Balaji's Weblog

For the first time since I started programming for fun and profit, I felt the need to have a secondary monitor. AI coding agents need a lot of attention. Alt+Tabbing constantly is never going to work. [Notifications](https://wow.pjh.is/journal/coding-agent-notifications) are a distraction if you are listening while working. A secondary monitor just to run the agents on the terminal emulator works well for me. The trick is to have a swivel chair to avoid neck pain.

Through an Alumni meet, I got the opportunity to visit the school I studied classes 11 and 12. It was a feeling of acceptance more than anything else. I felt like "Yes, I was here. I went through these incidents in my life. Now here I am." I was surprised with what I wasn't feeling - pride, joy, pain, fellowship, regret, longing. Probably because I only spent 2 years in that school and I didn't meet MY teachers.

2025 has been a blur. Personally and professionally it wasn't a good year. I am diabetic now, but not taking medication yet, it is borderline. Didn't really ship anything meaningful at work, I seem to find busy work to spend weeks on that somehow is complicated yet low impact. My exit plan didn't go well either. I got calls from dream companies but couldn't clear interviews. On the plus side, I completed one semester in OMSCS - Machine Learning for Trading, more on that in another post.

Matt Damon gave an interview about winning the Oscar award as a 27 year old. He says what a wasted life it would be if someone is chasing this well into their 80s and getting it and realising that it wasn't worth it. That he was blessed to have this realisation in his 20s because he got the award that early.

This is a profound statement with two key takeaways for one's career:
1) Chasing job titles isn't worth it
2) Job titles come to you when you work hard and show results. The results part is important.