Looking behind at 2022 and looking ahead at 2023
01 Jan 2023Since starting in 2016 over the winter break of my first year as an undergrad, this annual retrospective seems to be the onlt thing keeping this blog alive. I do ocassionally write some guides, but nothing for the blog itself. I hope to add more to the blog but, right now, I don’t have a timeline for that. In the meantime, I intend to keep the tradition of these annual round-ups of the past year.
Looking behind at 2022
While a lot of things have considerably changed compared to 2021 and 2020, the pandemic still loomed in the background. But other global events such as inflation, recession, and war took the foreground. Here are some highlights from my personal life:
- I was a teaching assistant for just one class, STAT 221 (Statistical Concepts and Methods for the Social Sciences).
- I passed my Ph.D. preliminary examination. (I also learned that this is not enough to become a Ph.D. candidate.)
- I spent the summer interning as a Data Scientist in the Xbox Player Services team at Microsoft. I got to apply some of my research in the project.
- I upgraded my PS4 to a PS5.
- I attended my first conference and presented my research at JSM.
- Two international travels to Canada and India.
- I became the Graduate Student Representative (GSR) for the Statitics Department at UW.
- I took the Statistics Consulting class. It was a lot of work but also fun to learn new methods and actually see statistics applied in other fields.
- I finished my first project (that will be a part of my dissertation) and am currently wrapping it up.
- I signed an offer to return as a Data Scientist intern at Microsoft in the Xbox Player Services team. (The huge tech layoff in September did not present a promising outlook for internship search.)
Looking at the numbers
- Number of goals that I set out to achieve: 5
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Number of goals that I completed: 2 (playing more video games and reading more fantasy)
- Emails sent: 416 (+42 from 2021)
- Emails received: > 3998 (+203 from 2021)
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Papers read: 116 (+58 (100%) from 2021)
- Books read: 12 (+6 from 2022)
- Books in progress: 1
- Favorite fiction: Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings
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Favorite non-fiction: The Language of Food
- Favorite music album: State of the Heart by Patrick Droney
- Favorite song: Fall in love by Bailey Zimmerman
- Favorite movies: Batman, Avatar: Way of the Water, Ponniyin Selvan - Part 1
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Favorite TV show: House of the Dragon
- Video games finished: 0 (-3 from 2021)
- Video games in progress (that I intend to finish): 4
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Favorite video game: God of War: Ragnarok
- Concerts attended: 2 (+2 from 2021)
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Theatrical performances attended: 0 (no change from 2021)
- Miles run: 65.36 (-57.36 from 2021)
- Miles biked: 7.32 (+7.32 from 2021)
- Hikes: 7
- Favorite hike: Mt. Fremont Lookout
- 14ers completed: 0
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Total 14ers completed: 1
- States visited: WA, CO, NM, DC (+2 new)
- Total states visited: 16
- Countries visited: Canada, India
- Total countries visited: 4
Looking ahead at 2023
A few things I am looking forward to in 2023:
- Taking my general exam. After this, I will be a Ph.D. candidate. Hopefully this happens in 2023!
- Summer internship at Microsoft
- Doing some traveling. Not sure where, but I intend to visit new places!
Last year, I set out to do more of less. I think I was more or less successful in that endeavor. I decided to do, at most, 5 things distributed between research, classes, teaching, and other obligations. I definitely brought it down to 4 towards the end of the year. I want to continue doing that in 2023. I expect it will fluctuate between 4 and 5 for until the end of Spring quarter.
I have some exciting ideas for side projects that I want to pursue in 2023. Some of these have been simmering in my head for a long time and others are inspired by recent events. Some are technical and others are creative. I won’t fully describe them here but I will post updates when they are nearing completion.
Some other fun things I want to do this year:
- Work on those side projects
- Read more fantasy
- Learn more about geology and archaeology
- Play more music (and write music)
- Play more video games
- Run a half marathon (I’ve been wanting to do this 3 years now)