Reviewing my 2024

It's the affirmative content season, said my algorithms. Every 2-3 scrolls I get videos online telling me how great my n+1 year will be, informing me about the piles of money that I would get and the shiny love partner that awaits me. In all seriousness though, 2024 and 2023 felt the same, but I am however ending this year with some victories, which I a gladly would like to talk about in this article. Sadly, due to personal reasons, not every detail will be included, but I will make sure to enrich this post with everything I can!

By the time 2024 began, I had 3 main things in mind: Looking for an internship to finalize my studies, working on a scientific work for the said studies and working on my website. The former was quite draining given the lack of deterministic features that would allow me to organize my next plans, the scientific work had me challenge my creativity in order to come up with something with no references or inspirations, whilst the latter was something that I could use to escape all the pain associated to the grinding. This phase took approximately a \(\frac{1}{4}\) of the year and was flavoured with some nostalgia featuring Digimon Tamers, the soundtrack of which was quite soothing while I was fighting with overleaf to compile my work. Having said that, the constant crashes and the aggressive premium plans of Overleaf motivated me to seek an offline medium, which led me to use Vim combined with VimTeX, of course I had to learn Vim but it was no challenge to my fast fingers, because VimTeX is offline and super fast, I completely ditched Overleaf and started to do everything locally. This arc had me head back to Morocco for a week after mom kept telling me to consider hunting for a plane ticket; given my finances and as I found one costing me about 60€, I had no valid excuses to refuse, I had to deal with the warmth and comfort of having a routine and having had already traveled there made it less difficult to mentally accept the trip. It was nice to see the family after not having them around for more than a year, I wish I could have spent more time but the internship search was quite annoying; I took the chance to grab myself a new fit: A pink formal shirt, crimson red pants and orange shirt, a combination which I think suits me quite well to say the least. After heading back to my room, I registered myself for a diversity networking event, something which my university psy-therapist recommended with the hopes that I can find something.

I presented the scientific work on April and was successful. It felt good to see that I could manage to pull this one off and I consider myself lucky in this area to be quite honest. To put it shortly, I simply thought of transforming a custom vehicle routing problem into a knapsack problem, it was quite fun! The difficult part of this entire thing was enduring room 32-147, which had a cooling machine that kept running until 18:00 with the purpose of allowing the servers to catch some air (or so I believe); no amount of noise-canceling can help against it and luckily for me, I obtained a laptop to be more mobile after 4 years of studying with no laptop. One week after the presentation I got sick and had my body traumatized, prompting it to cause an inflation in my foot, right where a spider bite it. Of course I learned from my mistake back in 2023 and went straight ahead to treat it, which took 6 needles and a week of rest. I sent an application to register myself for a scientific project in the field of combinatorial optimization once again, which was positively accepted, I had to ready myself for a greater challenge now. Meanwhile, as I kept it going with the networking event, they had us go through some coaching sessions, which had me get lots of takeaways, the first of which is that my resume is already good enough; it went through more than 10 iterations of changes in terms of content and design, this feedback convinced me that as long as I convey clear and structured information, then it's already good enough. The second feedback is something that I will surely use everywhere for the rest of my life, something which I knew the theory of yet never dared to apply as a result of society's pressures: Being modest with respect to my weaknesses. This latter statement is quite counter-intuitive considering the argument that I just brought up, it however felt really good to be myself. To this very day I always present myself with a disclaimer, especially in non-casual environment. I can never thank this coach enough, I recall he also wished if everyone would be themselves but it can sadly never happen given the parameters under which we live in. Going 100% authentic felt like a release, come to think of it, the more I try to mimic others, the more I end up failing to play my role, in a society that encourages masking and deception.

The finale of the event had me travel to München for 2 days. I sought assistance with the booking and solving of logistical-puzzles, and somehow heard about the booking gimmicks and some horror stories about staying in a hostel. Usually before any major trip, I try to discover some new music to download and listen to, but this time I sticked to my old files. Using the train was quite refreshing, and upon arriving, I had a cheap panic when I saw billboards promoting the football season, which was going to happen in Munich. I panicked because I didn't know that Munich is the English word for München, thinking that I might have booked the wrong train. Luckily for me that was not the case, and the event was just a couple of steps away from the train station. My mobile phone's compass was always broken and unreliable, I had to find directions by asking. I was satisfied overall with the first day of the event, the weather was quite hot back in those days and my hostel room had a couple from Australia who came to chill and have fun in the football season. During those two days I didn't consider a tour in the city due to many constraints. The best takeaway I had from the event though was when I met a representative who said: "Don't be ashamed of asking for help, and if you do, 99% of the time people would help you!". When I came to Germany, I was always put down by many for asking for help, which was quite discouraging and made me build some negative philosophies around this matter. What that person said made me reconsider my approaches and gave me lots of relief. The event allowed me to connect to 3 companies, and I am super thankful for everything they managed to organize, I am in fact still in contact with some of their members and I am super happy that I got to partake in this.

