Tanvi Bhakta - Weeknotes

Week of Months of May, June, July, August 2026

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Quarter note

it’s been three[^1] months and I haven’t figured out how to write worknotes yet. That doesn’t mean its not valuable, it means I haven’t sat down and figured out how to remove most friction from the process have unconsciously given me.
I now realise I still need some form of public storytelling because over larger periods I lose the narrative that weeknotes have unconsciously given me. I thought I would stop writing weeknotes! Considered pivoting to worknotes, and considered giving them up entirely in favor of more blog posts. I have written more blog posts in the last 4 months than I would have, but I don't think it needed to come at the cost of weeknotes. I have missed the process of writing these every. single. week.
I spent 7 days in Srinagar at the end of May (sad beautiful tragic plays in the background). It brought up a lot of shit I didn’t realise I had in me around growing up in an authoritarian state. Ate excellent food. Braved the cold. Did not die. Did not see snow. Saw many birds. Saw large lakes. Saw no nice orchards. Did not touch snow. Needed a week to recover from the experience.
Went to Akshata’s place after a long time! Didn’t play board games, but it was nice to hang out with the Achievable Goals group after forever.
Took the parents out to Burma Burma for their anniversary. They really enjoyed it. They’ve been coming home a lot more in the last few months, I’m not sure what changed. They’ve finally decided to do something about the large backlog of tasks that show up when one runs a household that I’d asked them for help with over two years ago, and I’m very grateful.
- Figured out what inverter I should buy, then bought it and got it installed
- got plug points installed in the bathrooms
- fixed my geyser
- Got me a great deal on a dyson
- my car had a rat infestation! Along with a cousin, took it to the mechanic multiple times to get rid of it.
In his old age, I’m seeing my dad’s emotions and character in a way I wasn’t able to before. He gave me the gory details of his teeth replacement surgery, and broke up a fight mum and I were having. I like having my parents in my life. I had resigned myself to a life without them knowing me, so this feels like such a gift.
Abhinav, Ankur, and I spent a lot of time and effort on putting together a day of lightning talks to celebrate a year of running IndieWebClub.
- Recordings on youtube!
I have acquired a set of nesting vessels and a small cast iron pan perfect for eggs
- the set of nesting vessels is a traditional wedding gift for konkani women. Given that the gift is primarily meant for women establishing a household, I emotionally manipulated my mum into getting me a set. She put lots of effort into it; I am very touched.
Nunchai is excellent. I developed a small dependency and then had to wean myself off when the gut wasn’t happy about it.
Work became extremely intense and in six weeks, (predictably) the body gave up. Then I set very strict limits for myself + there was a small reorg as we moved to the next prototype which significantly changed how I think about the actual work I’m doing (reminders I wrote for engineers using LLMs) - specifically, I’m able to think about the larger product + the larger architecture more now that I’m not sweating the details. I suppose I did have to spend ten months caring about bullshit before being able to identify it from smell alone.
Pranav and Sindhu got married! The venue of the wedding was beautiful, pared down and gorgeous - and most importantly, there was a big board game table. I finally played a big board game after two years! Terraforming Mars, with Roshni and Nihar. We were the last people at the venue by about an hour, but we finished it!
Roshni ran a 25k in Yercaud. Sohom ran a 35k in Pune. I am very happy for my friends and will not be tempted into the pit of despair that is long distance running training. No, I am perfectly happy up here running my 5ks.
This time, when the body gave up, it took the brain with it. I lost all my mornings for at least 6 weeks. I stopped football, I stopped running, I stopped even being able to do a stretch. Things finally got better two weeks ago. But I went from being able to play 2 football games back to back (3 hour of on-off explosive running!) to not being able to spend even half an hour on the court without my core burning. Why does the body have to undergo such a drastic reset every time there is a break? I am sad but I know I have to make my peace with it. I will spend my whole life trying to walk up this hill.
I went to this talk about pitching your voice being given by a voice therapist- specifically in the context of gender presentation. I am interested in being able to change the long term register of your voice without causing stress to your vocal cords. I had a vocal chord injury ten years ago now that robbed me of several octaves. It’s been a decade but it is still hard to acknowledge this; which means I haven’t been able to put effort into [“fixing it”|”working around it”].
Anyway, the session itself made me feel like I was back in a classroom (in the worst way) but it did open my mind to lots of options that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about.
Need to keep reminding myself that the word “harness” now has a special meaning in the LLM world. So what do I call the way I build applications now?
I accompanied a friend to a medical procedure where they were under anesthesia. It was hilarious. I enjoy listening to my friends talk about sofas that dance in front of the door that leads to unicorn land. I also like knowing that we are there for each other like this. Me and my village against the world.
Jalebi was under anesthesia for dental scaling (he is showing early signs of gingivitis). This was not as fun. This was happening in the middle of my worst flare and just as I was recovering from the burnout, so I scheduled 4-5 friends to come over and care give (with) me for the 48 hours after. Friends, when I tell you how unnecessary this was. The last time when Litchee was recovering I remember it being hell. It took over 24 hours just for the anesthetic to leave his body, and another 32 for him to be able to eat without smooshing his face against the bowl + not hide away the whole time. But Jalebi? The desire to big yell that courses through his veins burned any anesthetic up so fast he was up and ready to go before we even took him home. Whew. I…
But Jalebi and Jamun have certified Tummy Issues™, and are now on a 2 month course of probiotics + folic acid supplements. Just when I thought things were easier with Litchee’s dental woes ending.
In the process of dealing with all the cat care, I referred to this blog several times, to see if I had actually done the things I’d set up on the calendar or marked as complete on the todo list. My weeknotes are a source of truth in a way that my other surfaces are not, because they help me reconstruct the emotional state of mind I was in at a given point in time, in a way that mere facts do not. This means I now have a good reason to build a search feature into the site. It also means that these notes are independently useful outside of the reasons I listed here. I’m glad I took this break from writing it, because it illustrated very clearly why this was ill-advised.
I told my parents that I couldn’t come to a vacation that they had (failed to) schedule because I was scheduled to go to a party and get drunk. They were stressed. Dad called me several times and wanted to know who would take care of me. Sir, that time has long passed. I am now going to parties in order to take care of other people despite being drunk points to all the baby gays
I cut my hair. It is now very short. First, I cut it myself into an asymmetric bob. Then, Sahiti cut it shorter. Then, I went to a men's barber and got a katori cut!! I am entering a new age of hair experimentation. Maybe this time I will color my hair. Maybe I will get frosted tips?!
I really, really enjoy shopping with and for the people I love. Spent half a day with a friend at a fashion exhibition, spent three hours on video call with a friend in a different country thrifting, spent half a day in a mall with a third friend buying shirts for an upcoming trip. Fashion is so important to me. i want to put more of my expeirmentation out into the world, but it involves using skills I don't have that are not related; photography, lighting, videography, editing. I wish it were simpler to capture just the joy I get from cool fits and fun outfits.
Ananya, Juhi, Ankur and I drove out of town to see shooting stars! It was the first time I have been successful at seeing them. What an absolutely incredible experience. I love the night sky so much.

My quarter in data

played football x12 times
went on a run x9 times
made bad decisions x17 times. Bad decisions come in three flavors.
hung out with people x times
- at my place x19
- at their place x22
number of times the parents came home x16
dishes cooked x41

Media Consumption

Read

Lots, details on my Goodreads profile (sorry I can’t auto summarize for you here yet. POSSE soon inshallah)

Listening to

I went to the middle room music festival where I discovered there is - more than one form of electronic music - I might like those other forms
Thank you to Devanjal who called it that I liked synthwave. Current artists on the roster include Curtain Blue, The Canons, Late Night Dinner Party, Ariana Grande’s new album, Nightcall, The Daughters, Magdalene Bay.

