Spring 2018 resolutions

3/8ths of the way through CMU!
Post created: 2018-01-12

I've been spending winter break attending a few (mostly programming-oriented) meetups. CMU is actually pretty good background preparation here. But I digress.

Reviewing the semesters I've had so far, I realize quality of life (as measured by sleep) has generally been on a downwards slide.

  • Fall 2016
    • Time spent on: concepts
    • A fairly relaxing semester, overall
  • Spring 2017
    • Time spent on: 251, attempt at 269
    • In retrospect, working midnight to 8am on Sundays was a pretty bad idea here
    • My life smoothed out after dropping 269, though a fairly rough semester overall
  • Fall 2017
    • Time spent on: algebraic structures, TAing 122
    • To be fair to 122, I didn't need to sink that much time into it
      • I vaguely regret turning down some networking dinners because they conflicted with Tuesday grading
      • But I definitely don't regret having extra OH, especially the night before homeworks are due
    • But when you prioritize other people's stuff over your own, you end up sleeping at 3 to 4 am a lot. hm.. balance is tough.
    • This was a pretty bad semester, work-life wise. It wasn't even the 210 and 213; mostly the math courses.
      • "Well, if you're bad at math, maybe you shouldn't minor in it"... well-meaning advice that I get fairly often
      • Still thinking about it..
      • If I didn't want to struggle, I wouldn't have picked CMU
      • Persona quotes seem relevant here.. I chose this fate of my own free will

Resolutions

In no particular order,

  • Get more sleep!
    • First semester without 830/9am classes
    • Aiming to sleep from 1am to 9am
      • Way more sleep than I've gotten for the past two years
      • No more amortizing sleep
  • Cook more!
    • Sure, Oishii is a decent deal (meet all food requirements for about 300/month)
      • Coming from someone who earned USD 350 a month full-time at some point..
      • I am very fortunate. As are the people who live here.
    • But it would be fun and much cheaper to cook, and I miss some foods
  • Find time for meetups
    • I'd like to keep going to two of them
    • But the Monday one probably won't happen, because 150 will have panic OH then
    • The Wednesday one is possible, though
  • Do something that's actually useful
    • I'm actually surprised that volunteer slots fill up so quickly around here.
    • Rather nice, really. Look for the helpers.
    • It would be nice to find a shelter or something to volunteer for regularly
  • Rust!
    • I really want to play with Rust more
    • I wonder if I'll have the time to port all my 440 code to Rust

Round 4, begin!