2023 was an unforgettable year.

I remember back in May when I just landed in Cluj, Romania where even just walking aimlessly on the streets was interesting to me. I was fascinated by everything that I saw because everything was different; the trees, the animals, the sidewalks, the buildings. It was my first time going to another continent, and also my first time trying a lot of things. Romania will always have a special place in my heart.

In some ways, traveling took me back to simpler times, where the only thing that mattered was the joy of being alive. Back at home, whenever I go somewhere, there was always a purpose. I would never be walking around aimlessly, especially with Singapore's heat and humidity. Back home, routine and responsibilities just seem to swallow up time, everyday seemed the same especially when the sun rises and sets at the same time everyday. The spontaneity of my travels was a huge contrast, and I loved it.

Couchsurfing

As a university student not having a proper job yet back then, I was looking for ways to not break the bank when traveling for so long. So I did some research and found alternative ways of budget travel, and it turned out to be an incredible adventure.

Couchsurfing changed my life. To invite a stranger to your house is no easy feat and I feel extremely grateful and privileged to be hosted by so many amazing people during my trip, to share their daily lives with a random stranger they met online. So much so that I flew back to just see some of them one last time before I head back to Asia.

Through my hosts, I learned about their culture, met their friends and went to local places in their area which made for a super unique experience. I went camping, cycling, hiking, cooking, bouldering, gaming, drinking, hitchhiking, traveling and so many other things with my hosts. For me to make friends and get comfortable, feel at home in a place 10,000 kilometers away and having to leave makes it even tougher. Now that I'm back in Singapore, I've also started to host people back in Singapore to hopefully give people the same experiences I had.

Hitchhiking

I've heard about hitchhiking before, but have never given it a second thought, maybe because of the nonexistent hitchhiking culture in Singapore. But ever since my first hitchhike from Marosvásárhely to Cluj, it has become one of my favorite ways to travel. While it might seem daunting at first, with some preparation and common sense, it can be a safe and exciting way to get around. It allowed me to meet all sorts of people along the way. Being picked up by truckers, soldiers, families, farmers... the list goes on, each ride was an adventure in itself. Plus, the spontaneity of it often led me to unexpected destinations and unplanned detours.

I still remember very vividly how I was shaking with excitement at the side of the entrance to the highway near Marosvásárhely, with a thumb extended and a piece of paper from my host displaying my destination. As each car passed by, I was smiling and sometimes waving at drivers when they motioned that they were not going in my direction. I still remember the very first car that pulled over. He was a university student my age, heading back to Cluj-Napoca's university. I no longer remember his name anymore, but still remember the things that we've talked about. We shared about our university lives, how he was able to borrow the car to drive as he was from a certain club.

Ever since that day, I have hitchhiked countless times, whenever I felt adventurous and had plenty of time to spare. Some rides were brief, just enough to get me to the next town, while others turned into hour long conversations and even great friends which I meet up with regularly after. All these interactions with strangers made each journey unique and memorable, even though sometimes we could barely understand each other and had to rely on google translate. I also found that the best intercultural exchange happens when two people that can't share understanding with words can manage to vibe to music and sing together.

It's kinda weird because usually I'm the opposite in Singapore, and I've come to realize it's a product of overcrowding, where I just want zero unnecessary interactions with people in public spaces. The constant presence of people everywhere makes me crave my own personal space and I start to see the people around me as part of the environment and not so much as individuals.

Urbex

Urban exploration was also something new that I was introduced to. One of my hosts from Hungary had a guest who was passionate about urban exploration and introduced me to several fascinating locations in Hungary, where I could explore old historical buildings and trains.

After that, my curiosity was truly sparked, and I continued to do urbex as I traveled to other countries in Europe. To me, the appeal of urbex is that each location has its own history, untouched by time and often overlooked by tourists, made each exploration feel like stepping into a living history book.

While walking through these ruins and forgotten spaces, it's quite fun to imagine what life was like when they were once in use. It felt as though I was connecting with the past, uncovering history and shedding light on parts of the past that had long been forgotten.

Some of the building also looked really beautiful, with overgrown greenery reclaimed by nature.

Reflection

Just a couple of my thoughts.

• Traveling became a rebellion against the meticulously planned days I had grown accustomed to in Singapore. Life was getting too repetitive and comfortable, but on the road there are more highs and lows which made it exciting.
• Humans are social creatures and sometimes you just have to be brave and make the first step to make new friends.
• For all the different people that I've met over the past 9 months. How many truly negative experiences have I had which would make me want to stop? 0. That has to be some sort of impressive record for mankind and the awesomeness of putting your trust in strangers... and some strangers who I’m happy to say are now great friends.
• I just love the familiarity of being in the same place after coming back. To see loved ones, family or friends. The same bar. That same street.
• My favorite phrase 传到桥头自然直. Been saying this since secondary school and it's still holds true. No point blaming yourself for the decisions you made, and it's interesting to see where a random path, stranger or decision takes you.
• Sometimes I think I gave the wrong impression to people because I was seeing all the good in Europe and complaining about Singapore like a true Singaporean. Even though we might not be perfect, we are still doing many things right.
• We all live in our own bubble, even more so for people living in the countryside. We just gotta make that bubble as big as possible and expand our horizons.
• Learning about other's cultures also made me interested in my own country's culture and history, as well as my own language and roots.

There was so many thoughts going through my head during this trip and definitely some I didn't document. Out of my 3 years in university, I definitely learnt the most last year. Sometimes I wish to redo it to make it better, be it interactions with people or decisions I've made, but I guess that's just life.

The best of both worlds

Europeans mostly have differing cultures and mindset, which I honestly consider a breath of fresh air. The one that stood out the most was probably the different approaches to greeting. We usually nod or bow, but they hug or kiss. There are many great things that I wish to bring back or start doing in my life, for example the work-life balance, cooking and sustainable living. This reminded me of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions theory, something I presented during my exchange in Sweden.