[^1]: Three months when I started writing this, 4 months at the time of publishing

Month of April

Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Month note again

Life

What a set of weekends. By April 14th I had slept at 4am for 5 days straight - that Sunday saw me almost reach a reasonable bedtime but then a friend needed some rescuing from a place far away. I am comfortable telling friends to fuck off but there is a class of problems that I will always respond to, as part of my personal code. So I drove the car Nats very kindly lent me an hour to pick up the friend and bring them back. Then at like 6am after feeding the friend I put the friend in the bed Nats very kindly lent me and took the couch where I didn’t realise how time passed until I woke up.
I’m very fire nation in the way I can’t be asleep when the sun is up so Sunday (April 12th) was very grumpy and I may have not been as nice as I liked. But I got tipsy and looked at water and didn’t pet a horse.
Monday (April 13) I needed to go home. So I made the decision at 6pm and was in my own bed in Bangalore by midnight. I love my life. I even got a friend to come over that evening to help debug my brain. Bless.
The couch broke three times in ten days. It is currently turned over as we speak.
I discovered the joy of a Dyson V8. My cushion covers look a different colour! And maybe I understand why my allergies are so bad at home. I need to get the dust mites out of everything, and soon.
This Saturday at IWC 27 people showed up even though we only put out tickets three days before the event. Yay!
I styled a piece I have had in my closet since October 2024. I felt like a fairy. 10/10
I met finally met Sohom’s parents. This year will be ten years of knowing Sohom, and eating Kolkatta biryani his mom made was something special :)
Harshal turned 30 in my house! So we threw a party, it was lovely. I need to do another soon.
Shruti held a dissent in poetry writing workshop at underline.center that was incredibly powerful. I was having a day so I embarrassed myself by nearly crying in my introduction. Poetry can destabilise and ground in strange and scary ways.
Anik hosted a dinner at his lovely flat in [very far away] that I’m so glad I made the effort to go to. Excellent food and company - and I finally got to meet Malcolm!
I spent 3 soul-healing hours at DMart with Calra choosing boxes. Buy groceries with friends, it is always more fun to do errands together.
I did a chill Sunday morning with Matcha and Roshni.
I have acquired a Stanley cup. I am now regularly drinking 6L of water a day so this is an objectively excellent thing. (I need to drink more than the recommended amount because I take both protein shakes and creatine)

I’m realising that my identity is mostly made up of the people I surround myself with and the things I do. So in any decision I need to make, I don’t ask myself “what will I like” but instead “does this sound fun to me and the people I love?”. This means that I’m good at creating community and I’m the plan maker in the group, but if you take that away, I don’t really know who I am, and what I want. This year is the year of centering myself and finding out.

My decision making framework is “say yes if it sounds fun”. And I have large batteries so I say yes to lots of things, and I feel like I’ve lived such an excellent whole life already. Now I’m a little... bored of making decisions that way. I don’t want to do anything just because it’s fun anymore.

I have done a lot of what childhood Tanvi needed and wanted. I have excellent family and friends to surround myself with. I’m part of several communities where I give and take of myself. I have a job that is challenging and is pushing me to grow in new ways. I have a beautiful home and the skills to feed myself and my loved ones well. And I have the security that I can keep all of these things even if I fall horribly sick again. [^1]

So... what next? I’m going to be a giant nerd. I have been following my curiosities where they lead. It’s been incredibly fulfilling. I’m going to change the way I make decisions to allow for depth and precision (as opposed to the breadth of new experiences I’ve optimised for all this time). It is an incredibly exciting time for me and I’m so glad you’re along for the ride :)

Health

Started an immunotherapy course that will run for three years and involves large amounts of money to bring my dust allergies under control.
As part of starting this course I’m supposed to be on a whole host of antihistamines, steroids, and other medication. What was I actually doing? Nothing 🤡 On Day 7 I noticed that I couldn’t breathe (!) but I didn’t actually do anything about it until Day 10 - my day off - when I was like hmm I have so much energy in my brain but my head hurts and my body hurts I wonder why?? And then had too much brain fog. I had to call two friends - one to help me get the prescription from the doctor and the other to get me the meds. I don’t have an oximeter at home but I could feel that something was wrong, all the shakes that are generally under control came back. God I am such an idiot.
I am now religiously doing nasal spray steroid at 6am, rotahaler at 8am, immunotherapy at 10am, Allegra after food. But I’ll keep the clown makeup on.
good month for movement. Football every weekend. Did pickleball once. I’ve run like 4 times. I did my personal best - a 6min km - on a day I set out to run randomly and didn’t even feel like I was doing much. I don’t know what changed but I’m finally feeling that running is something to look forward to.
last two weeks have been flare. Appetite got worse but I dealt with it. Had two nights of insomnia but I dealt with it. More pain days than usual but I’m dealing with it. Not only have I got this but I’m thriving. God thought she could nerf me with this but she can only try so hard
Brain rotted harder this month than others, ngl. For one, I’m back to thinking in meme. Why. They’re not even good memes, they’re all from 2019.
My attention span is in the gutter. I blame what I’m going to call dopamine-driven programming. I need to go back to a place where I can look at a horizon on a daily basis.

Work

I am really enjoying having a weekend where I am not thinking about work. I am not even going to think about it enough to write this weeknote.

Learning

Things I couldn’t write TILs about but wanted to

how to make black sesame milk
how refresh tokens work
what the crispy layer in Gyoza is made of
the evolutionary path of purrs
The difference between the various kinds of detergent

Things I want to be able to write TILs about but probably won’t

Mafia meta
Straw length vs diameter vs mouth feel

Media Diet

Reading

Finished

All Eyes on Us
Walking Practice

Reading

The City we Became

Watching

Thanks Nats, for putting me on Heated Rivalry. You know I love fan fiction, and I enjoy good cinematography, so I am so down for high quality romance fan fiction on the screen. I have only watched two episodes so far. I am... savouring it. Talk about Yu(u)ri on Ice.

I also started Hacks! I love shows that don’t center traditional romances. Hacks follows a young idealistic frankly innappropriate for the workplace comedy writer and her employer, a 70yo proudly politically incorrect well established comedian.

I don’t think I’ve seen a single straight character on this show yet...

Listening

Did I talk about Daft Punk last time? I did. Shruti did me the honour of making me a personal disco playlist (that I can’t link to because it is private) which I have been playing non stop. But I can’t think of any other artist or sound that has captured my imagination as nicely.

[^1]: Just typing this all out and reading this makes it feel both unreal and like a precious thing that must be protected. I’ll be asking my mom to remove kann tonight. But I am not alone. I am safe, I have home, I am loved. What a gift this is.

Week of Apr 11th, 2026

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Work

Once again, something that was supposed to take two days to do took a whole week. Reasons?

It’s always the scope creep that gets you
Give people who might have opinions a chance to cut scope when on a timeline
Invest in a deploy process that takes not more than a few minutes. Ours currently takes 15 to 25; and it is a PAIN.
We are building a product that contains llms doing turn-based conversations; some (local) e2e tests[^1] therefore necessarily have to be driven by llms (or so I thought, a few months ago). This process also takes about 20 minutes to fully go through. But I’m not giving myself a hard time about this. The whole world is still figuring out best practices around building products that contain LLMS[^2]! I’m so excited to be on the cutting edge; I expect to bleed often.

Also wrote up some reminders to myself while working with LLMs.

I’m very glad we’re moving to serverless. I’m sure this will come with its own issues that I will bemoan, but for now I am excited about

Not having to manage my own worktrees
Having exactly reproducible builds
Starting local in under thirty seconds
Having deploys take not more than a minute (we will still have to contend with ci though)

Health

Good week for movement: We played pickleball sometime during the week, and I ran a 1k home after I got tipsy. I also went dancing! Not too intense and not for too long - we danced for maybe 3 hours, but my body is very happy about getting rid of the energy.

Interesting week for alcohol: I think I drank 4 nights total? Very unlike me; but I didn’t question it, I just went with the flow.

