Thanks to all the birthday well-wishes both online and offline! Also special thanks to some of the YRS folks who spontaneously decided to sing the birthday song for me just less than 3 hours ago.

I had actually taken a little time to reflect now that I’m nearing a quarter century old. This will be my last birthday in an academic environment. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will be in the working world when I hit the quarter century milestone. Things will never be the same again as this birthday.

This birthday also represents the peak number of roles and responsibilities I’m carrying and will be carrying throughout the coming year. I’m a full-time student of NUS, a tutor to a small class of six students in CS2103, an FYP student under the supervision of a CEG prof (uncommon for a CS student), a part-time employee for a local startup and a weekly volunteer in YRS for children with learning difficulties. On a personal level, I have a “personal roadmap” of both software and hardware projects. I will post about them once I finish them.

Up to my previous birthday, I took the infamous CS3216 and CS3217 mods which are the toughest undergrad mods in SoC. I deliberately took mods which I had no aptitude for like Computer Graphics and Programming Languages to force myself out of the comfort zone. Went for an unconventional local exchange to NTU and held another part-time job at the same time. The past year was hectic, this year would prove more so.

Call the schizophrenic multiple-hat wearing me crazy. I’m not ashamed to say I am, many have said so and I have to admit the opportunity costs from my actions have been very high namely my grades amongst other things. Most people will be shocked to hear that my grades actually don’t qualify me for second-upper at this time although I’m as close as a student can ever be. However, I think this is a price I’m willing to pay for the priceless experiences which I have gained over the years and will continue to do so.

Over my Uni years, I have learned so much from school and outside and met some amazing and dedicated people along the way. Despite that, I feel I could have interacted with and get to know more people on a deeper level. I should put more effort into remembering people and their names and faces which are something I’m notoriously bad at. I can choose to assign blame to my introverted and reserved personality or I can do something about it one step at a time.

Let me see what happens one year from now.