When I came back all I wanted was to continue traveling but the societal pressures to get my shit together and work / buy a house / start a family were overwhelming. At this point I feel both decisions I could end up regretting…

But I found there is always a negative side to the positive. Always some price to pay for the decisions you make. That is why my new motto in life is balance, in order to create a well-rounded and fulfilling life. Striking a balance can be applied in many different areas:

• Having a general outline or goals when traveling provides direction and security, but also allowing for spontaneous detours
• Traveling brings excitement, new experiences, and personal growth, but coming home provides a sense of stability and peace
• Living a nomadic life, but also having a place to call home
• Having both high and low risk investments
• Daring to dream but also grounded in reality
• Being hippie and free-spirited, but yet also grounded in practicality and responsibility
• Nurturing relationships with family and friends while also making time to meet new people and form new connections
• Finding a job that allows flexibility for travel or setting aside time for adventures while maintaining a career
• Eating healthily and ethically, with occasional indulgences
• Balancing online privacy while harnessing the connectivity and informational benefits of technology
• Using technology for work, communication and entertainment but having periods of unplugging for face to face interaction

But, we only have so much time on this Earth, and once I'm done with university there's no longer a set path to follow. It's up to us to figure out what's our priority in life and also perhaps the reason why I find it hard to commit to things - there's too many things I want to do I'm constantly striving to find that balance. But we'll see how it goes.

At the time of writing, it's already about a month till I fly off and start my 9 month long Europe backpacking trip. How can I afford this? Well, I just live more simply than the average person is willing to live, and travel much more simply than the average can handle. And thanks to the interest-free loan from my school and my upcoming internship, I know that I'll be able to pay off any debt when I return home.

I'm honestly so excited for all the adventures that await me on this trip. From exploring the old towns of Eastern Europe, meeting new people and hiking in the mountains, I know that there will be no shortage of amazing experiences.

Again?

Even I am questioning myself on my decision to travel for so long. But YOLO. I want to experience new cultures, see breathtaking landscapes, and meet people from all over the world. Life is really too short to be wasted on waiting round on other people to do what I want. I'm already 23 and already feel so old. I feel like I'll regret it if I don't make use of my already dwindling years of youth. I'm already having back pains when studying for finals.

I know that this trip won't be easy. I'll have to adapt to new languages, navigate unfamiliar transportation systems, and live out of a backpack. But I'm ready for the challenge. I've learnt a lot from my experience in Korea which will hopefully help me in this journey.

Actually, since Korea was my first trip overseas, I felt like I had to see lots. But when I came back, I realized while the sceneries and views were amazing, it was people that I met there which made the best memories. So, striking a balance between the two is quite important imo.

Getting my visa was probably the most stressful part though. I really did not want to come back to Singapore just to collect my visa. So glad I managed to get it in time.

Inspirations

I found some of my inspirations on YouTube. I don't know if it was me or the algorithm, but I found shiey, GIFGAS and a couple more who share their backpacking journeys with others online. Their videos really have a whole different vibe compared to the rest. No 10 minute video bullshit, no ads, just pure adventure and exploration for 30 minutes. Even though they may do some illegal stuff like train-surfing, sometimes it's even centered around that, but being able to travel vicariously through them is an amazing experience. I've watched so many of their videos for the past month, recently there was one journey in Morocco that really warmed my heart. Seeing all the people they've interacted with and the hospitality that they've encountered just restores my faith in humanity. Some of the people had so little and still give so much to strangers.

Xiaoma has been a huge inspiration, I've talked about him before in my previous blog on learning languages. He has been learning some super obscure old language and then flying over to visit and interact with locals in their native tongue. It's amazing how much more you can connect with people and their culture when you can speak their language. I hope to follow in his footsteps and learn at least some basic phrases in the languages of the countries I'll be visiting. He recently also made an AI langauge teacher

Also, my man Steve Wallis. This man has stealth camped in every possible place you can think of. Inside a roundabout, U-Haul, parking lot, blanket fort. He is a true living legend and an inspiration to anyone who has ever wanted to break free from the constraints of modern society and live life on their own terms. His fearless spirit and unwavering determination have earned him a place in the hearts and minds of many, and his legacy will continue to inspire future generations of stealth campers for years to come.

The Community

While doing my research, I found many amazing communities who have been really helpful.

First off is the couchsurfing community, not sure if I should still call it that as these communities sprouted out because couchsurfing.com got greedy and started charging everyone a monthly fee and caused the community to start building their own free versions.

A couple of shoutouts:
- Couchers: an open-source platform for finding free accommodations while traveling.
- BeWelcome: the largest free hospitality community
- TrustRoots: another non-profit platform which enables sharing

Also found this gem of a channel, GearSkeptic who does reviews on stuff for backpacking. I really learnt a lot from his series on Performance Nutrition but he has videos on other stuff like water treatment as well. You could tell he put in lot of time into researching all these different food and how it affects the human body when we are physically exerting ourselves. The graph on the right shows that at walking pace, 90% of your energy comes from fats. But beyond a certain level of exertion, more and more percentage of your energy will come from carbs. Many assume we only need carbs, because the majority of advice out there for fueling workouts are focused on higher intensity activities. But since backpacking isn't that high intensity, we still need fats and protein to make good fuel for hiking. I've never really though much about food and just grabbed whatever energy bars and 김밥 i could find while I was hiking in Korea. But, if I plan on doing multi-day thruhikes this will definitely come in handy.

For gear, the Ultralight and backpacking communities on reddit have been really helpful in finding quality and light gear for the best price. But since most of the community is based in the US (I guess backpacking is not as well known in Asia), I had to find alternatives from AliExpress and the like.

I'm definitely interested in contributing back to all these communities once I return from my backpacking journey.

Preparation

All these have been in the works since I booked my flight spontaneously in the middle of the semester. Did not spend much time researching about the countries I'm going to, instead just the things I would need to live out of a backpack.

I've prepared a list of phrases in every language that I may use during my journey. Then, used GPT-4 to fill in the translations for me. The leap in the language ability really helped to generate more accurate translations.

For my equipment, I really did went on a shopping spree. I found that some things are actually cheaper in Singapore compared to Europe, because many of the cheap and ultralight equipment shipped from China. Although, many a times, you have to go looking for alternatives. The US definitely have more tried and tested options when it comes to camping equipment, but I guess also because most of the community was also based in US.

Anyways, this is my lighterpack. Or at least what I'm bringing from Singapore. It will definitely change over the months of backpacking that I'll be doing.

Other than equipment I'm bringing there, I also had equipment that I needed to setup here in Singapore. As my unlimited google drive from my JC was shutting down, it was a perfect time for me to setup my own NAS and move all my data over. This would also make it easier for me to upload the photos I took during my trip and share it with family. Only took me about 2 months of procrastination and 2 weeks of execution. Thanks to my aunt who got me an old desktop and a Synology NAS, I didn't need to think too much about the hardware and could dive straight into setting up my homeserver.

Currently it's still super simple, with just a proxmox server and NFS share running. I only have 3 containers currently. One for my tailscale instance, one to host my services and one for my dev environment.

