Highs and lows of 2025
Highs
[+] Changed jobs and landed at one I like
[+] Learning new and interesting things at work (about carbon emissions and LLM training/inference)
[+] Learnt to swim
[+] Good amount of travel plus quality time with wife (Big Island, Rocky Mountains National Park, Yosemite National Park, Crater Lake National Park, Mumbai, Goa)
[+] Read some good books (Careless People, Character Limit, Hatching Twitter), watched some good movies (Su from So, Dhurandhar, Homebound) and plays (Home?, Eureka Days, Over the river and through the woods)
[+] Grateful for friends living close by and regular hang outs
[+] Spent quality time with my nephew playing chess, football, and mental maths / memory games
[+] Biked or e-biked to work instead of driving on most days and discovered rucking (weighted walking) as an easy enjoyable exercise
Lows
[-] Didn't read as many books as I would have liked
[-] Fitness routine was not on point (lower back pain continues to be an issue and less than desired amount of tennis and muay thai)
[-] Didn't invest much any time/effort on improving my mental health
[-] Not comfortable with or adept at dealing with conflicts and/or contradicting opinions (at work and with family)
[-] Working at a pace slower than my liking
[-] Didn't blog much
Bonus: most embarrassing moment
I ran into my manager after lunch. He assumed that I was going for the same meeting that he was going for and started talking about it without explicitly mentioning it. Driven by a strong desire to not appear dumb (because I was not following what he was saying), I figured the best strategy is to try and buy some time while agreeing with whatever he was saying. By the time I could piece together what he was talking about, I was in the meeting room, attending a meeting I was never invited for. Turned out to be a great intern presentation talk though.