Bad week for sleep: nights of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I went to bed at about 5am and was up by 9.30am.

Also a bad week for working hours: I basically worked all my waking hours on Thursday (and I was up all night that night, soo...)

Threw up on thursday morning, which was the first night I didn't sleep enough - my body basically pushed the panic button. Can't remember the last time I threw up because headache (though maybe this blog contains details?).

I truly don't know how I am still functional. I was this close to leaving for home immediately, but: Goa has the potential to be restful in the way that Bangalore can't even begin. So I decided to have my quiet weekend and my beach days.

Life

God, I have underestimated how much I rely on the physical touch and everyday care of my loved ones on tough weeks to get me through it. After I threw up I was miserable. I would have simply flown home immediately if working with the team was not a commitment (and I didn’t have a client-facing timeline to meet).

I spoke too much Hindi because everyone around me defaults to it. New words:

Bhasad (population)
Layak (capable)
two more I am forgetting :( will note them down next time.

Been thinking a lot of the line the resourcefulness of rot[^3]. And also the line tere zubaan Urdu ki tarah[^4]. One boy over 5 years ago wrote me a poem title The Urdu of you after one very intense 3 day date, and only now am I realising the layers in the verse in it. No, I will not be publishing it for you to read. Yes, you can see if you ask nicely.

In the last two weeks, I ate

Dinner at Jamun: malai broccoli stole the show once again.
Dinner at Jardin: almond something salad? Excellent entre, excellent concept.
Brunch at Indiroom: A Brocc/water chestnut thing was very good.
Dinner at Sublime: they weren’t kidding with that name. Beef Carpaccio. Rack of Lamb.
Coffee Culture: Had the Barista pick out for me a batch of Columbian beans that he did infusion + gravity in the pourer for, to give it more body. Really enjoyed myself. On a different day, had a matcha tender coconut thing that was dumb af. But the servers are excellent and a doggo here chose me (!), so I will be going back.
Dranks at Pablo’s: The mango espresso martini stole the show (but the other specials weren’t trying very hard). A mushroom thing was also excellent.

Other places: GShot (meh), Avo’s Kitchen (decent), Vinayak (pretty good!), Melt pizza (mixed bag), Baba au rhum (never again), Cream Choc (classic), Papa Oddy’s (homely), Cafe Continga (useful).

I love the home and the life I have built for myself, but will I ever be able to escape that stifling sense of responsibility? Must I needs to travel to find it?

I may be more open to social deception games.

I discovered Daft Punk and had a small meltdown. Random Access Memories is so good? And Shruti has been saying this the whole time it seems, but I haven’t paid attention? Azan made me a whole ass playlist and I didn’t listen to it until now? Serves me right. Also, I might be an elektronika girlie??

Scared a colleague into hydrating when they were drunk. Oh noooo my Indiewebclub personality is leaking into work whatever shall I doooo

Media Diet

lol, as if.

[^1]: These e2e tests are different from evals.

[^2]: This is a completely separate discussion from building products with the help of LLMs for code generation.

[^3]: Thanks, Sohom, for the gift that is Becky Chambers

[^4]: Thanks, Ankur and Calra, for painstakingly translating all the verse in Chaiyya Chaiyya for me!

Week of 5th April, 2026

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

7 weeks since a weeknote. Life updates will come at the end. First, this week:

Work

The whole team is (finally!) focusing on the product K and I have been building for the last two months and we’re planning to do a launch. We’re moving to a new codebase and a new paradigm of defining these LLM-first workflows - DAGs, and not state machines, will be a first class citizen here.

We’re doing a two week offsite in Goa (one week down!), and all of us are cooped up in a single villa. We’re getting to know each other really well. Since the move to defining this new product has coincided nicely with our time here, we’ve been doing more conversations than ever.

Engineering teams have always dealt with problems of knowledge silos. When LLMs are doing the work and code reviews are a historic relic, this is even more pressing. The larger problem here is not one of knowledge dispersal, but rather that different folks learn differently (and this *is* fundamentally a learning strategy problem). Some people might prefer to learn by doing a synchronous Friday afternoon call where we all present what we’ve been doing all week, but if I have to attend a call like that I will probably scream. I would prefer if people dropped notes about interesting things from the week, but other people might view it as an unnecessary chore and just produce slop, and still others might simply not read such a document. This feels like it is not a solved problem, but I would appreciate pointers on what people have seen as successes work in their organisations.

Health/Life

Last weekend was the healthiest I’ve been in a while. Goa always does that to me, I thought...until I arrived at the Airbnb on Monday, which was so chock-full of dust mites (not dust, remember) that I had such a horrible stuffed nose and bad throat and headache and the whole works. That’s when I discovered that it’s actually Nats’ home, and not Goa, that had been the antidote I needed all along. Well, now that I have made this discovery, let’s just say that spare bed will be getting a lot more use :)

I have written about perfect Goa days before; last weekend was another such. How do I know when I’m home? When there is a kitchen that is mine. Nats’ condiment drawer puts mine to shame, her fridge gives me life, and I made - casually - about 6 different lovely things over the span of two days.

Goa is also good for movement - I ran 1.5k on Sat, did pickleball for 1ish hour on Tue and Fri, ran a 3k on Wed in no small part thanks to Devanjal, did a bunch of laps in the pool yesterday...

What’s been bad: I feel like I’m not getting enough veggies, I’m *definitely* not eating enough seafood, my ankle isn’t recovering the greatest, the allergies are still very much present, just not as flagrant, and I may be catching a viral.

I sang last night after forever. Of course I did Zombie (The Cranberries), for a crowd. What a magical feeling. But now it’s the next morning and my throat feels worse and more hoarse. One day, when I have more money and time than I do now, I am going to go to a vocal coach and discover that its true! there really is no way to undo the damage I did to my voice all those years ago. But maybe there will be a way to sing with what I have now and have it not hurt as much?

I love fresh Urrak.

I have gotten better at riding the two wheeler. Maybe I’ll give it another go in Bangalore.

I have been missing my car more than I’ve been missing my room. I’ve shared rooms often. My car is mine.

Media Consumption

Reading

I am currently reading

[a] Atmosphere - taylor jenkins ried [a] All eyes on us - a cheating murder mystery that becomes queer somehow I think? [a, k] Come as you are [k] If on a winter's night a traveller [m] A life in trans activism - A Revathi's latest memoir [m] Expansive love - a book on relationahip anarchy [m] SICP [b] A Dalit Kitchen of Marathwada [b] Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh

This list is sorted by platform - [a]udiobook, [m]oon+ reader, [k]indle and physical [b]ook. I'm also reading one physical book on loneliness that's on my coffee table but it's on my coffee table so I almost never have time for it (and also I have forgotten what it's called). Thanks Nats, for foisting the last two physical books on me, with permission to annotate in the margins and the nice pen to do it with!

Listening

The boys at work listen to entirely too much Hindi hip hop. I’m not complaining very loudly, though.

Enjoyed Arima Ederra’s A Rush to Nowhere, Paris Paloma’s Miyazaki (that woman can do no wrong), Arlo Park’s Get Go.

Spent a solid two weeks OBSESSED with Hillary Duff’s luck... or something.

Harry Style’s Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally was alright. It could have been More. It felt like he held back, with the production.

I have not yet made time for the new RAYE album and this fact makes me very sad. The single (and its video) was perfection.