Shout out to all the open-source developers built all these amazing pieces of software.

Some random things I've found

• Mark Rober on Bedbugs - Something I've never encountered in my life so I have never even thought about checking hostel beds for bedbugs.

Last Thoughts

Thinking back, I kind of regret booking my flight so early just because I wanted to travel for as long as possible. I felt that it definitely affected my focus this semester. But then again, if not for this I would probably be doing some other random things anyway. I was certainty even more stressed after my finals, having just a few days to move out and prepare for this long journey. Anyways, hoping that I will have a good trip, and come back to Singapore just in time for CNY next year. I will be missing chicken rice so much...

This will also probably be my last post for the year.

Adiós chao chao!

X-posted from: https://audacity.world/2023/02/28/reflections-on-young-co-innovation/

Starting university

They say that when you are young you have energy, time, but no money. When you are an adult you have energy, money, but no time. When you are a senior you have time, money, but no energy. I think this saying accurately reflects my current situation as I find myself slowly transitioning from having less money to having less time.

Recounting my past year, the first year of university for the most part was pretty easy, except for the general mods that everyone had to take. My plan was to use the extra time I had, to familiarize myself with Linux, using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). It being just a headless version of Linux was perfect for me because I wanted to focus on learning the command line and system administration without relying on a GUI (graphical user interface). The goal was gain a deeper understanding of the operating system and its capabilities, hopefully moving over to it completely in the future.

Getting into Linux

I’ve used it in virtual machines on Windows before, but I wanted to take it a step further and fully integrate it into my workflow. As Linux was originally made by developers for developers, there are more widely used open source tools and applications available. I also started learning and using Neovim more, a powerful shell based text editor that you can personalize with many commands and plugins. I slowly begun to use it even for school work and this also led me to start my own dotfiles repository to save all the configurations I’ve made.

Soon after I found tmux, a terminal multiplexer, which allowed for even more features and better workflows. At this point I was pretty much doing everything on just a WSL Linux terminal, using only windows for work that required a GUI.

At the end of the first year I started diving into Docker, after hearing many great things about it. Docker is way to containerize applications or even whole OSes. It makes things more portable and you no longer had to set-up all the dependencies for each project manually, you could just spin up a new container with everything pre-configured with a single command. I played around with many different Linux distributions there, trying to find one that I enjoyed using. I also set-up my developer environment as a Docker Image in a couple different Linux distributions.

Around this time, Heetesh also contacted me play around with the new telepresence robot which he got from OhmniLabs. It was the perfect timing because the robot also used docker to easily scale out their code to all the robots they produced. We wanted to connect the OpenAI OAK-D camera to the robot, making it speak and following us around, but realized it was quite hard to add functionality due to the limited processor and memory the robot had.

I then left on my solo trip + summer school to Korea, something that I’ve always wanted to go. Originally I had planned to do a solo trip to Thailand but a last minute successful scholarship application on the day before my final exam changed some plans. It was definitely an experience I’ll never forget.

Containers and more

When I came back, I started to develop a couple of websites with the skills that I’ve learnt over the past year. I made some alpha versions of my portfolio website, this blog, magic app and game on my DigitalOcean cloud server. But I was most proud of was how I set-up the networking with Traefik and containerized everything with Docker, which meant that I could easily move my set of web apps to another server and have everything back up in a few minutes. Around this time AI image generation also blew up, because of software like DALL-E 2, stable diffusion and midjourney. I found a new hobby dreaming up new images on the midjourney discord server, which I found was the best among all the others at that time.

Fast forward to today, I have moved to a complete Linux environment, using Fedora as my distribution of choice and I couldn't be happier with my decision. The transition wasn't easy and there were definitely some challenges along the way due to the lack of official support for Asus laptops, but overall the switch to Linux has been a positive experience and also made me understand more about the Linux system.

ChatGPT is also something that I've been using quite often now, it has definitely came a long way from GPT-2. It's amazing how good it is at solving programming related tasks, combining the GPT-3 text and codex models together. Together with github's copilot, it's indispensable in my workflow now. I use it to resolve errors and explain things that I would usually otherwise google. Although it was only trained on data up until 2021, it feels like it is all knowing and the possibilities are endless. Hoping to see even better open source models soon like stable diffusion that will beat OpenAI's.

Due to google ending unlimited storage for schools, my goal this year will be to build my own home server, storing my 2.37TB of data and allowing me to access it from anywhere. Also, hosting my own GitLab, a development environment for remote access as well as moving my webapps hosted on DigitalOcean server over eventually.

I’m really thankful to Audacity for providing me with the opportunity to explore my interests even after my internship, and for providing me with valuable experience and skills that I can use in my future career. I’ve always learnt something new when interacting with the community, and it was really nice to see familiar faces at the parties held at MicroFactory at the end of this year. Hope to see even more exciting things happening in 2023!

How many times have you struggled to remember something important, but it was just at the tip of your tongue? Whether it's a book, an important date, or a key piece of information, we've all had moments where our minds feel cluttered and overwhelmed, unable to remember what we want.

The sheer amount of information flooding our brains everyday in this digital age can be overwhelming. With the Internet at our fingertips, we get access to any information we want, but at the same time we also get bombarded with endless notifications, emails, constant stream of news and social media updates. Combined with all the physical interactions we have during the day, it can be difficult for our brain to filter through it all and retain what's truly important.

Information is a fundamental resource for any living organism, and we, humans, are undoubtedly the most complex information-processing system existing on Earth. Anything that we do from choosing what food to eat to starting a business requires us to gather, process and put the right information to use. There are techniques to retain information, however, your brain just isn't wired to remember everything. Evidence shows that our memory is just isn't as consistent as we'd like to believe.

The Human Brain

Our brain isn't built like a database from which we can easily store and retrieve data at will. We remember things as a collection of memory fragments and not the exact details. The leading theory in neuroscience is that each time we recall a memory, your brain shifts and reconstructs bits and pieces of these fragments together to recreate the memory. This is when "False Memories" are implanted, when your brain fabricates missing information to fill in the gaps in your recollection of events. The Mandela Effect is an interesting phenomenon.

This is also why shit like Alzheimer's is so scary. Neurons and their connections in you brain are destroyed, and inaccessible like they used to be. Over time you slowly forget, and lose your ability to live and function independently.

The famous Bugs Bunny experiment at Disney World shows just how easy people can be fed misinformation about an event and be convinced that it actually did occur. Another famous experiment is the red car blue car experiment.

