# Year End Review - 2023

There are plenty of things that I am grateful for in this year. This year had a lot of firsts and I am thankful that I could experience each of these moments in my life.

So let's go with the firsts:

1. I had my first international travel this year. I was so happy to meet my team at OpenCraft in [Bogota](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17975918978181149/). The trip was a crazy experience that deserves a blog of its own.
    
2. Shabnam and I bought our [first car](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18047487586511563/), and it humbles me every time we think about it.
    
3. We did a month-long excursion and stayed in the mountains. The digital nomad feel was a high point.
    
4. We did our first [Himalayan trek. We summited Kedarkantha](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17879465849923208/) which is at 12,500 feet.
    
5. I started dancing(without rhythm) in group Dance fitness sessions.
    
6. [Did pottery and enjoyed it.](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18003995855257573/) (Thanks to Tanvi).
    
7. Got my driver's license finally.
    
8. Watched Zakir Khan perform live.
    

Some habits that I cultivated(thanks to Shabnam) that I am happy about:

1. We took up Badminton as a sport and were consistent on the court.
    
2. We started eating clean, so much so that we made some good-looking smoothie/oat bowls this year.
    
    ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1704136770394/16a2400b-c082-45a5-9f94-ceb43d0d8a92.png align="center")
    
3. We have been consistent in improving our health i.e. physical and mental.
    
4. Consistent weekend [morning walks at Cubbon Park](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18041742172501057/). This might look underrated but the peace it brings you is divine.
    

Things that I could improve this year:

1. Write more blogs, I have been lazy or caught up with some other things.
    
2. Attend more meetups.
    
3. Read and understand more about nutrition and have a meaningful relationship with food.
    
4. Cultivate the habit of reading research papers.
    
5. Avoid Doom scrolling.
    

Apart from all this on the professional front, I was able to work on a lot of [OpenEdx](https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Afarhaanbukhsh+is%3Aclosed) stuff, especially in the [front-end components](https://github.com/openedx/frontend-lib-content-components/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Afarhaanbukhsh+is%3Aclosed). There was a lot of good momentum with [Metamind](https://www.metamind.network/) as well and we would be able to gauge our direction better now.