2024 Year in Review

I guess it's a tradition at this point, so I'm not going to waste time reminiscing on how it got started. I'll follow the same template as last year - first re-reading my previous year-in-review post to understand just what I was thinking 365 days ago and then comment on it. It's pretty illuminating in most cases and reminds me of the reason why I started this blog in the first place.

2024 Holidays

The holidays started pretty late this year, I ended up going back home only 2 days before Christmas due to some work/research deadlines. It was pretty stressful leaving and getting everything done (cleaning etc.) but, as with every other time in the last 8 years, I was able to manage it. I thought this break would be less relaxing because I had a lot of work projects to still complete along with studying for interviews. 

I was kind of right in some sense, I definitely felt this break was less "social" than in previous years. I only really spent time with family (the usual civ games with siblings were always fun) but did feel somewhat stressed in the background about the interviews to come in the new year. 

Nonetheless, I was able to feel somewhat relaxed from the 28th until around Jan 2nd (it's 4am and I'm sitting at the dining room table at home writing this post now...). I feel somewhat guilty about not studying much yet, but I recognize that I probably needed to take a break mentally anyway. Somehow, when I'm here, I feel less ambitious about doing AI research or whatever and feel myself slipping into the familiarity of a quiet life in the suburbs (where perhaps I'm a full-time writer). 

The most social thing I did outside of being with family was hanging out with K and A from badminton, when A came to visit Toronto for the first time. I've gotten a lot closer to them in the past year, and we spent almost 14 hours together non-stop doing touristy things in Toronto (CN tower etc). I thought that I might like K at first, but I'm honestly not sure. It sounds weird (and something a "cuck" would say, lmao) but I'd also feel happy if her and A got together too. They are much closer in age and have similar ethnic backgrounds so idk...maybe it's something I can talk to them about in the new year. Either way, I'm grateful for their friendship and, honestly, sometimes I feel so grateful in general that I was able to make close friends and have good opportunities in my career. I've genuinely been feeling more grateful since near the end of 2024, maybe it's because events like A (guy from badminton) death helped put things into perspective...but that's a post for another time :(

Reflections on predictions from last year's blog post

Looks like some of my predictions for what 2024 would look like were as follows:

1.) Continue interviewing at startups and looking for opportunities. Maybe connect with Ali about independent research

2.) Have a real relationship with S?

3.) Sleep 8 hours a day and be consistent

4.) Do a concrete project with C

5.) Get back into writing and polish up HS novel

6.) Do original research

In terms of whether I met them, I would say:

1.) Mostly done, had an offer from Cart earlier on the year (happy I didn't take it), formally started a company with C and did a significant amount of work on it. Maybe didn't really get to "independent" research but I would say that all the startup with C definitely meets this criteria anyway. Oh, I did end up connecting with Ali too about research stuff, though not much came out of it except friendship I guess?

2.) This was probably the strangest one. Coming into 2024, I thought S and I were doing pretty well. We did spend time together but then there was a huge 5-6 month lull in the middle and we kind of rekindled things again in December. Who knows what 2025 will bring with her? I guess that all I've learned is that I shouldn't really worry about it too much, if things are meant to be then they will be.

3.) Hah, no way this happened. My sleep schedule got worst if anything but at least I started doing Saturday morning badminton with K.

4.) Yes, we did a a startup and incorperated a company etc.

5.) Unfortunately, writing took a back seat in 2024, but I felt it was for "good" reasons such as doing startup stuff and/or exercise like badminton/working out. I don't actually feel like I wasted too much time on 2024, which does make me happy.

6.) Similar to previous answers, I would say startup with C covers this.

Overall, seems like I was able to meet most of my goals in 2024, though the sleeping 8 hours and relationship with S were the biggest misses. Now for a more granular breakdown...

Scorecard

Fitness / Physical Health - 4/5

I'm going to be generous here and give myself a higher score than last year. Even though my sleep schedule is still awful, I felt like in addition to consistently working out / badminton, I also made plans to do half-marathon with K next year AND started to eat a lot healthier. I lost over 10 pounds due to eating healthier in general and my body felt noticeable lighter. The only downside is that I felt like my diet / gym schedule kind of fell off track in the last 1-2 months of the year but I'm confident I can get back on track when 2025 starts.

Mental Health -  4/5

I guess no real complaints here, but compared to 2023, there wasn't really much new experiences. I don't remember feeling particularly stressed at any points, but also don't think I did many "new" things like how I traveled to New Orleans last year etc. I think I was just able to focus more on hobbies and/or doing startup stuff which was interesting to me. My mental health might have even been improved from feeling like continued to deepen my friendships with A, K (badminton) and J, E (designer) as well.

Creative Hobbies (Writing, ML research etc.) - 2.5/5

Again, I'm kind of torn here because I really did do a lot of studying for research jobs and even startup stuff with C. But I definitely failed on writing and more "creative" hobbies - I hope this is something I can balance better in 2025 but somehow I'm doubtful especially if I get a new job. I might have to accept that there's just not enough time in the day to be both a great writer (hehe, civ pun) and AI researcher. Maybe I need to just dedicate my life to one of them for 1-2 years and then swap.

Dating / Social - 2/5

Didn't really have time (or care) to go on any dates except seeing S. But nothing really progressed with S anyway though we did see each other quite a bit in December. As I said before, I think I placed too much (unrealistic) hopes on S and I really becoming close in 2024 when I don't think it was really a priority for her to begin with. Anyway, I do still like her and think she's cool (which is rare) but I'm going to be more casual about in 2025 and prioritize other things instead.

There's also still the fact that maybe I could be with K but who knows..?

Career / Academics - 3/5

This one is also hard to judge but I guess the main datapoint is getting rejected for promo which, objectively, is a setback in my career. I stopped doing research with J's lab (probably a good thing for my mental health too...) so not much happened on that front either. I definitely feel apathetic at work now, especially with A leaving and I think it is really time to move on. But yeah...not much progress here except the usual EE rating at work and maybe writing a retrieval paper.

Reflections for 2025

So...what are my goals for the new year? I'll try to list them in priority order so that I can read this again in a year and see how colossally wrong I was:

1.) Secure AI research job, start it in Feb-Mar and make a great first impression

2.) Fix sleep schedule , get 8 hours a day

3.) Finish editing story / send to Gail / publish it

3.) Half-Marathon and/or badminton tournament

4.) Real relationship with S or K ...?

Final Thoughts

Somehow, I made it to the end of this post before 5am. I guess the main thing I feel right now, on the precipice of going back to work next week, is the desire for change. But I'm not sure what type of change. Getting a research job at ?? or ?? would be great on paper, but maybe I'd be too burnt out to really do my best work, or the honeymoon period would be over relatively soon and then the stress would set in. Maybe I need a longer time to "reset" and pursue research at my own pace or even do something completely different like writing.

At the end of the day, life is short and it's scary to think that I'm getting older. Sometimes I'm reminded of this fact when I hangout with A and K, who are still in their mid-20's. Sometimes, I feel like hanging out with them makes me fool myself into thinking I'm still around that age too, but I need to recognize that I'm a different life stage altogether - I want to really optimize for doing interesting things in this next few years and taking advantage of the situation that I've been grateful to be in (through a combination of luck / my own "hard" work, maybe...)

If I'm still doing the same thing a year from now, I'll be really disappointed in myself. I hope I can make 2025 an interesting one - even if things don't work out completely hopefully I'll at least learn something and, at the end of the day, isn't that all life is really about? As A's (from badminton) death reminded me - life is short so we should make the best use of the time we have.