Week 32, 2025
The weekdays were good but I couldn’t make progress on any of my priority items below.
I had a ball of a time over the weekend though. Bhushan and his wife were visiting. We selectively toured NYC and NJ with them over the weekend. It was Kiran’s birthday weekend and the expectations weighed heavy on me (but just a bouqet of flowers lifted a lot of that weight - easier than I thought).
I played Cricket in New Jersey (won man of the match for the first game), ate at a really good Marathi restaurant, went to Brooklyn waterfront one evening, watched the sunset over the Brooklyn Bridge and the World Trade Center and then saw the night lights and night life come on in Manhattan, ate Falafel wrap at a food truck in Dumbo. Kiran also got a lot of good pictures which made her birthday more complete. Couldn’t complain (but you know I will down below lol).
Work ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Our team was focussed on planning this week. Planning for the third quarter. CVS reported good earnings for the first half of the year. They wish to continue this momentum going into the next half. I am expecting my workload to reduce compared to the last 2 quarters but I have been wrong in assuming that before. I worked very hard for the last 2 quarters and I hope I can maintain that momemtum. Even though the hard work comes at great cost to physical and mental health, the focus and initiative-taking agency does make me more confident and happy. It’s tough to find that balance especially when your colleagues are super competent and aggresively competitive.
Projects ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Reinforcement Learning
I just watched a youtube video of the walkthrough of chapter 1 and 2 of the Sutro RL book. No hands-on work. Disappointing. I have killed the momentum and now I need more energy and focus to build it back.
Books ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
I made decent progress with the book. I have about 80 more pages more to go. I kept a good pace until Friday. We got busy in hosting them and hence all the reading I had planned for the weekend just fell through. The book has been a 5/10 so far. Very easy to disengage. I hope the last 80 pages change that.
Fitness ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
This was a moderate week for fitness. Not because of laziness but because the knee recovery took longer than anticipated. I am now squarely focussed on rehabilitating the knee so I can play Cricket better and more often. The rehab and following recovery just takes longer these days.