Year in Review - 2023
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Alright folks, 2023 is ending. Let's do a quick review. To be honest, I was not in a good mood to write a year review and thought of skipping it. They say you don't change what already works. So, continuing the tradition from the past couple of years...
The opening was worse; I left my job at Safient Protocol in December in the hope of resetting everything and starting again. I left everything in Bangalore and decided to pack.
I had a couple of good offers, but my monkey mind chose the wrong one. It's okay; we all make mistakes. I moved to Mangalore, and it was terrible. That's where I realised there is life beyond work. I left that place within 1.5 months during a peak recession time and was quite jobless for a month. I took a break for a month.
After a month, QuestBook happened. I was going through a lot, and life was not good. They asked me to move to Hyderabad. Hell yeah! I packed my bags again and moved to Hyderabad. They had a new hacker house set up there. Hackerhouse sounds cool, right?
First Flight
I had my first flight. I met a couple of ambitious developers who were working on their side projects, brainstorming ideas. I felt like home. This is the group of people I wanted to hang out with. Things started going better, both mentally and financially.
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Questbook gave a kickstart, and I was learning and progressing at a rapid pace. My mental health improved drastically.
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In August, I took a short break and went to Wayanad with my friend. August and September, I was just focusing on work. We hosted a hackathon in between; that's what I remember.
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In the same month — bought a bike here.
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October - November
EthIstanbul was announced, and we went to Istanbul. We were pitching Reclaim, demoing, gathering feedback from the developers. Post office hours, we used to explore Istanbul city. We took a week off and explored Cappadocia.
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We participated in EthIstanbul hackathon and won a sponsorship prize. We built a location based treasure hunt game.
December - EthIndia
In December, EthIndia happened. I teamed up with my old boss, and hell yeah, we built Safe2Link and made it to the list of finalists. Damn, first-time experience on the stage. Felt so good.
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First Tattoo
Also got my first tattoo — Amor Fati.
"Amor fati" means loving and embracing everything that happens in your life, both the good and the bad, as an essential and meaningful part of your journey. It's about finding beauty and purpose in every experience.
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Dev
- EthOnline Hackathon — First place in best use of SafeCore Protocol
- EthIstanbul — Best use of Waku under gaming category
- EthIndia — Finalist, under top 10 projects
Personal
Not really proud of this, but yeah, one life. Live to the fullest. Went full-on party mode after moving to HYD. Not just a party; we also worked really hard and shipped a lot of projects. There was a balance.
- First Flight
- Bought a bike
- First International trip
- First tattoo
- Travel
Places Visited
- Mangalore
- Hyderabad
- Wayanad
- Istanbul
- Cappadocia
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Conclusion
Questbook is one of the pivotal moments in my life, I would say. It gave me a slingshot, and I will be forever grateful to those who gave me the opportunity. Not gonna lie, if I weren't here, I would have been stuck with something else. Joining here gave me much clarity in life. It's the people around me who made the whole difference.
Learn, Evolve, Grow.
As the chapter of 2023 closes, the anticipation for a new year brings with excitement and determination to continue the journey of self-improvement, professional development, and a good work-life integration. Here's to unwritten pages, new challenges to embrace them all in 2024.
Cheers & Happy Coding!