When I came back from the trip, I resumed the pause in order to tackle the project, which had a tricky combinatorial problem that I might talk about in the Sandbox section . To my very luck I had some support, which came handy in the right moments, especially when I had some moments of weakness due to a mixture of various issues coming from many corners. We both could manage to successfully jump through many hoops, something which genuinely boosted my confidence, allowing me to even use my creativity in the production. While I was working on this matter, I discovered in August 2024 a room at the university where I can connect my laptop with a monitor, allowing me to be even more productive. The room was usually empty, and had no bass boosted fans that wreck my head, now I can blend in with the mathematicians! August had me feel more nostalgic, sending me back in time to when I started watching \(\text{Ranma}^\frac{1}{2}\), so I downloaded the entire discography of the series and enjoyed the moments without even realizing that a remake was in the works and set for October 2024. Part of what caused me to undergo those weakness phases was the football season. I have no interest in football and I will always fail to comprehend how people feel these bursts of what seems to be positive when watching their teams get higher in the leader boards. My issue is that these football fans may go far to the point that it has been culturally normalized to have them scream even at Dracula's hours. Calling the police helped me not and I was given no choice but to endure the screeching. An acquaintance of mine tried to cheer me up by telling me in its last days that Germany lost this season, indicating a potential decrease in the noises. Beside it all, my birthday came in September and I received the wonderful gift of being refused for a ghost job position. In the first week of August 2024, I have had applied for a job that suits my profile, minutes later I got refused and moved on; next week I met an HR lady from the same company who showed interest in my profile, saying that they need people like me, she then showed me the job position saying it's quite fresh, my sleepless memory noticed the serial ID and job description and immediately recognized that it was the same job that I applied for, I gave notice to the HR lady, she then took me to a corner and told me to give her my phone number, promising that she'd schedule an interview with me. The interview happened without my consent for a proper time, and on my birthday, I was informed that the job position has been -due to financial concerns- eliminated, which equates to a refusal according to some people. September ended with me visiting the swimming pool for the first time since 5 years, it was on a cold day that began with my body warning me to not go; I am glad I refused to listen to it, trading the risk for some fun was totally worth it. My favourite part was learning that it costs only 3€s to enter the swimming pool, which was positioned near my place by 20 minutes; I then questioned my routine, which prevented me from discovering this nice spot.

Halloween didn't feel the same, no scares and no candies. I had 2 months left to submit the project report and results, this was back then the time where the difficulty became intense, I was given the flexibility of submitting without putting effort on developing a heuristic, but I genuinely cared in a sense that I wanted to give my best and submit something worth of my pride. One of my favourite peers kept cheering up for what I do, calling me almost everyday to ask if I "cooked", and sending me imagery containing details similar to what I do, telling me then that "these people stole my cook!", which makes me laugh and genuinely feels heart warming. So far this project thing gave me nothing but linear confidence. The only bad event that I experienced in this month was having to deal with the horrors of being kicked out of Germany due to failing to reach a monetary threshold. Every 2 years I have to renew my residency permit in Germany, and this process is subject to RNG, not only I have to request an appointment -with difficult flexibility-, but I also have to deal with potentially being treated badly, I was unlucky in a sense that I had someone who was not sympathetic enough to my case, as I had to spend the extra effort of defending my inability to generate income to sustain myself. I am glad I survived this but I won't deny that it could go wrong. I wish I could function but society keeps giving me artificial challenges and sabotage my attempts. Back then I checked my mail and noted that in the span of 2 years I have had sent 3881 job applications. Between October and November I gave my full focus to the project, as it rewarded me with escapism and happiness. In the beginning of the cold weather I had a desire to get into series and stories that have the protagonist(s) go through phases of betrayal, namely Metal Gear Solid's Phantom pain chapter, Snake eater and Sons of Liberty, both of which gave me some sense of comfort. The soundtrack is so great that I had to download it. I then discovered a new song stemming from said soundtrack, it was composed in a way that gave me more focus whenever I was writing code or reading mathematical notions, a sentiment which was told by 2 users online as well. In the last weeks of November I got into contact with a friendly face that offered me a gardening job, which surprisingly felt good due to its repetition and rewarded me with good pay on top. Sadly working there heavily relies on good weather and a healthy back poster, as the boss was quite old and required more rest than usual. I somehow magically got introduced to Hideki Naganuma's works which honestly did not match well with the nature of what I was contributing for the project, as his music took my attention instead and felt as if I should listen to it only when I have repetitive tasks.

