2018 Year in Review
Started this year with a simple plan: running a half-marathon, competing Google code jam, and try my best if there are other stuff worth to do(partly regretting setting such an ambiguous goal now, LOL).
Now at the end, time for review & plan 😃.
This blog includes:
- 4 worst things happened this year due to my own decisions.
- 4 nice ones.
- Books I read.
- Goals for the year 2019.
The Worst 4
Done no project I’m proud of at my day job
Had been working at Canva for 18 months and counting, enjoy the job cuz projects are interesting and learned a ton from colleagues.
Did some projects, but had done no one that challenging(based on my technical skills) enough that I’m proud of the finishing.
Is not that I had no chance, there were at least three I can take, but was afraid of messing things up/getting out of the comfort zone.
Gonna be more proactive when hunting tasks in 2019.
Living at backpacker hostels for a long time for saving money
Renting price in Sydney is not cheap, spending nights in backpacker hostels is around 15 AUD less per day to me, so did that for about 4 months(2 in 2018, 2 in 2017), which I regret a lot.
It’s a great place for traveling but definitively worth considering if one is busy at work and study, personally:
- There were nights I cannot sleep well due to noisy roommates or parties outside of the room.
- Have to stay in the office very late due to the hostel is not friendly for study(no private desk, etc).
- Cooking and storing food is inconvenient(I enjoy cooking as a way to relax).
Having no big goal for a long time after failed badly at Google code jam round 2
Staring at the problem A at 2 AM May 20th for 2.5 hours but didn’t even solve the visible case. I knew in advance I will fail, but failed with solving no case is a brand new level.
After that failure, tried some random things in my spare time, also started to “enjoy” the life by spending lots of time watching movies.
Someday the end of September, I ask myself: “what’re you doing? What’s your goal or do u have one? You must get up again, re-read the CLRS, and learn a new language to practice the problems, your goal is becoming a better engineer & learning more computer science stuff, whatever contests results.”
So that, I restart learning algorithms stuff, practice problems using a language I’m not familiar with(Golang) to improve engineering muscle, but if you ask me what had I done after the round 2 to September? I’ll shrug my shoulder.
(BTW, I solved the problem A two days ago.)
Being unproductive for working from home for about 3 weeks
Thanks to my employer, I had a long time working remotely from my hometown(plus a two weeks day-off), but the productivity is very low.
I’m a remote-working advocate, but when it comes to doing it myself, I did badly(why it happened worth another blog, so not gonna talk about it here).
Shame on it, I decided not to copy and paste the behavior again this year.
But gonna try to take 1–2 days work from home every month in 2019.
The Nice 4
Running
I started running in my private time about 6 years ago, with a goal(half marathon) in mind, the running becomes more regularly this year :)
Finished the contest along with 365 KM total year-running-distance.
Algorithms Contests
Although I gave up during the middle of this year for about 4 months, kept the rhythm that joining contests from time to time.
It’s not about joining contests only, personally, it’s a great incentive to improve math & computer science knowledge, and help me know lots of programmers who do similar things.
Family Trip
Had a trip with my parents in Sydney, a happy experience :)
Second year in Australia
This is the first foreign country I have been to(still the same), love the nice environment and friendly people here :)
Books I read this year
Image above includes 8 books I finished this year, it’s a shame that as a programmer I haven’t finish many technical books, there are some ongoing ones though 😂
Recommend 4 books below a lot, they are all very inspiring for different reasons:
If you are interested in algorithm/algorithm contests like me at the beginning of 2018(have no solid foundation), Algorithms Unlocked is a good start.
Goals for the year 2019
Running
- Finish one marathon.
- Run at least 900 KM.
Algorithms Contests
- Spend at least 21 hours every week on algorithms study & practice.
- Joining contests that have friendly timing(started at 0–4 AM is not, which cover most of the contests for Australia time zone 😐).
- Practicing at Project Euler or OJ platforms like codeforces.
Reading
- Finish my current reading list(I might not be able to finish CLRS, let’s see…).
- Read two more math related & one more AI related books.
- Read other books I like if time allows.
Skills
- Finish a web project in Jan, have to cover front/back-end, don’t have to be fancy stuff, just some utilities I might use from day-to-day. Maintain it during the year, when it’s broken, need to fix the service.
- Practice more Golang, learn one more language I’m not familiar with right now.
- Finishes some courses at MOOC platforms, at least two.
- Joining contest like halite end of the year.
If time allows, do some stuff randomly I think worth the effort :)
