Prepare for Dragon Hunt 🐉 2024 (Part 2)

(continue from Part 1)

What's next - My personal tastes

Starting with some Zig code (non-dev please don't panic!):

const std = @import("std");
pub fn main() !void {
    std.debug.print("Stay Healthy\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("Build up more stable financial income\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("Self-dev and new languages\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("Cherish moments! Hug more! Smile more!\n", .{});
}

Doubt that you still stay with me after looking at those lines of code, it's basically a list of my personal goals that I plan and hopefully (extremely hopefully) be able to achieve all of them at the end of 2024. Let's go through them a bit in a most general form. 

Stay healthy

The top one seems so simple thus so important that most of us ignore, but I couldn't as Dad always grunts this and grunts that: "Have you been working out lately? Remember to stand up frequently, do not sit for too long!!!" - "Yes! I know!" - quoted from one of eternal times me and Dad do the talking. He has a point, apparently a really good one. Staying healthy, eat well, sleep well, your body itself will naturally produce "fuel", you can then use it to charge further - at any directions you want. 

Honestly switching to a new career path made me feels a little bit exhausted last year. Increase in times I got ill, my weight went up and down like roller-coaster are some examples to reflex on that. So, putting my mine and body back to balance is a must-have this year 🧘‍♂️, as there is a long list of targets is waiting to be fulfilled. (it's undeniable that I will still reward myself a giant Jollibee treat every quarter - *cough*) (and no, I don't do advertisements for the brand).

A more stable financial income

Am I pragmatic? Of course! In some degrees we all are. Mine is that I consider stable income help create substantial resources for stability of any journey toward goals (not gold). 

Last year was a bit laying out foundation for myself when performing a career-shifting, this year should be mostly about finding balances on top of that concrete. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I am in the state of "Mr Empty-Wallet-At-The-End-Of-The-Month-Always" or is pressured by life-time high income commitments, I just want to work hard to promote myself to a more stable stage where I have flexible schedule to continue self-dev and satisfy travelling's needs.

With the job market's rapid recovery, who knows where I might end up this year. Although no more changes in career path, but probably a better game developer opportunity. If that won't happen as the Signal of the Universe, I guess I can try doing some freelances by scrolling through Upwork posts - Unity part-time jobs are everywhere! And... if even that won't happen dear Universe, I will just re-read Paulo Coelho's classic The Alchemist then...

Self development

  My project's protagonist
(thanks brother!)

My favourite part! This year I will try to launch a project that can span longer than 12 months. The project will be used mainly for learning Rust, though it may go full production mode if the prototyped idea surpasses my laziness. 

The second Game Jam I partcipated in proved two things: Bevy is an awesome open-source game engine and learning it along Rust is a worthwhile experience. Not only Rust makes you a much better programmer, but also forces you (in a positive way) to catch up with current tech trends of AIs and System Safety. Isn't it a win-win?

Remember the snippet of Zig code you panicked above? There is a line says something like "Learn new language" - Yes! Beside Rust, I may watch out for Zig if I were you (unless you are not a developer like me). Zig has gone through attentive evolution throughout recent years and is on momentum to gain more attractions in the upcoming periods - so being an early bird of learning Zig is also worthwhile. But since this one is optional for me, I will just write it here as a reminder of keeping an 👁️ of Zig if my time window is not too strict.

Zero the Ziguana - the Zig mascot

"Learn new language" does not refer to only "programming language", language is also a "language". I am speaking of Idioma, 语言, Ngôn Ngữ, etc. Well, I plan to learn Chinese properly this year as I have failed to achieve that 365 days ago.

You see: Travelling to different areas to see the people and experiencing cultures there by your own is so enjoyable that I don't want to hire any tours to drag me around at their paces again. Here's the worst stuff: Chinese people rarely speaks English in most areas, so you may become Lost In Translation like Bill Murray back in 2003 if you decide to visit the place on your own. Don't think I learn Chinese just to be able to travel China, no, I am too lazy to do that 🤣. 

But let's look at a bigger picture: China growth in every aspects recently is too tremendous to go unnoticed, from economy to technologies (especially in entertainment), the Chinese approaches to most problems are near-optimal. The news around its progress triggered my curiosity, so I think learning their language may help me in the long run in terms of career chances and self development.

Cherish small stuffs

My friend captured this shot during her trek this year. Beautiful! 

I can say 2023 is one of the few year I feel time passes much slower than usual. Perhaps I started to teach myself to value every moment of joys, sorrows, every person I met and every pit I fell into.

I also started to realize "The busier you are, the less focus you spend regarding tiny little moments with friends, family and love ones" - so I hope putting this goal in the last section will somehow act as a self  inspiration to usually find motives to turn away from works whenever I need to have times to cherish small stuffs, to hug more, to smile more and to love more. Trộm vía! (Knock on wood!)

As we are gearing up to the Year of the Dragon, I just want to wish everyone (and you) a joyful and blossomed 2024 ahead! 

Expect me to return for another post when the dragon strikes this Lunar New Year. For now, I will leave here one of my favourite quote, Love y'all!

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world" - The Hobbit