Its like a changelog, but for life, updated monthly

May 2023

• was busy in college for assignment submission, so Fking glad it all will be over soon.
• built this and abandoned it. didnt take into account what the users actually want.
• I have end sem exams till 20th June, so preparing for that.
• Will start working full time at Azodha,after graduation. Also planning to move out of my parents house.
• want to write publish here and explore creativity through design and code. just waiting for exams to get over.

April 2023

• First week was my insem exams :/
• Built this in my second week for nights & weekends.
• built & launched this for second week. Follow me on twitter for more updates. This might be another class project I built. sigh
• something I built at work from scratch went into prod. feelsgoodman.jpg
• My college is over in 2 months. I am going to continue my internship till then. Not really sure what after it.

March 2023

• Couldn't do much personal work cause of internship, learning something new everyday at work. Also experienced VR for the first time, it was surreal.
• Updated my design portfolio at dribbble
• My insem exams are on 1st week of April :/
• Submitted my application for buildspace
• Have few ideas for side projects, will start working on them soon.

February 2023

• Joined Azodha as a Software Engineering Intern, mainly for Frontend (React). Finally be able to ship something people use. Really happy to use my skills irl.
• Working on some interesting personal UI experiments. Focusing a lot on building simple and usefull things.
• Shared Feedwise with Reddit. Its a dashboard for managing your reddit saved posts.
• Following buildspace. There are lot of interesting things happening in AI. Great UX would be critical in success of AI powered products. Prompt engineering seems really powerfull.

January 2023

• See my January daily update

December 2022

EVENTS

• Gave an React Internship Interview at a startup - Still havent heard back, so I guessing its a no.
• Still waiting for MLH fellowship decision 🤷, its prolly a no too :(
• Enjoyed World cup, the final was a blast
• Established a solid morning routine and plans for 2023
• Tried Tailwind and Typescript. Still getting over this.
• Started using Obsidian to organize my knowledge
• Read Millionaire fastlane by MJ DeMarco.
• Starting a daily log here.

WORK

• Building a reddit client to manage and share your reddit saved posts, particularly nsfw posts 😉
• Preparing for CEED exam, not sure about pursuing it but still giving the exam.
• Preparing for end semester exams. I hate College.
• Wrote first of my several new posts. Expect to publish soon.

November 2022

This month was mostly finishing current sem's assignments and giving practical examinations. Published 2 blog posts and currently working on several other drafts. Still waiting for MLH fellowship interview decision. The fellowship is starting on Jan 30. Just want to do an internship before graduating.

I finally received my MLH swag 😛

Started studying Data structures and algorithms. I am using the book "Introduction to Algorithms" by Thomas H. Cormen. I am also using the website visualgo to visualize the algorithms. and Leetcode to practice problems.

I am also building this browser based Coding environment as my final year project.

Currently reading Everybody writes by Ann handley and contagious by Jonah berger. On the non fiction side, I recently read Catcher in the Rye by JD salinger. I want to read all the famous classics. Books that are mostly in category of "Books that you read atleast once".

What's next?

• CEED exam is on Jan 22, so prepping for that. Although I dont think I am ready for 2 more years of college. But not sure so giving the exam
• MLH fellowship interview decision. If I got into it, then I will be busy with that. Or I will be busy with internship applications.
• Data structures and algorithms
• Working on my final year project and end sem exams 🥲.
• Publishing more blog posts. I have a lot of drafts. I just need to rewrite them.

My fav Images and links of the month

A random cat photo from reddit

• Great color and use of shadow | Unsplash
• Beautiful composition and lighting | Unsplash
• Woman sitting on beach | Unsplash

Links

• Amazing Twitter thread full of wisdom by a person who meditated with a master for 15hrs/day for 6 months
• Need to read by Paul Graham[article]

October 2022

This month was hectic than normal, lame college exams, no hackathons and general stress that I am about to graduate in about 6 months.

Some highlights:

• Gave MLH Fellowship interview : I was nervous but I think I did well. waiting for the results
• Preparing for CEED. I am not sure if I am ready for 2 more years of assignments and tests
• Preparing for college placements. I have never done leetcode and stuff. Also this doesnt spark any interest, I would rather build and launch something real and learn along the way.
• My family bought a car. I am a first time driver, so this is interesting.
• Offline College sucks

What I am working on?

• As you can see on my github commit graph, I have not build something in a while. I do want to participate in more hackathons. I have some ideas which I will build in the coming months.

• Improving communication(both written and spoken) by making youtube videos? I am not sure if this is a good idea. I will try to make a video every week. I will also try to write more blog posts.

• Eliminating bad habits, incorporating good ones and building a solid morning routine with a focus on mindfullness. This feels quite hard but I am committed. Books like Unthered soul, living Untethered by Michael A singer and Miracle morning by Hal Elrod, slight edge by Jeff Olson are helping me a lot.

• I will be looking into React Native(for building mobile apps), Machine learning, Typescript.

September 2022

This month was a mix of Hometown vacation and start of my final year. Didnt get much time to create but spent good bunch of time thinking about life. I am going to graduate in a year.

