January
- Started X-Files with A. Really goofy at times, but it’s been quite fun to watch. The episodes cover more than alien phenomena as I thought initially. I love the protagonists. Gillian Anderson my beloved…
- Worked a lot for the thesis this month. Finally got in a daily rhythm, and I also researched much more, something I missed completely during the early phases. Google Scholar is great and LLMs struggle here. I also love Zotero, even for personal stuff.
- Finished the exams. Disappointed in some professors, what can I say. It’s a lack of academic integrity and a personal failure IMO to use AI for everything: writing the exam task, completing it, reviewing it.
- I’m becoming more and more anti-tech, or better said, anti-”current-tech-industry”… This lecture did something to me in this regard too, but it’s also the current Twitter discourse which makes me lose faith in humanity.
- Started a course regarding AWS cloud fundamentals… It seems quite mandated for many roles, I’m not sure about the exam yet, alas it might be useful. I’m not rushing here.
- My birthday, yippie. It’s been peaceful, I did not plan/organize anything - most of my friends were not in the country and I did not find any event, such as a ballet, theatre play, to go with my family. I’m satisfied though. Need to keep in mind to continue writing e-mails to myself each year.
- Finished S1 of Pluribus by Apple TV. What a ride, can’t wait for season 2.
February
- Last month of proper uni courses - feeling quite nostalgic and relieved at the same time. I found this month to be be a bit useless from this perspective, but I learnt a litle about giving “good” presentations
- Happy I got to spend time with my friends who came to visit :3 I realize my month would’ve been so boring without that…
- Participated at a meeting regarding integrations between my thesis project and another national agency for geodesy. I feel confident regarding what I’ve worked on till now, and I’m happy with the project
- Tried out new cafe’s like Brainstorm Cafe and Table 9
- Was really into PinkPantheres’ “Fancy That” mixtape and Caroline Polachek’s “Desire, I want to turn into you”
March
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This month has been big on… TV shows 😭:
- Watched all 6 seasons of Sillicon Valley in a week. Fantastic show, with the humor being on point and the plotlines always bringing me back. I found it to be a great satire of the SV culture, and it’s become one of my favorite shows.
- Sillicon Valley lead me to Veep via some Reddit comments, which, instead of being a SF culture parody, is a political satire. Julia Ray Dreyfus is a phenomenal actress, and the script is so goooood. Another top-notch comedy show made by HBO. Quite bleak though…
- Fell right back on The Mentalist for my 3rd attempt of watching the show. The 3rd because in those previous runs I simply was too busy to continue.
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Started Persona 4 Golden with A. I’m not really a gamer, and this was recommended by a friend as being a beginner friendly, interesting game, with Tarot motifs and a well-executed mystery plot. We’re still in the tutorial phase, and I’m excited how this develops further.
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Another evaluation for the thesis report at university… Man, I hate the organizational structure of this process, the lack of coordination and… waste of paper. I’m quite happy that I’m continuing to write the document in Typst, and that in the end I will have produced a “correct” template. In quotes because there’s everyone has different opinions about formatting 😭😭 Besides that, the actual project is going well.
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I’m excited for a new little project due June, for which I’ll use Svelte and Firebase :3 I’ve only gone through some of the tutorials on the official website for Svelte, and so far I’m intrigued. It’s quite the transition coming from React, which actually can be seen as a plus maybe.
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lie-with-me|Lie with Me was a delightful, heartbreaking read this month, and Tori Amos’s debut (Little Earthquakes) was on repeat.
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Questioning building my own PC, especially because the prices do not seem to drop, and well, the current crisis…
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Switched to Helium as my main browser. Zen seems to have a memory leak…
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Tried out CodeCrafters and their free of the month “Build your own Shell”. I’ve missed such things! I did a few chapters, and as of April when I’m writing this, the course is not free anymore, so I’m jumping to the Redis one instead. I like this approach of developing the solution locally and running
codecrafters submitto run the tests they provide. Funnily enough, this feels a bit Leetcode-y at times in terms of figuring out certain solutions from scratch, which I quite like.I realize lots of these updates have to do with my media consumption. It makes me feel slightly sad, alas my output this months has just been work…
April
- Started the month by getting a septum piercing 😭 I’ll see how it looks once I get a better ring, as I flipped it for now to heal. I also have a new haircut, looking more like a shag/wolfcut thanks to A.
- “It finally feels like Spring” - statement which lasted a few days ffs. Alas it got me out of the house visiting parks and what not. Even a walk around the house/forest around here is welcomed.
- Visited Turnul de apă with A
- Attended Giselle (ballet) with my family. I don’t think I’ll ever watch something as beautiful and compelling like Swan Lake, but this one was okay.
- Thesis work ah…
- Saved Yukiko in Persona 4, finally
May
- I have finally defended my thesis with flying colours! It feels exhilarating to say that, and I got emotional right after presenting it. I ended on a somewhat cheesy note maybe by some, saying “Maybe this is not something I pitch to venture capitalists and show them the profits in 5 years, but it solves a real problem that affects real people, and after 4 years of university, isn’t this what good software engineering is for?” Regardless, and I don’t say this often but maybe I should, I feel proud for having deleveloped this project, and I’m happy I get to maintain it.
- Long-awaited Paris trip with A! I’m so happy for how things align sometimes and for her spontaneous decisions) It was a great trip, Paris is pretty in its architecture, I’m sorry to all the haters and the so-called Paris syndrome… If only it didn’t rain during Sunday when we went to Versailles… Alas, got some good memories riding bikes in the rain soaking wet)
- Participated at a conference regarding urban archaeology with the archaeological cadastre project.
- I’m also part of the team organizing the summer hackathon at university. I’m quite excited about it, since it will not be your typical Hackathon where you present participants ideas and they have to develop an MVP. With AI coding agents you get a PoC quite fast anyways…
- Started a new work project, where I’ll work on the front-end side of this ERP platform.
- Hacks is a phenomenal show!! It’s been more than a week after I finished it, and yet I’m still thinking about it every day. Such compelling characters and dynamics, storyline, and humor, at least to me. I’ll rewatch it for sure.
With all of that to say, in terms of hobbies and any creative pursuits really, I feel a bit uninspired, and struggling to organize my days and keep proper boundaries between work and leisure. The past months were a lot, and I just need to balance things better.