Other life updates you probably care about if you are my friend (or: the back issues)

Recovery from the wisdom tooth recovery was HELL. It’s now been over a month and finally, finally the pain has mostly subsided but I’m still dealing with the issues. I wish I’d known about this better, sooner.
I watched Project Hail Mary and I have Thoughts. You will read them soon.
I really enjoyed meeting my parents for Ugadi, even if I left home early.
I have been playing football at least once a week in Bangalore. It has been great. If you want to play football, TELL ME PLS OMG
The bill passed. My trans siblings can no longer call themselves trans. And I could go to jail for housing them. I moved to this country fifteen odd years ago, thinking that if I could make a difference anywhere, it would be here. At least this place is mine. Now I am not so sure. And what’s the point, anyway? Everyone who I love, if they have the means, will have to move - for their own safety. *I* might have to move, for my own safety. I hate that this is happening.
IndieWebClub is growing so much, I’m so proud. We’ve had two sessions in a row where 30+ people have shown up. I would love to see more Indie Web Clubs happen in other cities. The people want to write independently!
I ate some absolutely fantastic Kashmiri food. That cuisine is one I have no intuition for (yet!). Where should I start reading to understand it?
One Eid Iftar thing was done. Too many haleem was tasted. Tipsy was happened. nice.
Okay, I understand why people like Mitsky now. I will give her body of work another shot. I would like more friends to do listening parties please.
I continue to be attached to home and not very social after work. I don’t feel like it’s strange any more, I *need* this. That’s okay. I love y’all. More next week.

Week of Feb 14th, 2026

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Health

My voice felt better, but my body was clearly still fighting something off. I felt lethargic and annoyed. I spent three separate days rotting, which is a lot, and goes way beyond my once-a-month quota. Something wasn’t right in my brain, but I’ve since figured it out and am taking care of it.

I did start being more physically active.

1.5km run on Wednesday
Twenty minutes of stretching on Thursday
1hour of football on Friday evening

Life

Saturday was Valentine’s day, which I spent by having an extremely mediocre breakfast at Backer&Charlie, working with some friends in the afternoon, watching Wuthering Heights in the evening, and making/having dinner with more friends at night.

I was unexpectedly sad for most of the day. Historically I haven’t cared about the day too much but my last primary partner cared a lot, and it felt so strange not letting myself get caught up in the capitalist frenzy that this “holiday” becomes. There is something to be said about the comfort and ease of following a LifeScript as a stand-in for romance. But this year, instead of spending the day with a primary partner, I met six - SIX! - different friends and had such a good time. Not a party, but six different people who embody some version of home is a good day.

Media Diet

Reading

I was going to read WhatMurdah’s Bloody, Slutty and Pathetic for the THIRD time before I decided it was enough, and asked on groups for similar fic that has excellent character development and political manoeuvring. I was given a few but none seemed appealing until Sahiti proposed a fix trade - they would read BSP if I read a fic of their choosing. Since I mostly wanted to spread the good gospel and to squeal about the fic myself, I agreed. Now I am reading a rewrite of the series and am wondering what I have gotten myself into.

Watching

I watched Wuthering Heights in the theatre and wrote about my thoughts.

Listening

Mad at everyone that a random running music playlist creator has given me more rock made by women than any person or algorithm has in the last 5 years. Listened to and really enjoyed

We are the Fallen
Sharon van Etten
Epica

Week of Feb 8th, 2026

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 17:30:00 GMT

Work

The three days I did spend this week on work were very interesting, because at some point I gave up on feature/product work and focused on RICEing my setup. This felt good, and like selfcare, and will also compound into efficiency improvements. Primarily, I moved to Ghostty and Zed. I’ve been using Claude to help me set up Ghostty settings (because there doesn’t seem to be a way to discover them outside of the docs?) and it’s been much more satisfying (and faster) than standard RICEing.

I also finally moved beyond the the web app for the prescreen product we built - I looked into Garak, and working with letta memories some more, and post-merge testing.

Life

Aah, the coast. Being away from Bangalore home is excellent when it works, but I haven’t yet figured out my schedules and forcing functions for when it doesn’t work. Ways it doesn’t work:

low excitement about some work thing that means I don’t get it done (as opposed to in Bangalore I would go to a friend’s or something to do it)
no clear routines on sleeping/waking so I spend much longer in the transition period for both But I’m excited about this! It means I rely on myself more.

Goa makes it much easier to exercise. Since it’s hot, it feels better on my joints and I wake up feeling more refreshed. And since there’s always a beach nearby, I can run without causing my knee undue pain.

I took the train to Udupi which picked me up two hours late. Why is even the Rajdhani delayed? I am so mad that this government of the last ten years has somehow managed to make the system worse than it was in 2015 (when I was regularly taking trains).

So Wednesday and Thursday I was in Udupi for a friend’s wedding. I was tired for most of it because I was battling a sore throat, but I still danced, socialised, and even gave a toast to the home my friend had provided for me when I was 17 and desperately in need of one. I discovered that one of her (new) husband’s childhood friends lives 350m from my house (!) so on Friday morning when the sore throat had devolved into full blown laryngitis, we immediately booked flight tickets and flew straight home. I would like to run on Kaup beach and visit the lighthouse another day.

Then I was sick and on voice rest for three days. In 2024 I had acute laryngitis 4 times, and was on voice rest for a cumulative total of 6 weeks. Six weeks without talking! During that time I learnt some ISL, but the person I was living with made no effort to learn it so it was useless (and disheartening). Now I’ve lost most of the signs, but I taught a few to some people, and that was fun.

The weekend ended with a session of IndieWebClub, which was super fun. I felt like almost everyone contributed to the discussion, which is rare.

The last three days I’ve been back in Bangalore I’ve been sick yes but also feeling pretty antisocial. I love my friends and I feel an obligation to them (which is fine) but right now I feel like being selfish. I want to indulge only myself, and the idea of being beholden to anyone or anything else is simply too much.

Big win for the week was that I cut what clothes I want to pack for my travel in half and I actually ended up wearing an even smaller subset of it, so I have more data on packing light (especially if I have access to a washing machine and a warm climate).

Health

I did two runs and a stretch this week! I didn’t track anything about my first run. My second run was 2.2km at a 6.9 pace - I could possibly have gone longer but a rando on the beach challenged me to a sprint at the end and I couldn’t say no! I’ve been putting off figuring out what my ideal bpm is, because I didn’t want to deal with the headache, but at the 6.9 pace which seems natural to me, turns out I’m at a 160bpm which also translates to 160 steps a minute (which means that my stride length is 90cm haha). Experimenting with some rock-heavy playlists, let’s see how that goes now that I’m back in Bangalore.

The Laryngitis was painful. I’ve added a section for it in my care document.

Learning

How can I record/share vocabulary lists? Are they even useful for language learning? I’m guessing no, except as a memory aid for repetition.

Media Diet

Reading

Started The Spear Cuts Through Water. There are two parts of the book and they're both set in a war zone. We live in horrible times and there is strife and injustice everywhere that I work very hard to keep out of my life so I can actually live in it. Reading about it does the opposite, it tugs at my heartstrings too much. For me, reading is for pleasure so I need to be able to stop at any point and not feel a pit in my stomach. Essentially, the book brought up the same feelings I had around The Traitor Baru Cormorant, so I’ve DNFed this one too. That being said, the audiobook version of this is truly excellent.

Also started A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Calm and interesting premise perfect for goa, so when I go back I’ll probably stick to that.

I did restart, and finish Bloody, Slutty, and Pathetic (AO3). Man, I am so done with romances where things are easy, and the MCs get together just because. I want the MCs to fight! I want them to hate each other!! I need to see character growth in fiction to remind myself that it is possible to expect it from real people. A good enemies-to-lovers does that so well. Some choice quotes from the book:

Draco favored Higgs with his smuggest expression. “I’m not the kind of man who feels the need to order his witch around like a house elf,” he drawled. “Tell me, Higgs, is it want of resources or lack of stamina that has you begging off from satisfying your women’s whims? My mother wants me to wear green to her Yule ball, I wear green. My wife wants underprivileged workers to have rights—” He waved his hand dismissively. “I indulge her. It’s no effort for me to do these little things to make her happy.” A derisive chuckle. “After all, I’m merely talking to you.”