Overall, I participated in 1 hackathons. Won best UI/UX prize

Things I built at hackathons

1. Jolly: A web application to follow challenge based health and wellness program.
   • Devpost
   • Best UI/UX prize
   • What I learned
     • Working with modals

What I am Reading?

• I am re-reading most of the popular self-help books. I am trying to read more fiction books.
• Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
• What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and Advice by Alexey Guzey
• Advice by Patrick collison

Some random thoughts

• Realize the difference between goals created out of desperation and goals created out of inspiration.
• I undervalue birthdays and anniversaries.
• I dont want to be a Twitter influencer.
• The things that got me here wont be the things that get me where I want to be in the future
• Left Gym. I am going to start again.

What's next?

• Doing leetcode problems
• working on my portfolio i.e hackathons on the weekends
• Building a solid morning routine

August 2022

I took a writing and reading retreat for an entire week. Why? I was bit disappointed by my work and seeing no progress, I became a bit sad.

I often remind myself that it is due to taste gap

Also, I am seriously rethinking about redesigning my website.

Overall, I participated in 5 hackathons. Won in 2 of them.

Things I built at hackathons

1. Discover Music: A web application that allows users to discover music based on their favourite artists, tracks, genres or country.

   • Devpost
   • did not won
   • What I learned
     • Worked with graphQL
     • Made a demo video. Experience my nervous voice on youtube!

2. Agro Alerts: easy to use dynamic website and a WhatsApp bot for getting weather information.

   • Devpost
   • Winner (Most Creative Use of Twilios API)
   • What I learned
     • Worked with Twitilo API
     • Should plan and map out goals before writing code

3. Rapyd Starliner: Payments Application utilizing Rapyd's virtual accounts API to accepts payments from Singaporean customers

   • Devpost
   • did not won
   • What I learned
     • Worked with Rapyd API
     • I am proud of the color pallette I used.
     • Worked with web hooks, ngrok

4. MLH through time: A time machine disguised as a web app to explore the history of MLH and its website.

   • Devpost
   • Won(First overall)
   • What I learned
     • Submit your work even though you think its incomplete and "not perfect".

5. Population by pixel: Webapp to generate pixelated pictures of endangered and vulnerable animals. The more pixelated the image, the closer the animal is to extinction.

   • Devpost
   • did not won :(
   • What I learned
     • Realized that I am participating in hackathons to build interesting things not to compete with other people. Winning is just icing on the cake. The cake for me is building and presenting projects.

What I am Reading?

• How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Ken ashton

  I am still not finished yet, here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

  Work is the soul of creation. Work is getting up early and going home late, turning down dates and giving up weekends, writing and rewriting, reviewing and revising, rote and routine, staring down the doubt of the blank page, beginning when we do not know where to start, and not stopping when we cannot go on. It is not fun, romantic, or, most of the time, even interesting. If we want to create, we must, in the words of Paul Gallico, open our veins and bleed.

  The only bad draft is the one we do not write

  Nothing begins good, but everything good begins

• I regularly read(ok Almost daily) Living Untethered and listen to Untethered soul(audiobook) by Michael A Singer

What's next?

• Creating and sharing regularly. Be it blogs, newsletter, new product, dabbling into new technologies, etc.
• Possibly learning to draw
• competitive coding?

Off topic

The Thumbnail you see for this blogpost is made by an AI :)

These images are just created using a text description 🤯. Made possible by Dall-e, It is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. I recently received a invite and have been playing with it since.

impressive isn't it?

I created some more images

A city on mars

superbike winning the race digital art

synthwave superbike

The more staraightforward the prompt, the more accurate the image it makes. Doesnt produce good results if you gave it vague prompts. It will be interesting to see how it will integrate with graphc design workflows.

July 2022

• My (stupid) End semester exams just finished today!. I will be starting my final year after this. (I am a CS student, I hate college tho)

• This gave me a lot of time to think, to evaluate my motivations & mindset. I read heavily about mindfulness.

• Instead of running in circles around project ideas and tutorial hell, I am now focused on building stuff and sharing it online. I just finished and submitted my project in my first hackathon as I write this.

• How I am going to do this?

  • One way is to participate in hackathons. It gives you incentive, a deadline and takes care of what to build.
  • Another is joining a company i.e. take an internship or job. Of course, you ship real stuff here. This is time-consuming, especially if you live under a cave like me, plus it needs a history of building stuff. I am in no hurry, I just want to build real stuff with rad people.

• Earlier it was just me, working alone in an underground cave. This is no fun and definitely not sustainable. I can't build everything alone, I should be able to talk to people. That's what I am focused on now building stuff and documenting it, sharing it.

• I joined a Gym: to do resistance training and also as a commitment for building an active lifestyle. Sitting in front of a screen most of the waking hours is definitely not healthy.

What's next?

• Building rad stuff for the web in form of hackathon projects, products and contributing to open source.

• communicating more openly via this blog and other social channels

• UI improvements to my website. Nothing major, just some minor thing that annoy me. My website follows form more than function.

• perfecting my daily ritual: I will write about this in detail shortly

What I want to learn more about

• Communicating with people (offline and online)
• Writing
• Typescript
• Using CSS libraries (like CSS in JS, tailwind, chakra): I always resist them :(