2023: My Year In Review
2023, the year when I finally got to witness my life-changing moments that I didn’t even expect at all. Everything hits hard, from hardships and stresses, to my achievements and proud moments. Even though I am still mainly confused, I won’t ever regret my decision at all.
I talked to my old friends, and they said “It is indeed hard to live in our current situations, but we’re sure that one day, it will definitely pay off. There will be days when we will celebrate together, and we might even go camping together, laughing and partying.”, and these kinds of sentences gave me spirit, combined with my current heightened spiritual condition.
But if I were to recap my 2023, there are several categories below.
Relationship
For my family, it’s been stagnant (just like normal families), sometimes I hate living with my family because I feel like my freedom is being restricted. But I’m also proud because they guided me when I was about to make big decisions, which I probably couldn’t decide by myself because of my own fear.
This year, friendship is one of the most important aspects of my life, because they saved me several times from my “almost depressed” status. They were the ones always available, whenever we laughed, talked, or needed company whenever there were problems. Even something as simple as hanging out together calms my mind from everyday stress.
For romantic relationship, since I am living in a society where everyone frequently asks “When will you have a girlfriend?” or “When will you get married?” and stuff, I felt a little bit irritated, but couldn’t care less about this. I understand that love is for those who have prepared for “the true life and war”, and for me, unfortunately, I still need to prepare myself.
Career
Unfortunately, this year, I got struck by the worst career outcome possible for me. I had to resign from Blibli.com, a company that I swore I had to get in because it’s like a dream come true if I were to work there. There are several circumstances causing this (Clue: It’s not because of the working environment or the team members. My superior and my teammates were very kind, which is why it was hard for me to quit from there), and I couldn’t recover from this immediately.
But I managed to continue my freelancing, my part-time tutoring students, and I got to work as an Academy Code Reviewer (External) at Dicoding! Sure, my income stream decreased significantly, but I think I can manage somehow.
One day, might as well start my own business from my (or my team’s) ideation. I have solid knowledge in programming, and quite a bit of UX designing and project management skills, so I could at least lead the way? This is just my silly idea, but I won’t be shocked if this really happens in the future.
Academic
This is it, the biggest achievement that I achieved in 2023!
When I was about to resign from my full-time company, I decided to apply for scholarships, especially the MEXT scholarship, which is the scholarship offered by the Ministry of Japan. Somehow, I managed to pass the screening, and landed a letter of acceptance to Waseda University! This is truly a miracle! I didn’t expect that I would receive a scholarship with only just one try (with very little preparation)!
I can’t wait to move to Tokyo in 2024 and start my new life there!
I will write an article about how I got this scholarship, here in medium, around early-mid 2024.
Learning Journey
I finished a lot of courses, like A LOT. Ranging from iOS development, UX design, cybersecurity, data science, and machine learning. I even got the distinction of being one of the top 7 developers in IDCamp 2022. I basically speedran through all of the courses, is this my secret superpower?
I also boosted my IELTS score and English speaking skills by learning both myself. I also learned the Japanese language by myself (and by enrolling in Cakap Club, which is a platform to learn about Japanese culture) until around the N4 level. Basically, I learn languages by myself. One of my sensei in Cakap Club even complimented me that my Japanese language pronunciation is very good, almost like a native speaker!
My target for 2024: Pass the JLPT N3/N2 exam!
My Hobby In Writing
I managed to publish a lot of articles in Medium this year. I also wrote 10 tech knowledge articles. I also got the chance to write in 2 different publications (Blibli.com Tech Blog, and Stackademic).
I managed to get a lot of views in my articles, around 700 views per month on average! Here are my top 5 most read posts in 2023:
My Spiritual Life
Last but not least, my spiritual life.
2023 taught me that I still have a long way to go with God; our relationship this year was shaky, but God convinced me that nothing is impossible if I want to reach a certain goal.
This year, I found comfort in reading books and novels, and I still hold on to my routine: one article/book page every day. For 2024, I want to read books more so that I can satisfy my thirst for knowledge (they even said by reading books, we basically transfer the writer’s knowledge to ourselves, since it’s one of the fastest ways to learn from other’s experience). I want to start living as I begin to record significant changes in life, academic, and career. I hope 2024 will be kind to me.
This is all of my year in review. I hope you can be inspired by my story this year. Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year 2024!