The context here is that Draco is continuing to pretend like he has pureblood (ie, bigoted) sympathies so that he can infiltrate (and eventually, betray) their circles; but in the process he checks this one’s misogyny so thoroughly. The charecter equivalent of “why don’t people please their wives? Like it’s hard?”

And another:

He made his selection and kicked his shoes off onto the rug, putting his feet on the coffee table as he sat back. “Malfoy,” she said, “that’s a muggle romance novel.” He looked over at her, an eyebrow raised. “And you think I am sufficiently romantic? I require no further instruction?” Hermione opened and closed her mouth. “Have at it,” she said finally.

I think a big green flag if you’re looking to date is reading romance novels. Just like engineers need to read speculative fiction to hone and develop their imagination, people who plan to love need to read romance literature to understand what it means to grow with another person.

Watching

Staying with Dee and Saket means that we have to watch something together. Alas, high school musical could not happen so we watched two episodes of Derry Girls instead.

I started watching Pose! I’ve watched half the pilot so far, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe this is the show I’ll watch over the course of this year, in ten-minute increments.

Listening

Listening to lots of Lolla favs primarily- yungblud, kehlani, Linkin park.

Week of Feb 1st, 2026

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:40:03 GMT

Life

I spent last weekend at Lollapalooza, and I wrote about the experience.

I spent Monday in Bombay doing some much needed shopping, and then took the train overnight to Goa, where I’ve spent the last few days imposing on Deepti’s lovely home and hospitality, and overcoming my fear of dogs via proximity to Ira, the ~~puppy Dee has just adopted~~ smartest bestest puppy in the world!

Goa has changed so much. Most shocking to me has been the outsider sentiment. As early as 5 years ago, when I lived here, I was unable to speak Konkani to anyone because I speak only one of the eight possible Konkanis - and the one I speak is wrong for the region. This time, people were so glad to hear some konkani - any konkani! - that they actively engaged with me, responded with a smile, and made an effort to understand me. Many words have been written about who is allowed to call themselves Goan. I don’t call myself Goan because I’m not, but I am coastal. I so rarely get to speak my language, so I will take the crumbs I am offered.

I have changed so much in the years I have been coming to Goa. Here, in the past I have been

A penitent
A run away
A shut in
A party girl
Adopted by community that is not mine
Gay as hell

Today, I am tired. I was tired before Lolla, I have been tired since September, and I knew I would want to go home immediately after. So here I am, home in weather/clothes/eyes/food/loves. Today, I am tired but I am resting. I still spend ten hours a day working, but when I am done the empty trails and chirping birds greet me. I walked a dog and made small talk with the neighbours, and with the strangers at the tiny places I took myself to. I woke up with a headache for two days straight, and then Dee gave me a massage, I did my stretches, I basked in the sun, and I healed.

I ~~published~~wrote four posts in three days! I am finishing what I started. After work, when I’m tired, I can actually pause and breathe instead of thinking about the next thing I need to do. I miss my friends when I’m eating a thali by myself, but not enough to go back. I can hear myself think after 5 months of just trudging forward. I think I’m going to spend the rest of this month here - accommodation, transportation, and cat care willing.

I have eaten strawberries and dipped myself in clean salt water. I ran into an old friend of an old friend and we were surprisingly vulnerable with each other. I have taken myself out to write these notes, and to work. I am so content.

Health

This week, I had TWO bad headache days. They’ve become regular again :( But when it was happening, Dee was able to suggest helpful things because I told her to open my care page. That page is WIP, but did the job when it was needed!

Media Diet

No media. I’m just doing my crosswords, reading my rss feeds, and old fanfiction.

Work

So much has changed about how I work in the last six months.

I’m a full time employee instead of an independent contractor.
I’m working closely with a team instead of building things by myself.
I’m doing everything engineering instead of building design systems.
I’m exclusively using LLMs to write code instead of writing any by hand myself.

The consequences:

I’m tired.
I’m having so much fun - I’m learning something massively new (to me) every week. I don’t even have the time to write about it all.
I’m growing as an engineer - and not just technically. How I hold and handle context, how I prioritise product, how I work with people has all changed (for the better).
The minutia of work has taken over all my spare thoughts.

The last one is a problem because in a world where the efficiency of my workflow dictates how much work I produce, any changes I make to my processes will give me an outsized return in the work I do in the next week! The bottlenecks of traditional work are ten times more likely to hurt me because I’m ten times more likely to encounter them. But I haven’t had the chance to sit down and evaluate what I need to do at a meta level to improve those processes because I haven’t felt like I have the time. My hope is that I can use this break in Goa to better my internal workflows - for computer and brain both.

With Claude, it’s easy to just build features, but do that enough and the codebase starts feeling like a heap of barnacles all piled on top of each other, with no thought to design. That is okay to get to production, but is a maintenance nightmare. Can Claude help me tease apart everything that’s going on and re-architect this better?

I’m afraid of doing any kind of rewrite or major feature upgrades because I’m not actually confident in the integrity of the codebase. Yes we have e2e tests but are they good? Are they enough? I am afraid of making changes to this codebase. What do I need to feel better about it?

Claude has been great for me because I have realised that I operate with most things tech from a place of fear. Claude helps get over the starting problem, but it also helps me absolve responsibility (to myself) - I didn’t break it, Claude did! But because I know what’s broken, I can now fix it. Working in a codebase with Claude feels like using a large clawstick to understand the codebase. It’s just too far removed to give me any meaningful texture that I can hook my understanding upon. How can I then build in exploration of the codebase as it is into my reflective process?

Week of Jan 23rd, 2026

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Woah! I knew I’d skipped two weeknotes but I didn’t realise my last one was from last year. Yes, I was dying and it was a cause for alarm, but the chaos was planned for (as much as one is able to, really) and I... well, I survived.

Work

The big thing at work is that we released prescreen.alt.inc! It’s an interactive, hard screener for people applying to full stack roles with us - hyper specific, but the experiment was primarily around figuring out how we can get an LLM to be stern, bossy, and sound like a real person. For the launch, apart from writing front end code stitching our agents on letta and our agent service together, I

learnt about working with pixel art, and prompted various robots of various kinds to create it for me (a surprisingly involved process! Blog post coming soon.)
visually designed the interface - colors, fonts, spacing, placement.

The process of getting here was stressful. For a month leading up to launch date we prepared for a showcase demo, and then on the Wednesday before the launch date (when I’d already been working ten to twelve hour days for a week) the decision was made to do a private beta kind of launch instead... which meant we had to think about a mobile interface and a freeform agent experience post-screening - both large features in their own rights. To say that weekend was hard would be understating it. Jan 2nd to 12th was crunch, but instead of crashing after launch day (like I had expected to) the momentum carried me through that whole week... and then I crashed this week instead.

Health

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I worked myself into a flare, rather than the flare showing up and then affecting how I work. Somehow I made it through the flare? But now it’s the week after launch, and my body is taking revenge. I am so sleepy and tired all the time, and the knots are BAD, friends. There is only so much a tennis ball can do.

I have

Gone to the immunologist, because my reactions to the cats have only gotten worse. Blessed to have Dr Meghna, who is willing to work with me and my inability to stick to any kind of twice-a-day routine instead of giving up on me. But that did mean 3ish hours of driving in the sun, which rewarded me with a headache for the rest of the day.
Napped because cramps were bad.
Ate so poorly during crunch because I NEEDED SOME JOY OKAY. And now my body feels bloated and ick. I am actually looking forward to starting GF/DF again. Who am I? I am a tired girl with an unhappy body, willing to throw things at the wall to see what sticks.
Been seeing my therapist much more regularly. The last eight months involved lots of change and upheaval in my life but I did great! And I got an A in therapy! So now I’ve been moved to the advanced track where we’re talking about my childhood, my core values, and why I am the way I am. It’s hard work!!! So good but it takes a lot out of me. I’ve been having to schedule recovery time after sessions again.