A more permanent solution

So, I think we should all acknowledge that we can't simply use our heads to store everything we need. This is where the concept of a "second brain" comes in. To free up space in our working memory by offloading accurate information to a more permanent storage.

Calendars, Notion or simply the notes app in your phone are all examples of such permanent storage.

I've always been an avid note taker, however the problem is my notes are all over the place. Some on paper, others digitally on google drive, notion, notes, keep, txt files, md files, onenote, browser bookmarks, private chat message... the list goes on. Trying to retrieve information is sometimes akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

There is no point taking notes if you aren't able to retrieve it immediately when you need it. In order to make effective use of this information, we need to have an accessible way to allow our future self to find it.

Zettelkästen Method

Niklas Luhmann was a German sociologist and systems theorist who developed the Zettelkästen (German: slip box) method. It enabled him to become one of the most productive and innovative social theorists of the last century.

The story behind the Zettelkästen method begins with Luhmann's frustration with traditional methods of note-taking and information management. After years of writing, he found that traditional methods, such as taking notes in a notebook or on index cards, resulted in disorganized and difficult-to-use notes. Luhmann wanted a way to easily organize and access the vast amount of information he was collecting in his research.

To solve this problem, Luhmann began experimenting with different methods of note-taking. He eventually settled on one. The basic idea is that to create a large number of small, individual notes that could be easily organized and linked together. He called these notes "slips," and he stored them in a physical "slip box". Each slip would contain a single piece of information or idea, and given a unique number by using a clever numbering system. This allowed for easy expansion and revision of the notes. New slips can be added at any time, and existing slips can be edited or linked to other slips.

Luhmann's "slip box" contained approximately 90,000 notes, which he used to write ~400 publications including ~70 books on a wide variety of subjects. Even after his death, books could still be written in his name just purely based on his notes.

Collecting vs Connecting

The Zettelkästen method emphasizes the importance of connecting information rather than just collecting it. In traditional note-taking methods, information is often recorded in a linear fashion, with little consideration for how it relates to other information. With the Zettelkästen method, each slip is atomic, a standalone piece of information, but it is also connected to other relevant slips through its unique numbering system. This allows for easy navigation and exploration of the information, and helps to make connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of information.

In addition, the Zettelkästen method encourages active engagement with the information. Instead of just passively recording information, the user is actively organizing and linking it, which helps to solidify the information in their memory.

This is very similar to how wiki and wiki-links work today.

Obsidian.md

When I used Notion, I tend to be more rigid in my note taking. I set the title of the note according to the purpose, and I would stick to it even if new thoughts or ideas came up. With Zettelkästen, I find that I am more open to exploring new ideas and connections as they come to me, without worrying about fitting them into a specific structure or format. It's an organized mess, more of my style and what works for me. It really is more effort than using a typical notes app, but the end result is your own personalized web of knowledge. Also, you can create custom templates which makes it fantastic to use as a journal. I just wish I started using this earlier. I feel that I

1. Think better - Writing with your own words and actually think how this can be related to other notes. Creativity is nothing more than linking ideas together
2. Understand better - By actively thinking about how each note relate to others, you gain a deeper understanding of the information
3. Recall better - I could just search for keywords to find what I'm looking for

So how can we implement this on our own? Luckily, there's many different types of software out there that allows us to replicate this method in a digital format. One such software is Obsidian. An amazing open-source project that allows users to create, organize and connect notes on a clean and customizable interface. It uses the markdown (.md) format and contains thousands of community plugins to enhance your experience. Best part? Vim motions.

Personally, I have found that when I take notes for school or when planning for a trip, I need a more rigid style of note taking for quick reference or revision. For that, I still use Notion. But otherwise, all notes go into the "Zettelkästen" folder and are linked together using wiki-style [[links]].

Last Thoughts

Digital twins, or the concept of creating a digital replica of a physical entity, has been gaining a lot of attention in recent years. Although it has been largely focused on replicating physical assets from machinery to whole cities, the idea of creating a digital twin of the human brain is something that really fascinates me and Zettelkästen seems like the first step which lays the foundation of our thinking process. The idea of being able to store and access all our thoughts, information, and memories in a digital form opens up a whole new world of possibilities. I have used GPT-3 to train a chatbot on old chat messages, and so have others already.

Having a clone of myself can be very useful. For instance, they can be used to do things that I deem useless and an absolute waste of time, like ML0004.

Another potential use is more personalized and effective mental health treatments, or even a personal assistant - leagues better than Alexa or Siri.

I think for now there's still a lot of developments to be made in this field for it to have a profound impact on the way we live our lives. Just hope that it's isn't as dystopic as it was depicted in Black Mirror.

Check out Julia Shaw's book "The Memory Illusion", or Joseph Nguyen's book "Don't Believe Everything You Think" for more on memory, and other fascinating subjects relating to our brain and psychology. That is, if my memory serves me correctly ;)

This book has been on my to-read list for a long time now and I finally got the time to read it. It's super interesting to learn about the internal workings of the NSA, the motivations and challenges he faced as he made the decision to become a whistleblower. It was so engaging that I finished it in just a couple of days. There's quite a lot to learn and unpack from this book, especially so if you're not into tech. It's about time we all got interested in keeping our online identities private, and prevent random individuals or organizations from accessing our personal information without our consent.

Spoiler alert: If you want to read the book, you should stop reading here.

Surveillence

The first half of the book was about Edward Snowden's life which may not be interesting to some but I very much relate to it. From having a dad who brings home random gadgets and being a script kiddy that hacked games for fun.

But now onto the more serious part, the whistleblowing - why and how he did it. After 9/11, surveillance heightened. During Snowden's time as a contractor in the NSA, he came across many different tools with codenames that are used by the people there. The ways they work is surprisingly similar to what I've experienced during my time in the Army, but I will not talk about it more in case I deported. Here are a few that I've noted down:

• PRISM - Program that gives NSA direct unfettered access to data on the servers of tech companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft
• FOXACID - NSA servers that host malicious version of familiar websites
• EGOTISTICALGIRAFFE - Exploiting a vulnerability in Tor browsers
• EPICSHELTER - Snowden's de-duplication storage program to store intelligence for a long long time
• HEARTBEST - Snowden's readboard personalized for NSA operators to stay current
• XKEYSTORE - Searching and analyzing real-time Internet data

I'd like to talk about the last one a little more, as it's by far the scariest thing I've heard, almost as if out of science fiction. They have an interface for you to type in anyone's address, phone number, IP address and pretty much go through the recent history of their online activity. Read their emails, browser history, search history, social media postings and set up notifications when the person became active. In some cases you can even replay what they were seeing on their desktop or themselves through the webcam. Some of the people working there even used it to stalk their former or current lovers, calling it LOVEINT.

