A Birthday Post

02 Sep 2016

It’s my birthday this week. I had another post ready to go, but I felt it was good to have a birthday post as a personal check-in as well.

There’s about 90 days left until the end of the year, which means 275 days have passed. Some of my accomplishments this year:

Accomplished resolutions

Resolution 1: Posting weekly

This was probably the most impressive thing I’ve done on here. I remember I had a hard time even getting posts done once a month. Now v even with an out-of-state move in the middle of summer, I still posted weekly.
Resolution 2: Algorithms

I have completed the Coursera course: Algorithms: Design and Analysis by Tim Roughgarden and currently working on the second part. I definitely felt this was a good thing as it’s improved the way I think about code significantly. I also started teaching others in my N-languages Meetup group.
Resolution 3: Workout regularly

I maintained the 100 burpee workout twice a week into the summer. This reduced my weight and improved my cardio. I took a pause because I injured myself in another activity but I expect to be back on track by the end of the year.

Even though I stopped working out, I lost more weight. I suspect the additional weight loss is from one change in my diet: no more sugar. This article inspired me to try avoiding sugar in my diet (while still allowing myself to have carbs, proteins, and fats!) This has been a pleasant surprise.

Things I want to improve on before the end of the year:

Improvement 1: Technical oriented posts

Some of my recent posts have been less technical than I want them to be. I definitely want to have more technical topics in my posts.
Improvement 2: Better looking site

When I started, I just wanted to see if I can write and didn’t want to get caught up with ‘setting up’ or ‘tweaking’ the site. Now that I’m posting regularly, let’s add some bling to the site by spending some time learning more of Jekyll’s features.
Improvement 3: Marketing more

When I site, I wanted to give myself a chance to write without the pressure, so I didn’t post articles out that much. I will now start posting articles around the internet more regularly.

So, it’s almost the end of the year and I feel good about my accomplishments so far. I want to add to that list to setup a better 2017.

Wow, that’s coming up fast!