Hey makkals, Q3 of 2024 was a whirlwind of growth and change for me. From buying my first Mac and resigning from Sysvine to attending an Amazon interview and embarking on unforgettable trips, every moment brought new lessons. I joined Comcast, volunteered with JS Lovers, and entered the world of Nostr, all while cherishing time with friends before they left for their next adventures. It was a year of taking risks, embracing transitions, and finding joy in the journey.
Jul
Bought a Mac!
Yeah, it was one of my dreams to be honest. I go these tech meetups, office, travel in train, and everywhere I see people using Mac. Where I was just using a 16-inch HP laptop. So it’s always a wish for me to buy a Mac.
I don’t usually like apple products. They are pricy and I don’t see a very good ROI. But Mac is something else. It was smooth, rarely gets chunky (very rarely). You can just open, unlock and do whatever you want right away. The user experience is awesome.
At the same time, my HP laptop was getting hotter and hotter. It came to a point that I simply can’t do certain tasks when it heats a lot. The reason for this heat is me. I accidentally bent the cooling fan when I was trying to clean the laptop once.
All these events along with Sai’s little push, I finally decided to buy a Mac. And Sai helped me with the buying. He promised me that he’ll pay the EMI every month, and I’ll just work for him whenever he wants to get certain things done. This was a great deal which I couldn’t ignore. So I just bought it, it is doing really great. I even started playing games in it using Whisky app.
Resigned Sysvine
This was the time I was little bit frustrated with Sysvine. I wasn’t doing any interesting things there. Felt like brain rot, doing same things, maintaining 6 year old codebase and spending time on tasks which meant to be done just for the sake of doing it. And I don’t like doing things just for the sake of doing.
My manager was awesome. He is one of a kind. But I was a sole developer in 3 projects, hopping back and forth. And the general company culture is also started to feel like worse. The attire policy, device policy, and other processes were irritating for me at that time. And I couldn’t resist more, so I just sent my resignation email.
But my colleagues in Sysvine were just great. Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I still continue my relationship with them.
Attended Amazon interview
I decided to focus on Data strcutures and algorithms for a while and try applying for big tech companines. I did spent some good amount of time re-learning data structures and algorithms. Then got the courage to apply for Amazon. Cleared the online interview first, was asked to come to second round in-person in Chennai office at Perungudi.
The experience was great, office was looking fantastic and it was cool. People around me were very nervous. I was also too nervous, but I didn’t show it outside for the obvious reason.
I got a problem involving matrix. I was given with a 2D matrix of 0s and 1s. The question is to find the row which has maximum number of 1s. I came up with a naive solution and improved upon it.
The interviewer was awesome and he tried to help me out in many scenarious. But I ended up dissappointing him. I was asked to wait outside. But on my way to the waiting hall, HR approached and told me that the result is not promising, try next time in a couple of weeks.
I already knew that I performed certainly bad. So it was neither a shock to me nor heartbreaking. Just said yes, came back to home. Overall it was nice experience!
Hope I could join the FAANG or MAANG cult one day in the future.
Second car ride
We friends again decided to go for another car ride. I rented a car nearby my home. I was Nissan Magnite. This was my first time driving a SUV. This time, my mom joined me in the ride. Me and my mom went to the place where the car was parked.
I started the car, started moving it and it turned off. Tried again, turned off. This was my first time driving a petrol engine, so I thought I should release the clutch even slowly. Didn’t work.
Then I realized that hand brake was engaged. Fuck! Same mistake!
After that, I started driving normally. The plan was that, I’ll drive towards Medavakkam, pick up Karthi at Ekatuthangal, pick up Sanjay nearby Padi flyover, drop my mom at Avadi bus depot, pick up Pavan and Surya from Avadi, and go to Kona falls and then come back. All in the same day.
As planned picked up Karthi first and went towards Padi flyover. So far, everything was perfect, until Bammmm, an accident!!
Nothing serious though xD. Was about to park near the Padi flyover. There was a lot of vehicles parked on that spot. I was keeping the car at slow momentum. At one point, I wanted to brake and get the car to full stop. I seriously didn’t know what happened, my foot didn’t press the brake completely.
I was looking on to my right side while simultaneously pressing the brake slowly. But I think that wasn’t enough. The car didn’t come to full stop at the place where it’s supposed to. I hit right side portion of the auto’s back bumper. It wasn’t that serious, I was going at like 6KM/hr speed.
The auto’s bumper was a bit damaged. I stepped out to see the damage. It was nothing except a little bend in the bumper. Negotiated with the auto guy for while and paid him 700 rupees. I initially wanted to call the cops and register the accident and get it paid via insurance. But I didn’t know how much insurance was covered by the rented car. So instead of making a mess, I decided to handle the issue directly. I don’t know if it was right or wrong.
Got back, went on to pick up Sanjay. Then moved on with the plan. And the happy thing is that mom was very sportive about that incident. She is usually a nervous person. But she didn’t flick a bit. She said, all is good, nothing bad didn’t happen. She was like “Onnu rendu accident indha maadhiri nadandha dha kathuka mudium. Thappu pannama epdi kathuka mudium?”, means “You have to make some mistakes to learn, otherwise how could you learn?”. I truly didn’t expect that she would be this cool. I was little bit frustrated, sad and anxious. But her words truly helped me calm down.
