Dec 21, 2025
It's finally the holiday season, so I'm travelling back home soon to visit my family. It'll be the first time in months that I've been able to use PTO for something other than extra sick days.
Living and working
I'm currently trying to focus on my wellbeing, both physical and mental. I'm deeply dissatisfied with my current job and I don't feel that it's a good growth opportunity for me, so I'm starting to search for something better. I hope that I can find a job in tech where I can feel like I'm doing good in the world, and where I'm not forced to give into the siren call of sloppy AI code.
I hope that finding a better job will help me, but I'm taking other steps too. I'm working on this blog to give me a space to express my thoughts better, and I am starting to hold myself to a budget more strictly so that I have the money to take a break from work if I can't find a new position soon. I'm slowly starting to eat well again after months of being too tired to cook consistently. I'm planning to buy lights for my bike so that I can use it for fitness and travel in the evenings again.
Learning
I'm starting to learn how to write better (through this blog!). I was never a talented writer growing up, but I feel like it's an important skill if I want to be able to share my thoughts with the world.
In terms of technical work, I'm learning Dart and Flutter for my Gemini browser project. I learned Flutter for a semester back in college, but I never finished a satisfactory project with it, so I'm using this project as a way to learn the tools better. I hope that I'll become a better UI designer this way too, and that I can eventually use the browser as a UX portfolio piece that I can be proud of.
I'm also starting to learn software architecture. Systems design was one of the biggest gaps in my education - I learned how to design good user experiences and how code works, but not how to make backend systems that are easy to extend and scale. My company has been slow to get me training opportunities for this skill (or any skill), so hopefully I can muster the motivation to teach myself.