It’s the end of the year, so I’m going to write a little summary of 2018.

This year, there have been losses and gains. The loss was the failure of a relationship that didn’t work out, and the gain was a general improvement in my personal quality.

Let’s not dwell on what’s lost.

Let’s talk about the gains.

The gains can be divided into three aspects: physical, technical, and financial.

First, let’s talk about the physical aspect. At the beginning of this year, when I was just starting my second year of college, I insisted on going to the playground to run a few laps every day. Sometimes, even when it was raining, we would still go for a run. But eventually, I was the only one left, so I gave up. After that, I didn’t exercise much, staying in the lab until 10 o’clock every day, and I felt a bit dull. Then came the internship. I tried going to the gym for a day during the internship, but it was too far from where I lived, so I gave up. Actually, it was because I was too lazy But deep down, I still wanted to go to the gym and keep exercising. So, in October of this semester, I got a gym membership. At first, I was working out alone, and sometimes there were unqualified personal trainers trying to trick me into signing up for their courses, but I always refused with the excuse of being poor. However, I wasn’t really serious about working out. Then, in mid-October, Tao (a teammate from the lab) started training with me. That’s when I realized what real fitness is. Every time I saw Tao’s grimacing face, I thought I should try harder. I kept it up until the end of the year, and I feel that my shoulders have become a bit stronger, my arms a bit thicker, and I no longer feel weak from sitting too long. Although I’ve made a little progress, I know that fitness is a long-term commitment, and muscles need to be sculpted slowly.

Next, let’s talk about technology. The biggest change this year was the switch from Python to Java as my main development language. I’ve always wanted to make this change, as I felt that the future of web scraping and Python backend was uncertain. I mainly wanted to focus on web scraping, but gradually felt that it would be better as a secondary skill. I went through a lot of indecision, but eventually made the decision. As for Java, I don’t really dislike it. It’s a very good and stable language with a great ecosystem. Maybe it’s because I can’t fully master Python. As for learning Java, I’m still very unfamiliar with this vast language. I hope I can start from the basics and gradually understand the architecture of the backend. I want to tell my future self that backend is not just about Java, a good backend engineer won’t be limited by language.

As for money, my understanding this year is that as long as it’s enough, it’s fine. At the beginning of the year, due to some changes, I quit my part-time job as a stock clerk, so my income was a bit less than before. But after the semester started, I began to take on web scraping outsourcing projects. I didn’t work very hard on them, but they just offset the salary I used to earn as a stock clerk. However, that period was very beneficial for my technical growth, as it made me more familiar with Python. During my web scraping internship this year, I worked for two months during the summer vacation and earned 6K. Sadly, most of this 6K was offset by my expenses in Hangzhou, which was a bit harsh. But after returning to school, I got a new phone, which should last me for the remaining two years. Recently, the project leader from my previous company asked me to do some web scraping. I asked for a high price because I didn’t really want to do it. I tried it and found that the workload was much larger than I expected, so I gave up. As I said at the beginning, as long as it’s enough, it’s fine. Being able to learn the technology I like and work on the projects I want to do is a very happy thing. If you keep doing what you love, good things will come.

My 2018 was like this, I won’t write out my goals for 2019 yet, I just hope to become a better version of myself.