Metadata

Most of this intelligence is sorted using metadata. Metadata, or activity data, is usually more revealing - the unwritten, unspoken information that exposes the broader context and patterns of behavior. A photo's metadata, for example, will contain the location, date and time taken, camera maker and model etc. In short, the who what when where and how. With the huge amount of data communications happening in the world, metadata helps by providing a way to organize and understand the data. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the metadata that is being collected and shared, and to take steps to protect one's privacy if necessary, such as by turning off location services and opting out of any unnecessary data collection. But if only it was that easy.

The problem with data collection nowadays, is that there's a whole industry built on keeping it invisible and using it for various purposes without the knowledge or consent of the people whose data is being collected. All this information is then sent to analytics servers which uses AI to build detailed profiles of individuals in order to improve their engagement, or sometimes even abused. I'm sure everyone has experienced this before, where a new advertisement appeared which is coincidentally related to what you just searched on google.

The fact that we read story after story, year after year saying your data been breached, shows that companies do not take responsible steps to protect the personal information of their customers. Data privacy should be a fundamental right that should be respected and protected by all parties involved.

An issue of ignorance?

Data has almost became a commodity with the rise of Big Data in the recent years, insanely valuable to big corporations. Before we all knew what was going on they were making billions of dollars, and once money becomes power, information becomes influence. However, why do we buy window shades to cover our windows, or close the door while taking a dump, but we are perfectly fine exposing ourselves online without a second thought?

Clouds, computers and phones have becomes our homes, just as personal and intimate as our actual homes nowadays. If you don't agree, then answer me this: would you rather let your friends hang out at your home alone for an hour, or let them spend even just 10 minutes alone with your unlocked phone?

It could be difficult to conceptualize the ways in which our data is being collected and used, especially when it is done in a seemingly benign way, such as through tracking cookies or mobile app permissions. If you're interested in learning how all this works in detail, I recommend reading Dataclysm by Christian Rudder.

Second, which is something that I'm also guilty of, is that the convenience of using certain online services or apps is worth the trade-off of their personal data being collected. It can be tempting to simply accept the terms and conditions or privacy policy of a service or app without fully reading them, especially if it means getting access to something that we want or need instantly.

Lastly, many are also not aware of the tools available to help them control the information they share and to safeguard their personal data.

Companies are exploiting people ignorance, writing long T&Cs which nobody will bother to read, and when we hit accept, we are actually agreeing to handle over the ownership of the data that we have created. Best part is they don't even break the law.

Privacy Tools

Just some of the tools off the top of my head

• Linux - OS
• ProtonMail/Tutanota - email
• uBlockOrigin - adblock
• BitWarden - passwords
• Matrix/Signal - communications
• DuckDuckGo - search engine
• Aegis - 2fa
• Bouncer - Permissions manager
• Cryptee - Google Drive clone

And a cool project:

Solid - set of conventions and tools for building decentralized social applications

Last thoughts

Privacy has always been a big thing to me, come to think of it, it may have been due to the news of Snowden's whistle-blowing in 2013. Ever since I got my hands on my first smartphone, a cheap redmi 1s, I have rooted it, flashed a custom ROM (CyanogenMod), and installed all sort of privacy related apps (like xPrivacy, VPNs, duckduckgo) while deleting social accounts like Facebook to hide myself or prevent my data from being collected. I even remember installing Tails on a usb stick and using it for banking, but decided it was not worth the trouble soon after. But somewhere down the line, I started to pretty much accept all this, a combination of forced usage from institutions, convenience and dependence on many of the things that I use daily.

In Web2, few tech giants dominate the arena, holding so much power and data over everyone, forcing people to give away ownership of their data to participate in the digital social space. As the world is taking it's first steps towards Web3, it offers the possibility of decentralizing this power and giving users more control over their data and online interactions. Additionally, decentralization can also increase it's resistant to data breaches and outages.

While Web3 technologies are still in their early stages and there are challenges to overcome, I believe they hold the potential to provide greater security, privacy, and control for users. For Web3 to flourish and become widespread, it will be important for developers, users, and policymakers to work together to ensure that the security and privacy of these technologies are prioritized. Allowing people on the chain to be able to do transactions effortlessly with some level of privacy the same way we securely connect to website like https baked into the protocol. It's an interesting space, and 10 years later I would love to see how it turned out.

I really have to applaud Edward Snowden for having the courage to expose the extent of government surveillance on its citizens. His actions have sparked important debates about privacy, security, and democracy, and have led to an increased focus in cyber security.

Despite facing significant consequences, including exile and criminal charges, Snowden has remained committed to his principles and has continued to speak out about the importance of privacy. He gave an example using Arab Spring - Sometimes one person is all it takes, which is what gave him hope. It reminded me of the statue of Jeon Tae Il I saw at cheonggyecheon in Seoul, South Korea. I didn't know who or why it was there until I walked into the cheonggyecheon museum on the last few days of my trip.

No other way to end this except:

I went on my first big solo trip this year, to Korea for a grand total of 79 days. It was something that I've always wanted to do ever since Covid started and I finally saved up some money after slaving away in National Service. Even wrote about travel for one of my mods in NTU. In this blog I'll be sharing some of my tips and takeaways, a compilation of my notes and journals.

Thoughts

When I'm alone overseas, I feel like I'm a different person. Travel can almost be a crutch in that it forces you to experience new things, explore as if your time is limited, and meet new people when you'd normally not feel the urgent need to. All of that is possible in your own city, it's just not handed to you on a plate.

I feel that in our own country, we subconsciously feel compelled to fit into a role in our everyday life which we shed when we travel. When we travel with friends, we also tend to feel more secure and less likely to do anything that makes us uncomfortable. However, when we're alone and know that people will probably never see you again once you leave their country, it makes it safer to be our authentic self. It took me some time to get used to it at first, but it became so much more fun after I let lose of myself.

Shared experiences are the best part of solo travel. It does sound ironic but you get to meet so many people along the way and do things together. Those will be what you remember as the highlight of your trip. However, there will be ups and downs. Not every hostel or person you meet will be nice, so learn to enjoy your own company and deal with loneliness. Go outside and keep yourself occupied, keep your brain engaged so you don't get bored.

