on how I can change my approach to learning. Here are some half-baked ideas to ponder over this week:
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I make a study curriculum for myself and follow it as much as I can. I've stayed away from structured learning for the longest time, but maybe I'm ready for it now?
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I try out the things Julia Evans wrote about during her 2013 batch at RC as a starting point. I've hesitated to do this for two main reasons:
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Someone already figured this stuff out 11 years ago, so I feel dumb figuring this stuff out 11 years later, even though the concepts are new to me. I know its a silly reason, which is why I'd like to get over this.
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If I end up writing about it, I fear my posts will end up looking like clones of hers, particularly if I don't have anything new to add.
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Starting some kind of daily writing practice, where I attempt at writing some blog-post like every day privately. Ideas include trying to explain a concept or a passage of a book and writing setup guides for things I use commonly. Some of these might turn into actual blog posts someday.
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Have some finger work projects to fall back on. Challenges like Protohackers help keep the programming momentum going as I'm presented with a set of requirements, and I only have to focus on the implementation.