As 2025 approached, I wanted to set myself a goal to work on my discipline. This was the reason I even redid my blog site to begin with! I purposely didn't want to give myself something super concrete to focus on -- something that, come February, I would decide that I didn't have any interest in anymore. Rather I wanted to change my life for the better in a much more broad sense. I wanted to focus on making every day count and ensure that I'm always working towards some bigger goal -- whatever that goal may be. I have a tendency to enter autopilot mode and just drift along in life and I wanted to change that by being much more cognizant of what I do on a day-to-day basis.

Finding Movement That Works

For someone who spends most of their time at a computer, my relationship with physical activity needed some... improvement to say the least. After going back and forth on it for several weeks, I bought a desk treadmill based on a colleague's recommendation. This thing has been AMAZING for both my physical and mental health. I can walk whenever I want -- when I'm working, gaming, just watching YouTube, or decompressing. This thing has been a lifesaver for me and I can't stress that enough.

It hasn't transformed me into a fitness enthusiast or anything, but it has enabled me to incorporate movement in a way that I had never before. I have been super consistent in using it, generally tracking 2-3 miles every single day! It's helped a lot and I'm starting to be able to see and feel the difference.

Rekindling Interest in Programming

I genuinely enjoy programming, but after spending eight hours coding professionally for work, it's challenging to maintain enthusiasm for coding projects during personal time. Nevertheless, I've been curious about game development for years and have spent a good part of the past 3 months exploring the Godot engine here and there. During the summer, I hope to build out a full game with a good friend of mine. I'm really looking forward to it!

I've also begun working with LangGraph and LangChain for AI projects after seeing LangSmith's capabilities during a work presentation. As a React developer, I appreciate frameworks that solve complex problems elegantly and LangChain's ecosystem does just that. These tools have made working with generative AI engaging enough that I find myself returning to these projects regularly and brainstorming new project ideas during my downtime as well.

Home Projects

In 2024, we decided to commit and purchase our first home! It was exciting but also quite scary, especially with the state of the tech job market. That said, We bought an older home and we have needed to make a few home improvements, and so a decent chunk of the past three months have been about getting our home set up the way we'd like it.

A big part of this is getting our backyard garden set up for spring! We love cooking, so we are hoping to grow lots of vegetables and herbs in our backyard. It's been exciting learning lots of new things about gardening and soon we will be seeing if our learning paid off.

Looking Ahead to the Next Quarter

For the coming three months, I plan to:

  1. Continue walking every day. This has been such an important addition to my life. I really want to push to keep consistently doing it.

  2. Continue learning Godot. As I said, I really hope that I stay on top of learning Godot. It's been a fun journey so far, and I think it can be a great side project or backup plan for me if the tech market goes down the gutter.

  3. Continue gardening. I am super excited for our garden to come to fruition!

  4. Continue writing. I have really enjoyed getting this site set up and giving myself a super low-friction way to just share my thoughts online. I hope to continue writing every couple weeks and thinking more deeply about hard problems.

All in all, I just wanted to write this update mainly for myself. I want to make sure that I'm following through with my commitments for the rest of the year.