The 2023 Recap

At today's celebration party for the upcoming year 2024, one of my friends suggested that we share our plans or aspirations for the coming New Year. We all immediately embraced the idea. It's a meaningful moment that allows us to reflect on what we want to change and what we hope will happen in the upcoming year. Throughout the three-hour event, we engaged in inspiring discussions. It was a fantastic party with a wonderful proposal. Typically, I review and make resolutions every year, but they tend to stay confined to my notebook or somewhere on my phone without being shared with my friends. However, witnessing the reactions of others after sharing their New Year resolutions, and listening to their own aspirations, is an incredibly interesting experience that might be worth considering for you.

One of my goals for 2024 is to cultivate a writing habit, focusing on creating more content about life, technology, and coding. So, why not start right here?

I have made significant progress in my English communication skills over the past year. In China, many of us start learning English before the age of 10. However, the current education system tends to focus more on reading and writing English, leaving limited opportunities for speaking practice. Unfortunately, I was one of those affected by this imbalance. Graduating from university, I never imagined that I would one day be able to communicate freely with native English speakers. Considering the importance of global cooperation in the fields of Blockchain technology and Web3 development, it is crucial to draw inspiration and innovation from the English-speaking world. Determined to overcome this challenge, I actively sought ways to practice listening and speaking, aiming to master effective communication skills. Learning a language does not have a fixed approach, so it is important to explore different methods and find the most suitable one that works for you, and then stick with it. Language learning is a gradual process, and by establishing a consistent daily practice, you will be pleasantly surprised by the progress you can make in just half a year.

I strongly believe that one effective way to improve engineering skills is by reading and studying excellent source codebases, and even better, making contributions to them. In the past year, 2023, I dedicated time to reading various codebases and gained valuable insights from them. While I do have a list in my notebook, I am not entirely satisfied with how it is organized, that doesn't need to be discussed here. These codebases mainly revolve around Rust programming crates and the Blockchain field. It's truly fascinating to dive into the inner workings of these technologies and uncover the magic behind them. Additionally, I have been actively involved in fixing bugs and developing features for the Darwinia chains. In the new year, I plan to adjust my strategy and contribute more to open-source projects, whether it's through library development, bug fixes, or feature enhancements. Let's wait and see what the future holds.

To sum up, if I were to rate my last year out of 10, I'd give it a solid 7. I'm content with the events and outcomes. I hope to maintain my writing habit in the year ahead, which should lead to a future piece titled "The 2024 Recap".

Happy New Year 2024!