How is it going? Last year for me was a busy year, having to study quite intensively for the university entrance exam. The results turned out very well for me, I became a Computer Science undergrad at HCMUT, so there is really nothing to regret. University also took a decent amount from me towards the end of the year, so unfortunately I couldn’t work on personal projects much. That’s also due to my horrible time management.

Review of 2025

Because of how lazy I was last year, I feel like I wasn’t able to work on my 2025’s resolution properly. Let’s take a look at my plans last year and see what I’ve done:

• Japanese

Could say that my knowledge did improve. Since Japanese is a mandatory course in my class, being serious is of course a requirement, though to be honest I wasn’t being serious enough.

• New projects

I did work on moto and ok. Most of the time was spent on my Guix system and packages.

• Complete my dotfiles

I’ve been very happy to work on polishing my dotfiles. Since my switch to GNU Guix, so yeah.

• Complete my website

Yes I did polish my website, but content updates weren’t much.

• Colemak and WPM

My consistent WPM did improve over time, currently sitting at around 85. I feel very comfortable typing now.

• Quit YouTube and Discord

I realized that these platforms have become inseparable from my life and can only be used in moderation :(

Resolution

My last year’s post was a bit hastily written, can’t remember why, but I don’t want that to happen again this year. With plenty of spare time, I gave myself some time to think and write about my potential goals in detail.

• Stop being distracted

I have a bad habit of constantly looking at Twitch streams and sometimes YouTube. I could mitigate this by using alternative front-ends like Invidious.

• Listen to more music

Ever since exozyme went down, I stopped listening to too much music. Now I’m using a pretty sophisticated but functional rclone + MPD setup, the only problem left is that the process of uploading music is quite tedious and there aren’t any good music players for Linux.

• Time management and take notes more often

If I can’t figure this out, it might become a huge problem in the future. I got CalDAV and clients set up currently, it’s up to me to organize things now. Also have to remind myself to take notes more often to retain knowledge.

• Speed up in learning Japanese

I’m required to obtain a JLPT N3 certificate in order to graduate. After listening to advices for seniors, I figured that curriculums will be tougher towards the end of uni, so it is better to learn as quickly as I can.

• Take care of my health and state of mind

Speaks for itself. Could bring in benefits when it comes to working in a potentially stressful environment.

• Learn a few more programming languages

Currently I have C++, Zig, Scheme. Last year I picked up Ruby, Crystal, C++ through uni, and some Scheme through GNU Guix.

• Be more free at writing small projects

Starting projects is hard. I want to have the ability to work with my ideas fast. This may require me to configure my system and calibrate my workflow.

• Package Crystal and its build system for GNU Guix

If you have been following my Fedi posts. Will be a lot of work, but thankfully I have infrastructure support, so I’m only limited by my programming skills.

• Improve my writing and write more often

Writing is going to be an important skill to have. I also had a ton of drafts waiting to be completed.

• Participate in more CTFs

As a member of BKISC. I currently don’t have much knowledge on binary exploitation, but I’m working on it.

There are also quite a lot of niche things I didn’t list here but I don’t want to bore you with plans that aren’t going anywhere anyway.

With nothing more to say, I wish everyone a happy and productive year!

Gallery

I lost all pictures I took in the first three quarters of 2025 unfortunately :(

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