2021 is/was a year. Thanks to peer pressure and the need to add content to this website, I have decided to rub my last 2 brain cells together to memorialize this average, totally-not-special-in-any-way year. Welcome to the most uneventful year in review you’ve ever read !

The first 75% -> living in school

I had the “privilege of lots of free time” during this part of the year (also known as frictional unemployment, but i’m a glass half full kinda guy). Here are the good results of that:

  • This allowed me to spend some time volunteering with a student run organization through which I was able to meet some very cool people and learn how to function in a technical capacity within a collaborative setting with non technical colleagues.
  • I was able to use this time to finally get my COMPTIA SECURITY+ certification which eluded me in the past year due to a larger workload and more responsibilities.
  • I also worked on a bunch of projects with some super smart individuals and participated (and kicked ass) in cybersecurity competitions at both international and local levels sometimes with my epic team M4X_HE4DR00M (waddup bois !) and sometimes solo.
  • I took deeper interest in my school work and focused on becoming a better student which led to me being able to maintain an excellent academic performance.
  • I SERIOUSLY improved my knowledge of python and became a better programmer.
  • I pulled off some of the most daring and well orchestrated rick rolls that I have ever done and impressed myself to the chagrin of my friends (one person in particular who shall not be named in this post in order to prevent harassment from my vast audience), acquaintances and random strangers on the internet.
  • I got some nice real world hacks under my belt that I’m unable to talk about in detail.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though, the first bunch of months also had some negative experiences:

  • I eventually ran out of things to do that matched up with my long term goals and fell into an existential crisis coupled with a deep depression that resulted in me being completely lost for a while. I ended up wasting months on confused pursuits without any endgame or plan. I had fun with some of these endeavours and sucked at most of them but i was able to come out of this experience with a deeper understanding of myself and my interests.
  • I became deeply broke …

The last 25% -> moved back home

Moving back home was a hard decision for me because I already got used to independent living and operating on my own schedule, but the fresh sapa (suffering, to the uninitiated) that i would have experienced would have been a lot harder than that. This period also had its ups :

  • I got multiple jobs and became financially stable during this period
  • I was able to become a mentor to a very bright young programmer and help with his project about game playing algorithms.
  • Bonded further with my teammates in M4X_HE4DR00M. We had events like gaming evenings (Brawlhalla, Rogue Company, Naraka Bladepoint) and so many Spotify sessions that my Spotify annual report was greatly skewed by the genres that were introduced to me.
  • I won even more competitions with my team.
  • I had some fruitful investments and gained a better understanding of the value of money (I still think it’s overrated).
  • I made a blog that has 2 posts so far (including this one). Hopefully, you’re reading this in a future where this site has become significant enough to validate its existence.

and downs:

  • I was working multiple jobs simultaneously while handling school full time (bad idea) which impacted my social life, health and ability to focus on my academics. I managed to maintain my GPA but it was a very close call.
  • I developed a terrible spending habit in the first few weeks of actually having income. I think I rationalized it as planning ahead for another round of “privilege of lots of free time”. I beat this eventually.
  • more depression (what can I say ?, I’m a sad boi). This was totally seasonal though.

All in all, I learned new skills, met cool people, did cool shit and became a bit less broke and a bit less depressed. I’m excited to face 2022 and whatever problems it might bring. (I forgot like 90% of the stuff that I was planning to write)

Here’s to a new year 🍻