New Goals
Old Goals
It’s been a while since my last post, and I wanted to reflect a bit on what’s happened since then. My last post was on my birthday. Since then, I’ve:
Finished my internship at iterate
Had a holiday to Japan
Completed the first four weeks of term
Got a jane street offer!
I’ve finished my internship at iterate. It was such a learning experience for me. I think I talked about it a bit on my last post: from being shy and doubtful of my abilities to being happy and confident. Happy because everyone was so kind to me, and accepting of my personality (I think we were all a bit atypical to be fair), and confident because I learned fast and did some good work.
I continued working for a bit longer, but I am in a bit of a limbo now where it’s been a few weeks since I last worked, but I haven’t officially quit because Jonas has been offline. Hopefully, I can have that conversation with him soon. On one hand, I think it was good to continue working for about 6 weeks after the internship ended; I think I contributed a lot to the company, and earned a bit of money, but on the other hand, it really is too much to be doing alongside uni work, which is considerably harder than I was expecting, and I want to have time to do societies and socialise and such.
I’ve had a holiday to Japan. That was really fun - I hadn’t been abroad for a proper holiday since around 2017, but it was a good feeling to spend the money that I had earned myself to treat myself to a break, having planned all of it independently with my sister. My favourite excursions include:
the Sumida aquarium - the jellyfish were soooo cool and I got a cool penguin plushie from it!!
seeing Akihabara in person - it’s like another world there it’s insane (and I got some epic Arknights merch)
fushimi inari - that walk genuinely broke me, but it was really a rare experience to be at the summit of the mountain during a thunderstorm with the thousands of gates
nara park - it was a fun experience getting attacked and chased by the deer (after they bowed and gave you 0.001seconds to give them food)
I’ll definitely be back, probably next Summer but hopefully not in the peak heat because 35C tropical climate is not fun to be in lmao..
I’ve completed the first four weeks of term. I’m really happy with myself with how I’m actually staying on top of my work compared to last year. I’m actually revising lecture content and making flashcards after each lecture, instead of delaying it until right before exams!! And I’m doing my supervision work far in advance. Studying in the library is really useful, it helps me lock in (as long as Minkyum isn’t next to me distracting me xd)
Badminton is superrr fun, it’s the thing I look most forward to every week. Plus, I get to play in two sessions per week now, the M3 and the W1 (💀) sessions.
I’ve got a jane street offer. That was kind of crazy. I knew I had a good chance of getting it, but it really felt unreal in the moment when they were reading out the contract details. I’m proud of myself, it felt like all the work I did on my programming skills accumulated on the day: implementation skills from Codewars, problem-solving skills from Codeforces, and some industry knowledge/experience from iterate and personal projects.
I’m so excited to go there for the summer, and the compensation is crazy nice - I definitely will be out of debt by the time I leave uni with that + my iterate comp, which is an awesome feeling. Now I just have to lock in for the return offer.
New Goals
Having got jane street and staying on top of my studies, I need to give myself some new goals to work towards:
Wanikani / Japanese in general
Fitness / Gym
General Health
I want to stay consistent at Wanikani, and improve my Japanese significantly. Wanikani is the best thing I’ve done to improve my Japanese; I’m only level 9, and it feels like I can read about ~40% of the kanji I come across. Of course, as the levels increase, I will get diminishing returns, but it’s really awesome to see this progress. As long as I keep up with my daily reviews and lessons, I think that my kanji coverage would be something like 60% or higher by the end of the year, which is awesome. Hopefully the next time I go to Japan I can read almost everything on signs.
Vocab is fairly trivial with wanikani, but grammar is really tough. I need to do one or more of the following: do lots of Bunpo lessons (general comprehension); do lots of Genki work (reading and writing); read some beginner books (reading); join some learning club or language school class. I will need to take the next week to weigh up the options and decide what’s best for me.
I want to improve my fitness back to its peak. Before the summer holidays, I could consistently run 5min/km or less pace on my regular night-time runs, I had 80kg bench, and I could do a pull-up. Now I can do none of those, and I’ve gained a bit of weight.
I need to slowly get back into it. Going to the gym 2-3 times per week is a good start, but I should really try to make it more regular (3-5) by timetabling it or making a bigger effort to go. I also think that going on night-time runs, starting slower and building myself back up, would be fun. I was walking through Jesus Green the other day, and I got the urge to start running, so I think if I go back there in the proper attire I will easily get back into it; it’s just about making the effort to go there.
I want to improve my general health. Now that I’ve exhausted the standard options of benzoyl peroxide, doxycycline, and adapalene, I can hopefully get referred to a dermatologist who will prescribe me Accutane. Hopefully, that will finally purge my acne (or maybe it’ll have been so long that my hormones finally decide to die down lmao).
I think I am already being more conscious about my general diet - I’m taking an effort to eat a more balanced diet with more fruits, vegetables and less fat, and it is making me feel nicer, so I will continue with that.
Music
I will end with some songs I’m enjoying atm!
^^ Favourite bit is 1:49 to end, great for night-time walking
^^ Favourite bit is 1:00 to 2:01, just fairly chill
^^ This is a masterpiece, if I had to choose favourite parts it’d be
1:21 to 5:16 (4:04 to 4:38 is especially fire)
7:51 to 8:49 (the bpm increase is crazy)
I think it’s best enjoyed at a loud enough volume to damage your hearing, while on copious amounts of caffeine.
^^ A new release from an indie artist I’m enjoying. Favourite bit is 1:26 to 1:49 and 2:15 to end. I just really like the mixing and the type of sound, I don’t really know how to describe it but it feels fairly unique.
^^ I’ve liked this song for a while but I only rediscovered it recently, and I listened to the rest of the album and found a few songs I liked on there too. My favourite part is honestly probably like 0:00 to 0:40 and then 1:52 to 3:00
Alright that’s enough, thanks for reading and bye! :3