Life

In this period of intense strife, what’s been keeping me sane? Other people, and having things to look forward to.

Azan emotionally blackmailed me into doing a social thing for new year’s eve. It was a long drive, so obviously I kidnapped Ankur, but I got a brilliant black sesame chicken out of it.

The girlypops did a fantastic drunk dinner at Dolphins, and I discovered that I might like having a neighbourhood bar I go to, and that I enjoy ginger in my cocktails.

I did one (1) session of football which was too little! I need to get running again, bad knee be damned. Desperately looking for groups in central Bangalore who will take a bad but enthusiastic player into their regular rotation.

Makar Sankranti was excellent. The carrom board I gifted dad earlier has become a regular fixture at any events happening at home.

Shruti has been working from my office - and more importantly, she’s been driving me to and from work, and keeping me hydrated and focused in the space. Offices are nice, but if you can? Work in physical spaces with the people you love.

The parents have been staying at mine the last few days. It’s meant that I have had to do a little more caregiving than I usually would, but I think it’s paid of. The goal was to show mum that I’m not alone, and that I won’t ever be alone in my everyday life (she would know that if she read this blog but it’s probably a good thing that she doesn’t haha). I gave friends a heads up that mom would be here, but otherwise didn’t change plans in any way - people came over and coworked, we had meals and gossiped and made impromptu plans, I went out for the things I was scheduled for and came back late, I did all my phone calls to catch up... I think mum finally understands what I mean when I say I have community. She says she trusts that I can take care of myself, but I hope she can now trust that I can find peace and joy in the doing.

All of my community in the last few years has hedged on physical presence. The few friends I have that I /don’t/ hang out with at least once a month I have because they put in the effort to text me or engage with me online. I’m not going to blame this on no social media any more - yes, it helps, but a lot of the friends I want to talk to more aren’t on social media (or aren’t on it in a vulnerable way) anyway. I want to believe that time out of touch doesn’t nullify the depth of a friendship, it doesn’t mean we’ve grown apart... but as people change, the growth apart is only natural. I’ve tried putting recurring tasks on my todo list to call X, Y, and Z, but that makes the relationship feel like a chore! How can I build lasting relationships with people I don’t see (and therefore don’t think about because my brain works this way)?

Media Diet

Reading

I thought I’d read a lot in the last three weeks but turns out it was only one whole book?? I am very confused.

Read The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - started with the audiobook, and finished with the text. I honestly enjoyed the audiobook a lot more, but I needed to tear through it somewhere around the 50% mark. This felt like a book written for Very Mature twelve year olds. I initially disliked it but as the pacing picked up, so did my interest in the shenanigans. I will be reading the next instalment. This book has also made me want to rewatch Life of Pi.

Listening

I’ve been mostly listening to albums, and then listening to autogenerated playlists containing various tracks from those albums.

Nessa Barrett’s AFTERCARE: sad dance pop and excellent for the evenings. Fuji Kaze’s HELP EVER HURT NEVER: jpop that feels like pop. A clean sound that reminds me of 2007. The Kid LAROI’s Before I forget

A friend introduced me to The Favors, and I’ll probably add them to the rotational playlist but not care about the album too much.

I continue to listen to a LOT of all the pop and alt girlies - Lola young, Aubrey Hobert, Olivia Dean, RAYE, etc

Week of Dec 27th, 2025

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I am in the enviable position where I’m building a game for work! The goal is to make the conversational experience we’re creating feel more engaging, so the idea was to build a memory palace of the character the user is talking to, that the user accompanies the character around. This character is controlled by an llm, and the experience is supposed to be a reflection of the conversation and not the other way around... so I built a system where the location of the character and its movement is controlled entirely by the LLM. It was so much fun, and the first time that a demo I did for work elicited joy :) We have to abandon it because we got rid of locations entirely to cut scope (product iterations amirite) but I am really proud of what we came up with in the first place. Maybe I can use this elsewhere.

Since my last weeknote (two weeks ago) where I was stressing about interviewing people, I have interviewed exactly zero people. I will do more this week, I promise!

Life

The BIG thing that happened this week is that I finally threw a Christmas party. Lots of new friends showed up, and I did feel a little overwhelmed, but more people than I expected came early and really made themselves at home. I loved having people in my house, and I loved that my house could hold so many people. I think this is going to be a biannual event - the next one will possibly be in May :)

Some data
4: days to plan party
9: instamart orders made during the course of the party
16: bottles of wine mulled
29: Number of people who showed up (including me!)

Parties need

A theme
People with clear responsibilities
A quiet room
Someone to run a group activity
Some kind of make your own food station and everything else will get figured out eventually.

Dec 13th to 14th was the Echoes of Earth festival. I’ve always thought I won’t enjoy it because it felt like a combination of woo and electronic music, both of which are not my thing... but I decided to check it out anyway to accompany a friend who was doing festivals after 7 years and wanted the company.

Highlights

The festival as a whole was well managed. This is absolutely something I will go to again, especially with a group, and go early to check out the exhibits.
I really enjoyed Graysokker’s set - a one man band with like 12 foot pedals, and an electric accordion/synth. He was having so much fun! And the sound was experimental enough that we couldn’t help but have fun too. His set on both days was the highlight for me.
Other artists I enjoyed: Manu Delago Trio, Jatayu, Vilnius Jazz Ensemble, Earth Jam, Bedouin’s more experimental stuff.

Lowlights

Stage management was a problem at multiple places. On day 1, the smoke being let out on graysokker smelt like piss! And on Day 2, the sound for the f16s was unfortunately very very bad.
The festival takes place in a eucalyptus forest... lots of people are very allergic to eucalyptus, and the first aid tent didn’t have an antihistamine on hand. Thankfully we went there early enough and they were able to source it for us from someone coming in later. The underbrush is also very prickly!

I’ve gone to a few concerts alone now, and it’s a very different experience from going with people, or even a group, so I was pretty nervous about going with a friend. I had fun, but I do think that if I had stronger opinions about what artists I wanted to see or experiences I wanted to have, I would have been frustrated. I am the most extroverted/group hang person I know, so this is a surprising development. There are eight of us going to lollapalooza next month and eleven of us going to bandland, so how this plays out remains to be seen.

The week after echoes was packed. I had a social obligation every single evening (and I went to the office a few times). At some point my brain said “no more!” and stole alone time from sleep time. It was holiday season the week after so that week was mostly about catching up with everyone who was leaving town. And thankfully this week has been much better with the lack of social obligations. I only have the hangs I’m making happen myself.

In the last 14 days, I’ve slept over at other people’s houses for three nights! This was overall a good thing because these people live halfway to the office. But it did illustrate that I need to leave more clothes in my car.

I’ve been trialling fractional EAs since that’s a service that seems to be popular and available. The problem with both Crew and faff is that they take too long to do the tasks you want them to, and it’s truly another task to manage them. With faff in particular, there’s too much noise, not enough synchronosity and urgency when necessary, and simply not enough things get done the way I expect them to. I expect an EA to add to processes in my life, not replace them. So far, this is not happening.

Last Saturday at indie web club, we had nineteen (19!) people show up, even though it was a technical session! I’m so proud of everyone who shows up and makes an effort to be a part of this.

Last Wednesday, all of the Obvious alumni in Bangalore met up! It was so cool seeing people I haven’t spoken to since the pandemic. In a way, we’ve all done very different things after moving on - but in other ways, we’re doing very similar things. Lots of people discovered they live in the same 800m radius around Indiranagar. I want to be friends with some of these folks again.

Health

No major updates to report, except that after the party I remembered what a hangover feels like :)

Week of Dec 13th, 2025

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

Video generation is expensive! What is the stack people typically work with, how do they prompt their models, how do they store and access memories for those models, and how do they not burn hundreds of dollars a day in the process?

