40 Questions of 2024

Questions source – https://github.com/kepano/40-questions/blob/master/year.md

The questions highlighted are the ones making me think

1. What did you do this year that you’d never done before?

• Delay gratification
• Drive 7 hours to Pittsburgh, PA
• Trip to Italy
• Prepared and cooked Thanksgiving and Chritstmas meals from scratch

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions?

• Read 10+ books
• Took 10+ personal challenges
• Failed on reaching 135 Lbs
• Failed on finding a new job
• Failed on going to 5 new US states

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

• No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

• No.

5. What cities/states/countries did you visit?

• Italy – Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Milan
• US – Pittsburgh, PA. Montauk, NY. Ithaca, NY

6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year?

• Stay calm. 
• Finding solutions with goals in mind

7. What date(s) from this year will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

• 2024-01-04 – for visa to go to Italy
• 2024-06-02 – back from Italy
• 2024-09-24 – interview with the UN. Interview preparation is not for interviews. It’s for every day, I need to ask questions about the project, about approaches. 
• 2024-11-04 – knowing we need to move from current location sometime next year, need to make every day in current place count
• 2024-12-08 – Sick, lying in bed for the entire day, it never happened in the past.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

• Trip to Italy
• Cooking
• Azure SQL on phone

9. What was your biggest failure?

• A messy target / goal list, which was impossible to follow
• Not running enough, failed to meet the weight goal
• Not able to have an app of my own

10. What other hardships did you face?

• Ability to stay focused

11. Did you suffer illness or injury?

• No

12. What was the best thing you bought?

• Apple USB woven cable

13. Whose behavior merited celebration?

• August, dancing with music at a plaza in Florence in front of the crowd.

14. Whose behavior made you appalled?

Me. 

• Being impatient with family and colleagues.
• Not reaching out to friends.

15. Where did most of your money go?

• Trinkets, things not usable, old used electronics stuff

16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

• Tech – Azure SQL on the phone, ascii art with SQL
• Family – Wife got driver license

17. What song will always remind you of this year?

• Ron Sexsmith / Chris Martin – <Gold in them hill>
• 于文文 – <祝我快乐>
• Radiohead – <Let down>

18. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? Thinner or fatter? Richer or poorer?

• Sadder – Not able to reach as many goals as last year, plus I need to find next steps for my family and my career.
• Thinner than last year, by about 1 pound
• Poorer.

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?

• Learn more things, with a target in mind
• Travel to more places, no excuses not to go. Money can be earned. 
• Stepping out of the comfort zone.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?

• Going through the deals websites
• Youtube shorts
• X.com

21. How are you spending the holidays?

• With family, staying at home or road trips

22. Did you fall in love this year?

• NA

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

• NA

24. What was your favorite show?

• <The bear>
• <Silo>

25. What was the best book you read?

• <当呼吸化为空气> 
• <Hell yeah or no>
• <打开一颗心>
• <Million dollar weekend>

26. What was your greatest musical discovery of the year?

• Suno AI music
• Piano cover music for studying

27. What was your favorite film?

• <Maharaj>

28. What was your favorite meal?

• Christmas meal I cooked

29. What did you want and get?

• Delayed gratification
• Maintain consistency in reading
• Taking notes and review regularly

30. What did you want and not get?

• Get out of the comfort zone
• Be nice to people
• Be more open to talk
• Be more confident

31. What did you do on your birthday?

• I don’t remember. 

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

• Publish my own app

33. How would you describe your personal fashion this year?

• Getting a new denim shirt, and green pants
• Overall, worse. I am not getting a new look, still wearing the same clothes as past a few years

34. What kept you sane?

• Knowing I have a family, and a job.
• Still maintaining the SQL skills, able to complete tasks within time

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire the most?

• Dwarkesh Patel. Just read about this guy yesterday, he’s only 23, and has interviewed many influential people in the industry. For each episode of his podcast, he spends at least one week reading all the articles about the guest and subject. And he claimed, this is what’s supposed to be done, especially the people you are interviewing is one of the best in the domain. 

What he said resonates with me a lot, and I also think this is what was supposed to be done for any interview. Yet, Dwarkesh carried it out, and made it.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

• The election. China – Taiwan crisis

37. Who did you miss?

• Family in China, I have not talked to them for quite a while now.
• Friends in China, kind of lost touch with them

38. Who was the best new person you met?

• N/A

39. What valuable life lesson did you learn this year?

• Admit mistakes, talk about it.
• No one cares.

40. What is a quote that sums up your year?

• If you are thinking without writing, you only think you are thinking. — Leslie Lamport
• Noting down whatever comes to my mind has become a habit to me, especially with Google docs, and MS Excel online, they have become my go-to tool for thinking.