Oh, BTW, there was a little dent in the front-left of the car near the front-left tire.
And we went on to Avadi. Dropped my mom there and picked up Pavan and Surya. We bought some snacks, because we haven’t had any breakfast or something. Handed the steering to Pavan and I went to the back seat to relax a bit. So far I drove over 50KM already on that morning.
Everyone got introduced and Pavan started driving towards Tirutani. Soon after that we came to know that we can’t go to the Kona falls and comeback. It’ll take near midnight to do that. So we changed the plan. We went to Nallatur, near Tirutani - My Grandma’s home and also the native of Pavan.
We spent some time there. Went to a school where I and Pavan done our primary schooling. Yes, I did my primary schooling in my Grandma’s home because of a conflict between my mom and dad.
And then we drove back. In between the ride, Sanjay drove for while and Pavan covered the remaining. I didn’t get back to the driving seat, because I’m already tired and that accident was still on my mind. At last, we dropped Sanjay and Surya along the way. And me, Karthi and Pavan completed the ride by returning the car to the same place where it was parked morning.
All 3 of us came to my home. Ordered a dinner. Watched a movie and called it a day. It was a wonderful day overall, except that fucking minor accident I caused!
Aug
Trip to Vagamon
This was a much needed trip for me in that year. Pavan was also in the verge of moving to USA for studies. So, this was our last trip together. Me, Pavan, Karthi, Prakash, Prakash’s friends, Pavan’s friends were in the trip. It’ not a group, it felt like a gang. Almost all of us had a similar mindset.
I can’t write about the trip fully. It’ll become a separate blog post. And I honestly don’t have energy to write that. Basically we had a blast of fun.
However, I was dissappointed for one thing. Almost all of these guys were solely focused on taking pictures rather than enjoying the places. I was completely against it. I’ll write a blog post about that soon.
For this reason, we weren’t able to achieve many things we wanted to do. But I didn’t stop for these guys. I walked alone to the places to enjoy the nature. Didn’t care about these ones.
We went to a adventure park nearby. And me and Karthi tried giant swing. I’ve never done it before, nor Karthi. We were lifted to top, I started feeling the vibration in my stomach. But it didn’t deploy well. They tried 3 times and the chain got stuck every single time. Then, on the fourth attempt, it was released.
Holy shit, that was freaking insane. For the first 5 seconds I was just baffled. We were basically falling to the ground, it wasn’t a smooth swing. There will be a hard drop initially and then the swing would go back and forth. Wooofff, that was an amazing experience!
And did a campfile with barbeque. We ourselves smoked all the chickens. Some of them were flavoured with beer. Surprised Pavan with a cake. And enjoyed the night overall, got back to sleep.
Pavan went to US
And the time came. It was August 13th, 2024. Pavan need to catch a flight to Detroit. Me and Karthi went to the Chennai airport early to spend some time with him. I got him a notebook and a pen to journal his experience in US. Also written him a 3 page note describing everything I wanted to tell him. We spent sometime and then whoosh, he flown away!
I did record audio about how I felt at that time. I won’t share it now though!
I wish him all the best for his masters and the career. We hang out occasionally through video calls.
Hari went to Ireland
And yet another best friend Hari also went to Ireland to do his masters there. I was seeing after a lot of time. Probably after years. His mom and sister came to board him. I brought him a journal as a gift.
Wish him the best for his masters!!
Sep
Entered Nostr!
Yes, Sai wanted to build a secret Nostr project. I was helping in. Went to his home one night and we spent the whole night doing POC and building the project from ground-up.
He explained me what Nostr is and what is used for. And I was amazed by the true simplicity of it. We built that project and at the time or writing this, we are still building that project. Hoping that we would launch that pretty soon!
Joined a Volunteer in JS Lovers
I was attending the 3rd meetup of Chennai React. That’s Vignesh approached me and told about JS Lovers. We exchanged our contacts. At one day, he messaged me asking if I could help with the next JS Lovers meetup. I said, why not, yes!
I did volunteered the event by helping out in reception, diverting people to the event hall, taking photos of speakers and audience, etc., I was a nice experience to get down to the event and doing all sorts of unnoticed things that make the event great!
And, from that point, I kinda became a part of JS Lovers. Me and Vignesh speak a lot in calls. If we started a call, it’ll go in hours. We talk a lot about many things.
And at that same time I met Syed, co-founder of JS Lovers Chennai. He is an aspiring MCA student wanted to get into a top tech company as a front-end developer. He built some cool projects, TBH, they are great for his time.
Final days in Sysvine
September was the last month of me serving in Sysvine. After going to office daily for last 3 months, I made many friends. Many people became very close to me. We hang out, have lunch and coffees together, play table tennis together. It was great. As I already said, some people were really great at Sysvine. It’s the unnecessary processes and some policies were the problem for me.
At the last day, people ordered a cake for me. Everyone wished me the best. I spent some time with all of them and went back to Arvind’s room. We planned to play Badminton on that night.
Joined Comcast
I was accepted at Comcast. And it was the final day in September, I started working in Comcast. The office is great, looked nice and visuals are fantastic. Had a smooth onboarding process.
Unfortunately, my teammates were not there. Only a couple of people were there at that time. Just had a chit chat and I left for the day.
