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Here I am, writing this post on a train from Surabaya-Yogyakarta. I feel that a lot of things happened this year, yet when I tried to write this post down, I hardly remember anything.

Academic-wise, finally I finished all of my course requirements, including the dreaded English course. As a plus, a research project I did along with my groupmate (Ivan + Karen) got published in PRICAI 2023. I don't know whether I will continue working in this area (Fair Division) anymore, but working on the project was quite fun. Right now, I am still working on the same topic as last year (Byzantine Agreement). We have some results that hopefully can be published soon. Apart from that, for this year I was lucky to be awarded the Teaching Fellowship Scheme for my past teaching experience. However, due to some circumstances, I decided not to continue being a part of the scheme, and I will take a break from teaching for a while.

Competitive Programming wise, I guess I didn't do as much as I did last year. After several years, I finally submitted a problem to OSN (and it was accepted!). I also had fun writing problems for INC+ICPC Jakarta, albeit I still feel a bit sad that one of them is already well-known in a certain Asian country. Still, I am happy that I could go to ICPC Jakarta this year as last year I cannot come due to some reasons. It's always nice to go to an onsite event. As for now, I am still trying to motivate myself to write my ICPC Jakarta experience. However, it might be too late to start writing it now lol.

As I mentioned before, I think I will take a break from writing new problems for idk how long.
I don't think whatever I wrote for the past few years are suitable for the current state of Competitive Programming. Next, I don't think I would participate in a contest anymore. Nowadays I hardly code that implementing a solution already took a lot of time for me. I still like the thinking and proving part, but implementing the idea can be tiring. Next, I prefer to take my time in solving things. I like to think when I am commuting, showering, etc., and clearly the time I need is already longer than the standard contest duration. I might still read and solve some problems, but not in a contest.

Misc-side, I move a lot this year. By move, I mean moving to a new house. I moved to another unit in Singapore, and my family in Indonesia moved from Bontang to Yogyakarta. I guess the good thing about my family moving to Yogyakarta is that they are now easier to visit; unlike Bontang, there is a direct flight between Singapore-Yogyakarta. As for me, I have learned (in a weird way) that spending too much time in Indonesia can be detrimental for me. After spending my summer break in Indonesia, everything feels weird when I got back to Singapore.

Last year, I tried a bunch of gacha games. As for now, I am 99% sure of my criterion of what games I like. I still mainly played Arknights; Though I kinda ran out of things to do at this point. I also have played Blue Archive for a year. It is actually a pretty good game imho. I also played a few other games that I would not reveal here lol.

"Normal" games wise, I played Atelier Ryza 3 and Octopath Traveler 2. I felt sad when I finished Atelier Ryza 3, knowing that it is the final game in the Ryza series. I might have gotten a bit attached to the characters after I played all 3 games. That said, I have a mixed feeling about the game itself. The game feels huge but shallow (whatever this means). Next, Octopath Traveler 2. To be honest, I still haven't done the "true final boss" and some optional bosses of Octopath Traveler 2 but I already lost the interest to do so. However, I would still recommend to give this game a try, especially if you love turn-based RPG. Octopath Traveler 2 is a direct improvement from the first game, fixing many issues from it. As far as I remember, this is the best turn-based RPG that I have played in a while.

When I was writing this blog, I accidentally write a full game review for those two games... I would not publish it though, doesn't make sense to post it here lol.

I think that's all. I hope next year will be a good one.