We’re also actively hiring for a few engineering roles, and this means I’m interviewing people for the first time. How does one develop taste and judgement while interviewing? Apart from all the stuff I have to do for my software engineering job this week, I will

read up on the ask a manager tips for interviewers
figure out how to codify “taste” in people at the org by talking to the founders
create a “bank” of questions to ask people (and understand the reasons for asking them)

Things I need to read up on:

How SSO works under the hood

Health

The flare is still around, but not terrible this week. I made a mistake - I slept for less than 5 hours on both Wednesday night and Thursday night, and come Friday afternoon I had a splitting headache that no amount of ORS/bananas/warmth could solve. Some diclofenac finally helped, and a friend helped relax my muscles enough that I was able to power through the pain and take a nap.

I was woken from the nap by reports that Jamun had puked and was terribly low energy. One quick vet visit later, he has had an antacid injection and is on a probiotic schedule and a special diet. Monitoring remains.

I was reflecting with a friend that while my health has been pretty shit for the last year or so, and will continue to be shit for the foreseeable future, it isn’t actually volatile. I’ve gotten to a place where I know and am familiar with the rhythms of my body. I’m not healthy but my health is stable. That is very important and comforting to me.

Life

I cooked a lot this week. It helped that I was working from home, and that I wasn’t very tired from my work.

On Thursday night, I had a small sleepover because on Friday morning a bunch of us watched The Game Awards Show! I am in a long term, monogamous relationship with Hades 2, but it was fun to watch and learn about all the different kinds of experiences out there from my friends. I did watch Ankur play the opening sequence of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 last week, and it gave me chills, so it makes sense that most nominated game ever (in 12 categories!) swept at least 7 of them, including the coveted Game of The Year.

The Game Awards are the pet project of Geoff Keighley, who just had some money and decided to make this happen. We need more rich people to effect more societal change (like if Elon Musk actually followed through on his promise to donate 6B to end world hunger). The Game Awards has done a lot in the last few years to legitimise gaming as an art form. I, for one, am very grateful.

Last weekend at Indie Web Club we discussed footers, and designing our personal spaces. Design language can tell you a lot about how to read the intent and nature of the website. I’m pretty unhappy with the aesthetics of this website, but it’s hard to figure out what to change it to because I don’t have very string opinions on that front.

I have been chugging away at my home decor project for a while, and I struggle with figuring out an aesthetic for that too. My living room has copper, wood, and orange accents, but most of them came together by virtue of accident. I’m going to have to use some kind of bookmarking/pinning product where I curate pictures of what I like and don’t like - for websites and for homes. Pinterest would have theoretically solved this problem, but like everything else, its enshittification has been hard to see - even if only from afar.

Over the weekend, some old friends from a hyper specific lifestyle group I joined in 2019 met up at a farmhouse two hours outside Bangalore. On the drive there, I reconnected with Sreechand, a friend from before the pandemic. Only over the course of that conversation, and that evening, did I realise how influential his opinions have been over my own personal value system. We live very close by and have two overlapping friend groups so hopefully we can hang out more often.

Media Diet

Reading

I’ve been really enjoying Chip War. It feels like a detailed account of the first 4 pages of the first chapter of every computer science textbook I’ve had.

For the first time in a while, I don’t have a book of fiction that is going on in parallel - not even fan fiction! I just haven’t had the time. Maybe I need to get back into Romantasy.

Listening

I really liked the new Jessie J album! The first half is stronger than the second. Other artists whose albums I enjoyed this week: Olivia Dean, Audrey Hobert, Jane.

I’ve been casually browsing r/popheads for the better part of a decade, but I think it’s time (especially since I almost never reddit anymore) that I include the weekly FRESH newsletters into my workflow.

Week of Dec 6th, 2025

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I integrated a text-to-speech(tts) model into a chat interface for work this week. The challenge was not in working with voice, it was in the infrastructure that connects the llm(s) to the chat interface. The model we wanted to integrate didn’t have a native provider with vercel's ai sdk and for some reason I decided that I will simply write my own. So I wrote sentence buffers and I wrote semaphores and I wrote media players.

My Claude Code burn in the last three months has been in the $250-$400 range. My Claude Code burn in the last two days has been $250. This is because

We’re using subagents and skills a lot more.
We’re defaulting to Opus for everything. As a result of these two changes, I feel a lot more structured about the way I’m writing code, and it’s true that I’ve caught things I wouldn’t have been able to in my traditional Claude Code flow... but at this burn rate, it is not like having my own junior developer, it costs the same as hiring my own junior developer. Yes, human junior developers take longer to train and are riskier to hire but give better returns no? I’m not sure how to feel about the bottom line impact on this. I suppose this will only matter after the credits run out.

We have week-long sprints at work now. It’s been good to be really focused, but having demo days on Friday is stressful and unpleasant, and I’ve done this two weeks in a row. Ideally we have 4 day cycles and day 5 is for polish/nits/tech debt/experiments with users. Last month it felt like I was paddling water in place. Now, it feels like I am running a marathon by sprinting. Will the ebbs and flows of work seasons fix this feeling of sustained exhaustion or will I have to make it happen?

Every time I have been employed, I have burnt out. Burn out is not a function of overworking, it is a function of putting in energy and not seeing movement, of caring too much and not being acknowledged. This time, I’m trying to channel my energy into the things I know I can do sustainably, and I’m telling myself that it’s okay for other people to do the other things even if I don’t always agree with how it’s done. This time I will build sustainable care patterns into my work, the way I have done so in my life.

Life

(in reverse chronological order)

A friend has been staying with me and it’s been strangely infuriating. Luckily, our friendship has roots too far in the past and we talked it out. Also luckily, they refuse to read my weeknotes so they will never know I feel this way. 😈 (that is a joke and a lie, if you are my friend you will hear about my feelings)

I had a puzzle emergency (don’t ask) and Rosh and Pranav showed up beautifully to make it happen <3 I’m pretty late, but I made an advent calendar of sorts for the New Year Puzzle Along event Asma is running this year!

I enjoy going to Seedhe Maut concerts because the number of gaalis[^1]/minute increases exponentially in that crowd. The innate dilli will come out from even the mallu fellows. Rap fans are like metal fans who missed the memo. They want to mosh but don’t know how, so they’ll mosh anywhere instead of asking for consent. But because these are Delhi rap fans, the moment they see that you are a woman they have accidentally pulled into the mosh pit they will grovel to apologise and shut all the swears deep where the sun don’t shine. It’s great. The concert was in the Phoenix Mall back area which I hadn’t yet been to. The sound was shit but the act was excellent and I continue to look forward to the next one.

Last weekend was Ankur’s birthday extravaganza! Ankur, Shru, and I did a brunch on Monday morning to celebrate his actual birthday and it was so lovely. We ate too much excellent food at BrezelHaus, opened day one of an advent calendar, laughed too loud, sobbed a little (it was me I had a small breakdown), and felt seen by each other. With work taking up all of my time and enforcing good sleep etiquette, we don’t have our late night kitchen floor conversations as often as I’d like them. Friends, if you take any advice from these weeknotes take this: find people who will fight you in their love for you and hold on to them tight.

Health

Day 8 of latest flare. I have been in so much pain this week. I’m really proud of myself because despite the pain I

Worked 10 hours each on Monday and Friday
Went for a long walk on Thursday, maybe 3k steps
Ate only two meals of pure junk, and in fact had 4 meals of homecooked goodness.

The major symptoms this time have been the pain and appetite. I am not doing as much as I should to deal with the pain, but I am doing as much as I can. Give me the strength to do more.

Media Diet

Reading

I finished reading Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy.

