Weeknotes - 2025-W22
The Ace of Spades on a found a nice resting place, on my cat’s belly
On Monday, I received a call from a colleague that I worked with, many years ago. He had called me to personally let me know that he got promoted, and that his presence in the team is being valued a lot. He went ahead and told me that the foundational things that he learnt when working with me, play a very large role, to this date, no matter where he is.
This made me tear up a lot. On many days, I ask myself what is the impact of my work, and on a few days like this, I get reminded of the fact that success need not only be to make lots of money, or to have a successful exit, or to get accolades - it can be a simple call from someone who thought of you, for the impact that you had on their life.
He is a very intelligent chap, and I am certain that he will go places. I’m happy that I could be in the right place at the right time in the trajectory of his life. And via our relationship, I learnt quite a bit about how to be a better mentor. So as always, all great mentorship stints are two way streets.
This week, I finished up the Murderbot diaries and I think for the first time in a long time, I am actually missing the characters in it. The last time this happened, was for Harry Potter, I think. The series is a wonderful look into the mind of a self-liberated security unit and the situations it puts itself into. I think among the entire series, my favourites were:
- Rogue Protocol
- Network Effect
Network Effect was really a masterpiece. So well written, and the audiobook made it really come alive too!
If you’re into sci-fi, then please do pick this series up, it is absolute joy.
For this week’s 1.5h of badminton, we booked the only place we got and it was horrible. Other than being a functional court, there was not much there. The changing rooms & bathrooms were bad and the infra was terrible. Definitely not going back there.
We were so taken aback by the place that in between sets, we booked our usual place for the upcoming week’s badminton 😁
The search for a reading device has ended with the purchase of the OnePlus Pad Go. Its a neat device. And for the purposes of reading, I think it will very easily suffice. My workflow for webpages that I want to read is:
Article To Read ➡️ Instapaper ➡️ Read on OnePlus ➡️ Bookmark on Raindrop (if worth remembering)
And I think it works well for both policy and tech stuff.
A lot of the policy reading however are on PDFs and I think the tablet works for that as well - thankfully a lot of this is on my Google Drive, so I don’t have to transfer anything but I’ve also kept Local Send installed in case in need to move anything around.
Sam gracing the lockscreen of my reading device
I got the hard copy certificate of completion for my GCPP course this week. Certificates haven’t meant much to me in my life. But I think a small part of that opinion has changed now - they are proof of effort. In this case, it was credible proof that when I decide to put my mind to something, I can (still) do it. And its nice to have a piece of paper that validates that :)
Prasanna has started planning out a new set of merch for her brand - Sundarakala. This is quite exciting to see and be a part of. So if you’re interested in her art, but have wanted it on different mediums - please keep your eyes peeled out - they are coming soon!
In the meanwhile, go follow her work on the page and commission work from her. She is a great artist who puts her heart into everything she does.
Spent the entire of Saturday at my parents’ place in OMR. They moved there after staying for 35 years in the heart of Chennai. I was worried that the change would be hard on them and maybe in some ways it was. I am simultaneously glad to see the community they have built - we met some of them yesterday and it was nice to see and be a part of. Now, to get them to eat more protein! 😁