It is officially 2026. I began planning this entry in 2025, but call with family stretched longer than expected – reminding me, once again, that I cannot multitask the way I think I can. Even so, before writing a dramatic year-end post, I wanted to reflect on 2025 in a verbose and raw form, so that I can read it later and not forget the details.

If I had to describe 2025 in one word, it would be overwhelming. The interpretation of that word changed every day, but its intensity remained constant.

Well, it’s been quite long since I actually wrote a blog post. A lot has happened since then, and I don’t think it’s easy to summarize everything in one post. But I’ll talk about how I remembered my blog and decided to revive it.

I’ve been trying to manage my time better over the past few months, let’s say since the beginning of summer. I went home for my sister’s exams and then came back to college. I was working on the capstone project, where I was trying to implement the capstone processor. The initial days went quite smoothly: I learnt the intricacies of processor design and the capstone architecture, which is a security-focused processor. But as time went on, I got caught up in debugging. Looking back, most of it was due to poor debugging practices and a lack of patience. Every single day I tried to “make it work,” twisting and forcing my way through. And as I got lost in this rathole, I became addicted to being in the lab, thinking about it all the time. To the outside world it may have looked like hard work or passion, but in reality it was just obsession with seeing the end — which is not the reason one should be doing things.

Well, half of the year is over. Last time I wrote a blog was three months ago — and that too was a casual attempt at poetry. I somehow see I have two drafts lying around, both technical, where I wanted to improve my scientific writing. I guess I’ll finish them later, but for now, let me just sync up with life.

This year started with me in a good initial state, and somehow it seems more packed than any set of months I’ve spent on Earth. Yet, the progress feels unquantifiable in terms of output. Still, I believe there are many lessons I’ve learned — and many more I’m yet to. I had forgotten about this blog, but the last few days I’ve been thinking about the Air India crash, and wondering if I’m missing out on the most important lesson in life.

Hello World! is all I need to do
Yet it’s difficult to fill in the shoe
The CPU is hot, the fan is loud
But I’m still stuck on feeling proud
For the few lines of code that I sowed

Yet a lot of work is still pending
But I’m busy pretending
That I’m working hard
Just staring at the to-do card
Without progress in the project yard

I’m physically fine, not feeling tired
But mentally, I’m just expired
Being unproductive might be my new hobby
Just so I can skip talking to my old lobby
Every week, I plan to do something new
But I just end up covering the week’s due