How has it changed me?

I wouldn't say that there was some profound change, but having more confidence is definitely one. Because you know a lot more about new places and people which can become future conversation starters. Having the confidence to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a foreign language, as well as getting around and out of sticky situations by yourself.

I'm pretty sure I was at the peak of my fitness at the end of my trip. Started my first hike at Bukhansan, Seoul and my legs were sore for the next 3 days. Fast forward one month later I finished hiking Hallasan, Jeju in less than 6 hours and could still hike up Seongsan next day. Touched so much grass and never felt more alive.

It made me curious. What I've learnt during my journey made me want to know so much more, about everything and everyone because you realize in a way we are really all connected. I saw myself relating to strangers. With the exception of the occasional psychopath you run into that puts ketchup on everything, we are all the same. We all want the same. We are all driven by the same.

Which leads me to my next point that the world is (mostly) good. Strangers have gotten a pretty bad rep, from young our parents have taught to not talk to strangers - "Stranger Danger", which persists into adulthood. People who will rob you, sell your organs for money or turn you into a slave. But my own experience with strangers have all been great, majority of people want to help rather than harm. But of course we should still take necessary precautions.

Traveling allowed me to see my life back home from a third person's perspective. Things that can be improved back home, and also things that I've taken from granted. (e.g Insect repellent in parks, street lights on the ground for pedestrians who look at their phones) It also shifts my perceptions and reevaluate how I currently live my life and gives me a new understanding of what truly matters to me.

Lastly, language is the last frontier to begin breaking down the barriers that keep us segregated. You can try to erase the lines on the map, but if you don't even understand each other, there will always be a divide. Working on that now.

Tips

• Get out of your comfort zone. Very cliche but true. I'm usually quite introverted but when you travel you can be anyone you want to be. You carry no baggage when travelling in the social sense, people you meet are all fresh and have no idea about your past.
• Get a pair of good shoes. You will be moving around a lot, so make sure your shoes are broken in and high quality. I was doing more than 20k steps a day on average. (I wore the sponsored limited edition NB565) Trail runners are probably a better idea for hiking though, they provide way more traction.
• Don't pack too much. If you're going to be there for a long time, almost everything else can be bought at your destination (clothes, toiletries etc)
• Don't plan too much. Give yourself some flexibility but still have a general plan of which cities you're going to hit. I personally just marked every single place that I have an interest in and planned my day's trip around my "must go" places. Sometimes I even just wander off into a direction until something catches my eye.
• Know your limits. Both physically and alcoholically. With hostels and solo travelling, you're going to be moving about alot and drinking alot, know how much you can take, otherwise you might end up in bad situations.
• Say yes to everything within reason. Invited to explore the city - say yes. Invited for dinner - say yes. Invited to party - say yes. I regret some things that I didn't say yes for.
• Don't be overly frugal. Honestly, this one was quite hard for me. But if you want to do something, yolo. Who knows when you will have the chance to do it again.
• Do extended stays. It's easy to just stay in one city for 2-3 days and move on to the next after checking off all the touristy signtseeing spots. Nothing wrong with doing that, but I feel that the experience is different if you just spread out your itenary and allow yourself to linger around in places for longer instead of being in a mad rush to see everything and move on. There a youtuber that's doing a series of videos on exploring different neighbourhoods (dongs) of Seoul, parts of the city that tourists don’t normally go in to but filled with history. There are many things that we as foreigners find intriguing in seemingly normal neighbourhoods for the locals.
• Have rest days. On a long trip sometimes I'm tired I just head to the library or a cafe and chill, or do a lighter activity like visiting the museum
• Meeting people. Honestly the best ones happens unplanned, but there's apps like meetup where I found language exchanges or you can go on free walking tours in touristy cities like Seoul. But if it doesn't happen, it's totally fine too.
• Document your travels. I've never taken so many pictures/videos in my life and honestly I feel like quantity > quality when you want to relive those moments.

Specific to Korea

• Stay in hostels! The hostel culture is amazing and Korea has many many guesthouses. All provided me with towels and water. Use naver maps or yanolja to find them.
• 고시원 (goshiwon) - great choice if you want to have your own private space. Though small, the room comes fully furnished with free food. Many can be found on airbnb or goshipages.com
• 찜질방 (jjimjilbang) is a great alternative. Great place to be after hiking. It has everything you need. Sikdang, gym, various baths, place to sleep etc. Stayed in one for two nights straight LOL
• Free water in pretty much every restaurant you go to. Hydrohomie approved travel location.
• 편의점 (convenience store) has pretty much everything you need, 24/7, and it's everywhere. Go to Daiso for anything else cheap.
• 따릉이 (public bikes) to get around. Korea has designated bike roads and these are literally everywhere, great for short distance travelling - 24h for 1000 won
• If you learn to read korean, almost everything is in English (or Konglish)
• You don't have to buy tickets for intercity busses in advance. Most people just buy them on the spot. I once got off a bus, got a ticket at the counter and immediately boarded another bus.
• Woori mobile for cheap unlimited data.
• 김밥 can be a snack, breakfast, lunch or dinner.
• Go hiking! Korea is so mountainous there are tons of amazing hikes everywhere. Trails are all well kept and you don't even need special tools, just bring yourself, water and some kimbap.
• Regarding solo dining. Most BBQ and army stew places require a buddy or more, but otherwise it's pretty much normal for other restaurants. I've eaten bulgogi at driver restaurant before and it's perfect serving size for one. Acutally have thought of making a KBBQ matchup app for solo travellers.
• Will add on if I remember anything else.

Solo traveling, compared to traveling with a group of friends, is way more freeing. You no longer have to compromise on food, places to visit, things to do. Especially when you have different traveling styles, some people like to plan things down to the minute. I very much prefer to travel at my own pace, blitzing past boring places at times and taking it super chill other times, sometimes doing spontaneous unplanned things. One downside would be the shared experience though, having someone to reminisce with. One thing that I find helped was sharing your experiences on social media like Instagram. You're able to stay in touch with people you've met on your travel and share your experiences with people back home. At the end of the day when I'm winding down for bed I'll look through my pictures and upload stuff that I've found interesting. (for the gram)

It has been an incredible experience. I have no regrets and in fact, I'd say it's one of the best decisions I've ever made and definitely given me the travel bug. Just do it if you're on the fence, you'll thank yourself.

Let me preface this by saying that I had to change many things to fit NTU's CC0001 requirements.

