2025 Annual Summary & Fall 25 Semester Summary

Monthly Summary

Jan.

• Skied for the first time
• Prepared for winter vacation
• Achieved maimai 15.9k ra
• Configured my nvim

Feb.

• Started leetcode (arom1a/leetcode)
• Learned embedded rust (arom1a/microbit-button-press-indicator)
• Started preparing for my high school graduation ceremony
• AP Research depression

Mar.

• Achieved maimai 16.0k ra for the first time

Apr.

• AP Research essay submitted

May

• Finished AP exams
• High school graduation ceremony
• Graduated

June

• I forgot (this is why u should keep track of ur life)
• Maybe played Stellar Blade

July

• AP scores released, all 5s!
• Traveled in Nanjing

Aug.

• Arrived in Pittsburgh
• Can’t believe college started

Sept.

• Played SilkSong

Oct.

• First Hackathon ever with my roommates

Nov.

• Published my first crate to crates.io (arom1a/rusty-lights)
• Busy with finals, especially 21242

Dec.

• Got my first TA job for 15150
• First college semester ended
• Semester grades released, all A’s!

Fall 25 Summary

Courses	Commentary
21242 Matrix Theory	This was a preliminary proof-based course in linear algebra. It was super interesting and my professor Pegden was extremely humorous. Perhaps I will write about what I learned in 21242 as a way to review and reinforce my understanding, as linear algebra is such a fundamental course.
15150 Principles of Functional Programming	I love the course materials. Recursion finally makes a lot of sense to me. I even think recursively in imperative languages.
76100 First-Year Writing (FYW)	I’ve done a lot of writing in this course. I suffered a lot, but tbh, I liked it.
09111 Nanolegos: Chemistry Building Blocks	Basically AP chemistry. I’d rather have taken a physics course instead.
99101 Core@CMU	A waste of time.
38101 Eureka	An even bigger waste of time.

New Year’s Resolution

I failed to make blog posts in the past year, but I actually wrote a lot — for AP research and for my FYW. I’ll have to spend more time writing and reflecting. It’s painful to reflect for me and IDK why. Also I didn’t have time to learn Japanese, because for the first half of the year, graduation kept me busy and in the second half, I was occupied learning math and CS.

Anyways, following will be my resolutions for 2026:

• Capture my life in words. Take down my thoughts, i.e. spend more time organizing my thoughts.
• Learn more about algorithms
• Get physically stronger
• Aim for at least one blog post per month
• Build more projects