December is here, and my hatred for A.I. tools keeps growing. Don't get me wrong, I like the science behind it and I like the mathematics behind its composer, but I dislike how humans use it and how their perception has been reshaped under this capitalistic system. Thanks to the new job, I could get some money to take care of myself and earn me a graphic tablet, kick starting a new hobby in the process. I reduced my reading time in favour of training my hands on its usage. It may also be interesting to note here that I finally learned how to iron my clothes thanks to the efforts of a lady that lives near me, which was super kind to teach me the methodology. I presented the project on the 16th of December, it felt really good to see the fruits of our efforts get us far ahead in this; despite the many mistakes I made in the writing of my report, I am genuinely happy when I realized that I do have potential for growth. I have no expectations or resolutions to work on for 2025, but it would be important to note that 5 is my favourite number and \(5^2 = 25\); I am no spiritual man by any means but I like to fantasize that 2025 will be a good year for me despite the difficult world that I live in.

This year could have been better, I had a pivot in the summer

Picture of the year 2024

My character growth made a pivot in the summer, thanks to the efforts of that coach. Although it was a bit late, I am glad that it happened. It just makes me wonder: What is else is there to improve? Sometimes I think I reached my peek, especially since I became more accepting of my limitations, this new improvement however targets the said limitations and came with new perspectives on how to deal with them on a social level. It was quite hard to accept due to me having to erase the old habit. I have nothing but good things to report as a result of starting every main discussion with a small disclaimer, as it allowed me to reduce the many evils of society that I dealt with in the last couple of years, cleaning my network from all the pesky nodes.
Most of what I wrote so far does not elaborate quite much on the topic. Allow me to explain: suppose I am disabled in a manner that disallows me to swim, I am then ordered to perform actions that demonstrate my ability to swim. Instead of committing, I would then recognize the infeasibility, that is the fact that I have 0 ways for me to conduct what I was tasked to do. I was born with a hidden disability, and I happen to live together with a society that conditions the people like me, at least on a social level, that my failures to survive are the results of actions that are within my control. My disability sadly hinders me in communication, and I always thought that with the right training I can learn to hide it and minimize the potential shame and bullying. What I learned from that man was to accept and recognize that I mechanically can't. Should I start my bonds by sharing my limitations with the other party, not only I get the privilege of being myself, but I may even push undesirable people away from my wake. I acknowledge the exact dynamic that allows me to function, and if implemented, everyone wins! All I require is honest communication with crystal clear intentions, with the small benefit of being allowed to speak without having to focus on non-verbal communication (Holding eye contact, adjusting tone...etc..). Often times I fail to form great relationships with people where my needs aren't met, simply put, if they are not met, how come I may efficiently play my role and participate in this (supposedly) 50/50? By voicing these concerns, I ensure the creation of an environment that allows me to swim despite the mechanical dysfunctions; and if the peers don't like it, then (from experience) the mutual compatibility would have little to no affinity. I feel blessed to have met that coach, this practice even evolved into the minimization of shame, I never feel bad from unveiling myself, in fact, the more I mask, the more I pressure and suffocate myself, causing me to frequently fail to communicate and survive.

Mood evolution over the course of 2024

The low start is carried from way back in 2023. Summer 2024 was great; I overall had lots of zigzags due to me being in a bad shape financially, which causes me to go for some heuristical strategies, trading my mental health for the sake of surviving in the process. I am super grateful for all the people that helped me during this year, but I can't continue further like this on my own. Living under capitalism is not healthy for me or for the rest of the world in the long run, and it sucks that some are aware of it yet can't do anything against it. Let's hope for the best in the next year.