Singapore was still in a state of lockdown. The pandemic has upended air travel and made it much more difficult and costly to go overseas for vacation, but that didn’t stop me from finding a way to get out. I planned an overnight trip to the Southern Islands on a weekday, for a desert island experience. It is ironic that St. John's Island, once a quarantine station for contagious diseases, is now the perfect escape from the pandemic.

The sense of relief was palpable as we left behind the strictly enforced covid restrictions on the mainland. Soon, we arrived and started to explore the island, home to many species of wildlife. Lazarus beach is a crescent shaped lagoon, filled with soft white sand imported from Indonesia. No surprise it’s clean and relatively empty as it is well secluded. To top it off, the azure waters and the never-ending sea breeze gives it an extremely peaceful vibe.

However, the sea breeze became so cold at night that we had to light up another makeshift campfire to keep warm. As we sat around the fire and held out our hands to warm up, watching the flames and listening to the crackling of the fire, I was reminded of how therapeutic the trip has been. Maybe it’s the fresh air, maybe it is reconnecting with your wild side or being able to just unplug, disconnect from the world and enjoy the moment with those I’m with.

The Southern Islands are probably the perfect escape during the height of the pandemic. For myself, it was a much-needed wellness retreat, a change of environment that I really needed to check in with my physical, mental, and social health. I came out feeling very much refreshed, relaxed, and reinvigorated.

Undoubtedly, COVID-19 has had a profound effect on our lives. Travel restrictions, unpredictable lockdowns and social gathering measures have forced us to live a more sedentary lifestyle. It is also a source of stress and anxiety, not just the fear of facing an infectious disease, but also the uncertainty, job loss and loneliness that comes with it. We are also not able to appreciate the restorative effects of travel as we once did. As we slowly adjust to the new normal after 2 years and countries start opening up to tourists, will the way we approach travel change? The unprecedented move to work from home during COVID-19 is also set to impact travel trends with the line between business and leisure travel beginning to blur. Quarantine restrictions combined with flexible working solutions is leading to more travellers combining work with play. Humans need to rest and recharge, but sometimes it can be more stressful than restful when technology is keeping us connected to our work. How can we travel in a way that maximizes its restorative potential? Can vacations be conceptualized as a public health resource?

Lehto & Lehto are both professors at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. Their research paper explores the potential of conceptualising travel as a public health resource. They mention the benefits of travelling, promising activities and environments people cannot find in their daily lives, self-improvement and its restorative effects. This article proposes a traveler wellness–centered design framework with four board areas: people, activity, environment and product (Packer, 2020). It highlights the important role of tourism and hospitality providers in safeguarding human health and wellness. Drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives, this study revisits tourism as a personal health and wellness resource and discusses opportunities for better leveraging design factors in delivering, communicating, and sustaining health and wellness benefits of tourism.

With physical inactivity being deemed as an epidemic by the World Health Organisation in recent years, exacerbated by the increase in digitalization in all aspects of our lives, travel can potentially be an effective mechanism for human wellness given its potential for personal growth, restorative functions and innate mobility-promoting characteristics. It may not be essential the way hospitals and grocery stores are essential in which we need to survive, travel is essential in the way books and music are essential. Food for the soul. Lehto & Lehto brings up important points in their article on why and how the tourism and hospitality industry could do more to design experiences and services that support optimal health and wellness outcomes for consumers. However, should such experiences be the only ones offered by the hospitality industry? Individuals have different perspectives of wellbeing, for some it may be relaxing at the spa, but for others it may be adventurous sports. This leads me to my second source.

Dr Heather Hartwell, an associate professor in the school of tourism at Bournemouth University writes about the synergy between tourism and public health and introduces the concept of wellbeing tourism. By aligning these two areas, local councils can create a culture where the destination is seen as promoting physical and mental health for both locals and tourists. The article describes how a public health approach to wellbeing focuses on contentment and sustainable healthy lifestyles, in contrast to a hedonistic approach which only considers happiness (Hartwell, 2011). It goes on to discuss how tourism policy has become geared towards the latter, and the shift in focus may not be in line with public health goals. The article concludes by suggesting that there is potential for synergy between these two areas, and that by working together they can create better health outcomes for the community.

Hartwell brings up the eudaimonic and hedonic happiness aspect of tourism, or the meaning and purpose versus pleasure and enjoyment. While eudaimonia does have a stronger association with flourishing and having a fulfilling life than hedonia, it does not mean that there is no place for hedonia in the pursuit of happiness. Hedonic tourism may seem superficial at first, and not a need, it is still an important part of tourism. Furthermore, tourism is for individuals as well as for businesses and the economy. In fact, tourism is the fastest growing economic sector in the world. Vacations have to encompass both of them and not just focus on either one.

Both Lehto & Lehto (2019) and Hartwell (2011) approach the topic of vacations and public health. Lehto & Lehto looks at it from the perspective of the hospitality industry and Hartwell from the perspective of public health. Since the Industrial Revolution, travel has always been about businesses and the economy. Health benefits that come from tourism are not always as tangible or measureable, and often overshadowed by the economic benefits. However, because of the pandemic, we are slowly seeing a mindset shift in how we look at mental health and vacations, as people are more concerned about their health and miss travelling. Society is becoming more aware of the health and wellness benefits that travels bring, and it is seen less as a want and more as a need.

Singapore has also recently set aside half a billion dollars to support the reopening of the tourism industry, with a new focus on positioning Singapore as an urban wellness haven. With wellness tourism being projected to be a trillion dollar industry by 2025, this might very well be the 'new normal', where tourists are not just looking at places to visit, but more importantly, places to recharge. With places like Bali, Maldives and Sri Lanka being some of the most popular wellness destinations and travel continues to get cheaper, it is likely that the trend of wellbeing tourism will only continue to grow in popularity, and even possibly conceptualized as a public health resource.‌‌‌‌

‌‌‌‌References

Hartwell, H. (2011, July 28). Can we bring tourism and public health strategy together? The Guardian. Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/local-government-network/2011/jul/28/wellbeing-tourism-public-health-strategy/

Lehto, X. Y., & Lehto, M. R. (2019). Vacation as a Public Health Resource: Toward a Wellness-Centered     Tourism Design Approach. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 43(7), 935–960.         https://doi.org/10.1177/1096348019849684/

Having been stuck in Singapore/Malaysia for the past 22 years of my life, I finally had the opportunity to do a solo trip to Korea for two and a half months back in May 2022, thanks to a summer school scholarship and some extra pocket money from my internship.

Why study a new language?

After booking my plane tickets, I started to learn some simple Korean phrases, alphabets and numbers. For a native Chinese speaker like me, I had a bit of a headstart as there were many cognates that exists between the two, due to the same root word it was derived from. Korea also uses a whole lot of Konglish, which comprises of English loanwords appropriated into Korean. I also started out my trip in Seoul where most people are able to speak some English, which allowed me to immediately be able to navigate around solo.

During my time there, I started learning Korean by directly conversing with locals and whipping out Papago as and when it is needed. I feel that learning the native language in a foreign country just to speak to the locals is the biggest sign of respect as a foreigner. Even though it's obvious that it isn't perfect, the energy that I get from people changes so much when I speak their language. They seem so proud and warm up to me so much quicker.

I feel like for many people, especially countries like Korea where it the only place Korean is spoken, expect to be unable to communicate with foreigners. It's so fun to surprise people and motivating to hear the complements they give. Understanding their language also opens up a whole new world of opportunities, go on adventures, hear the stories about other people's lives, another part of humanity. You're able to make amazing connections with people and their culture in a much more interesting way.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Mandela

Traditional language learning

During my trip in Korea, I've also talked to many people about their experiences of learning English in the public education system. Although it is a mandatory subject in Korea the moment children enter into the education system up till high school, the learning structure focused on memorization and parroting that isn't conducive for fluency and listening comprehension. The same can be said for Singapore as well. I remember being in primary school and being forced to memorize phrases and even essays, just to regurgitate them during exams which increased my dislike for language subjects even until now.

The ideal language classroom is focused on real language which includes slang and street language used in the context of conversation. However, in many classrooms, focus is put on the formal and floral language which is not used in everyday conversation (imagine using 风和日丽 in a sentence). This can limit a student's ability to speak the language fluently.

In Singapore, many students from English speaking families study Chinese but their proficiency is low because they rarely use it at a conversational level. To add to the issue, we also use a lot of loan words from other languages (like tilam, kopi, sibeh, limpeh) But honestly, I still love our culture and I think it's very unique, they should be kept and not be replaced with more formal words, but that's for another discussion altogether.

When it comes to fluency, the best place to learn a language is always going to be with native speakers in an immersive environment. This is definitely tougher especially when you are in a country where that language is not spoken, but it's not impossible in the 21st century with social media apps making it easier to connect with people from all over the world.

How polyglots learn

Anyhow, this trip sparked my interest in learning new languages. I realized it's really fun to learn languages away from the classroom and to be able to communicate with people in their native tongue. I started learning Spanish after coming back home but it was just different because I wasn't able to fully immerse myself in the language. Recently, I found a youtuber by the name of xiaoma which became my new inspiration to learn new languages. He's a polyglot that goes around to different communities and communicates with people in their native tongue. He also made a video on how he is able to acquire the ability to have a basic conversation in any language in just a short amount of time.

My takeaway from this is that if your goal of learning a language is to be able to communicate with locals, there is no need to learn how to read or write, learning the tonal sounds and confusing yourself with grammar is a waste of time. There is definitely value in that, but if you just want to be understood when abroad, diving straight in to learn how to speak by just listening and practicing is the best way to go.

Learning to be able to converse in a foreign language is really similar to playing chess. You study the opening moves that are frequently used and their replies to them; common phrases like hello, how are you, thank you. Just like chess, the first few moves in the opening lays the foundation, and once you know that, you will be able to continue to build on it and keep the conversation going.

I have created one for my own use, feel free to use it too:

New Language Opening Moves

Tips

I used Duolingo to learn Spanish and broke my ~60 day streak just last week. Although it was great that it teaches you to remember stuff in the context of an entire sentence rather than just single words at a time, it forces you to translate sentences and you can't choose which words/sentences you learn. Some sentences were also very weird, stuff that you will never hear people say. It's a good way to start learning a new language but it's no substitute for creating your own sentences, learning vocabulary related to your actual interests, conversing with natives, listening to native speakers and so on. I have a very bad memory and was only able to remember certain Korean phrases because I used it regularly or I remember hearing it before in a real like situation and was able to recall it due to the memory being more "real" and "unforced".

After doing some research, I found Anki, an open-source flashcard project available on almost all platforms. Oh how much I love open source. It supports images, audio, videos and even LaTeX to help people remember things in their daily lives. Progress can also be synced across devices easily.

For learning languages, you can find many shared decks online with sentences and native audio contributed by various people. Pronunciation and speaking is very important, although this seems to be the most neglected part of language learning. Anki is great for this, and you are even able to add in sentences in the deck as you learn them, and add in supplementary learning aids like images/audio. I consume a bit of Korean comedy (shoutout to 코믹마트, Dlib Factory and 낄낄상회 for making such entertaining videos) and I add sentences from dialogues in which there is a word or two that I don't understand, and on the back of the card I put the definitions.

You should also take advantage of languages you already know to learn new languages. Some languages, due to their similarities, can be learnt more easily than others. For example, if you know Spanish, learning French, Portuguese, or Italian will be much easier as they share some common letters, pronunciation or grammar. Just beware of false friends.

Ideally you should also get a teacher/native speaker to critique your speaking. But if you can't find or afford one, apps like omegle, hilokal and Italki are great resources to immerse yourself in the language too, aside from consuming media. One of my friends also mentioned changing your phone's language, but that is probably only a good idea once you've passed the beginner stage.

Anyways, I've just started to try this out, we'll see how it goes.

Hello!

My name is Hong Zhao and this is my new blog. Officially opened on the 9th of October 2022, because I felt like I wanted a place to write about my introspections, thoughts or just anything else under the sun. Just don't expect much, because I am but a student who never liked writing essays in school, although I love reading.

For those who may not know me personally, I'm from Singapore, a small city-state located in Southeast Asia. I'm 22 this year and currently studying Computer Science at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). I pursue random hobbies. Right now it's learning languages (Korean and Spanish). Usually I'll get obsessed with one thing for a couple of months and then I switch. But good thing is that I cycle through my hobbies so I never get bored.

The name I've chosen for my blog is "Carpe Diem" because I believe that life is transient and we should make the most of it. I want to share my thoughts and experiences with others in the hopes that it will inspire them to seize the day and also live their life to the fullest.

Also just a disclaimer, my thoughts and beliefs might change over time, so what I write here is only what I currently feel at that point in time.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog, and feel free to leave me a comment if you have any thoughts of your own. Thanks for reading!