What a trash book. The whole narrative is built the outrage one is supposed to feel upon hearing that ~~someone died~~ a British National!! was Murdered in Yemen!!!!! This book reeks of the kind of racism that is so routine in the Middle East it is overlooked as normal. The Yemenis and Filipinos, of course, are in the same tier as dirt. The filipino informant who corroborated most of the story (shows up about 70% of the way through) was paid a “few hundred dollars for his time”, but his name was not worth protecting one whit. Who cares if the mob kills his family? The Eastern European was allowed to negotiate, though not nearly enough, and even then his right to keeping his identity private was stripped (and it is unclear if he was compensated or not). The Englishmen, of course, were the best and most deserved and everyone should drop everything to bring to justice the entire mechanism surrounding one man’s murder.

Maybe it’s just because I was brought up in Dubai and witnessed so much of this inherent elitism but I cannot stand even a whiff of it. There is a difference between acknowledging the realities of a situation (like the authors themselves did when talking about the (lack of a) presence of women at Lloyds) and baking their version of a skewed reality into the narrative. The latter is not forgivable in a work of non-fiction. I am sorry I started reading this, sorrier that I didn’t have other audiobooks downloaded on my phone at the time, and wouldn’t recommend the book.

The narrator of the audiobook did a great job.

Listening

It’s Wrapped time! Interesting facts: I listened to 336 genres this year (but Spotify won’t tell me what that means or how it defined a genre), 33 albums this year (but Spotify won’t give me the list of all of them), and my Spotify age is 20, so I can no longer drink alcohol in Bangalore and should be ashamed of the skinny pants in my wardrobe.

[^1]: swears in Hindi

Month of November, 2025

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It’s time for a month note!

I didn’t have the energy to reflect every week this month. This weeknote is the canary in the coalmine for me, so I was concerned. But for the first time in a long time, the culprit wasn’t purely shit mental health. It was exhaustion. Not bone deep, but of the mind. I have been spending so much time doing so many things at work that my brain didn’t want to do anything else except stay home and play video games, or consume narrative. I didn’t even want to meet people! That’s brand new for me.

My reasons for writing these notes today are not what they were when I started, a year ago. Now, I’m writing this to keep a record of the things my brain thinks of. I love the idea of pointing someone to something I wrote instead of ranting (incompletely) into their chat windows. And I want to spend more active time with myself, bathing in the clarifying waters of creation.

Work

At the beginning of this month, I had spent two months building lots of things, but no one was using it - I was just immediately moving on to build other things that no one was using either. In the middle of this month my team acknowledged to each other that it felt like we’ve been paddling water, and then... the last week’s momentum has been so good to feel on my skin. I finally feel like I'm part of a team[^1], and not just a cog or a code monkey.

In the last three months I

Architected several systems
Failed to correctly architect one of two front end services I built, but in ways that I know I can fix, and in order to let the codebase grow naturally
Learnt so much about testing
Tried three or four different ways to use the power of codegen. I think I have a better understanding of what techniques to use for what scenarios now.
Realised I know so little about testing
Got better at stating my opinions in front of people I think are intimidating
Got comfortable with releasing unpolished work, taking criticism, sitting in discomfort, and (most importantly) figuring out who to talk to in the friend group when I was tired and needed to be taken care of.

I need to

Get better at reading code
Get better at writing tests
Get better at talking about code and systems, as a proxy for understanding it better. I think over the next month Jalebi is going to learn so much. He can be my little rubber ducky.

I know now that I need to follow my own processes no matter what. People like me have been socialised to change how we do things for fear of fitting in and not drawing attention - but my processes have been built as a result of years of mistakes and stress. I am going to continue to honor that.

Aaand... I’m going to go off contract and join these folks. There is a lot of competence available in the rooms I’m in. I want to be there, have a stake in building a good product, a good team, and take the energy of enjoying Friday evenings away but also Monday mornings back into work with people.

Life

Highlights reel

Did one (1) 1km run, acquired headache the next day. Was put to bed by friends and reminded of the power of potassium.
Hosted the loveliest Nats and Rudi for three whole days (!!) and witnessed the joy of watching friend groups mix again (Ankur and Shru met them). Had such a lovely evening of just hanging out in the house. Was reminded of the joy of travelling for work after looking at Rudi’s mini server set up. I’ve done enough of that in 5years of being remote, but maybe it’s time to try again. Especially given that they have an empty house in Goa....
Speaking of, my own home is coming together nicely. More decor pieces, more cute furniture. More people have come to stay over. More people come home now than ever before. I’m no longer puzzled when the door rings and I’m not expecting anything - I’m just curious. Because people drop in! And fill my heart with warmth.
I resolved a bitter conflict with a dear friend. There was anger and snot and tears, but also laughter and ease, and the weight of being perceived. I've decided that it's not a friendship if space isn't made for the imposition of ourselves on the other.
I went to two different concerts by myself and had such a fantastic time. I made friends with lots of people at the venue. I like knowing that I can take care of myself. I like going and losing myself in the music while completely sober. I like driving to and from far off concert venues, taking my dabba along for dinner instead of having to stand in line for food. I am so good for me.
Please don't ever let me be in charge of physical things. I forgot that kolorkode was shut on Sunday and has the most stressfull three hours of my month trying to reprint stickers that were already printed and just needed to be picked up in time for an event later that day.
Indie Web Club has been good. This is because Ankur has been doing most of the work. I have been enjoying being able to show up and just participate. I know I'll need to take up most of the work again in Jan/Feb when work doesn't feel as overwhelming, so I'm just enjoying this for now.

Health

I took exactly one day off of work this month, for a horrible migraine. I think this is some kind of record. I have been in pain - this has been a bad month for pain - but I’ve still been able to function, push through, and rest later.

I work eight to ten hours a day during the week, but I still meet people after work for dinner or have people come over to cowork. The company forces me to eat well. The weekends, or when I’m working alone, however, is a different story. On two different occasions, my meal has consisted of a large bag of chips. This will not do! I did a long, involved, quiz thing with Rosh to figure out what kinds of food might suit me best. Some of the results were surprising, but they also made sense. Spicy, salty food is good for me! And I need to make more of that available to myself.

I want to go back to being dairy/gluten free, because it felt so good, but I don’t know how to time this. I want to be able to eat cookies, and I’ll be travelling in January. I did want to go on a rice elimination diet, but that feels wrong.

Media Diet

Reading

This has been a good month for reading. This list is evenly split between audiobooks and words on a screen.

Dracula (The full cast version is your best bet here)
This is how you lose the time war
Everything is tuberculosis
Make Room for love
Turn back time
Gender Queer
about 350,000 words of fan fiction
It has no name

Some reviews on my goodreads profile!

Around the web

My rss feed reader has been broken for a while. I sorely miss my feeds. This website’s RSS feed is broken too, I’ll fix after posting this!

[^1]: Here, team means a thing that's bigger than the sum of its parts. Often teams are just collections of people and those are nothing to write home about.

Week of October 18th, 2025

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I spent lots of time rebasing things and I was very annoyed by it, so I wrote a mild flame about it.

Health

Had a flare all week, and since this week was in-office with the team I made the excellent decision to get a driver for the mornings. My arm was thankful.

Life

I had a tantrum on Tuesday, dinner with Chandra, a call with a Goa-based cat behaviorist who seemed very helpful (for litchee x jamun fights), and indie web club’s tech session on Saturday where as per usual I didn’t get as much done as I would like.

Week of October 11th, 2025

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

No real weeknote this time. Litchee continues to recover well (so many of you asked! Thank you ❤️). He's still on the liquid diet but has stolen some dry food when I wasn't paying attention, and the others are scheming to get at his wet food, so all's well in the world, really. I was WFH most of last week so it was chill, but this next week the team's in office so it's going to be tough - esp with deepavali and crackers coming up. If you're reading this, you probably don't need the reminder, but here; please don't burst crackers that make loud sounds. They're horrible for anyone easily startled, your own hearing, and all animals everywhere.

There's supposed to be a very nice meteor shower next weekend but I can't drive out 8 hours to a dark spot, so. :(

I am tired. I'm not doing much except care for the babies, work, and play Hades. Hades 2 is brilliant. It's hard to follow up a perfect game, but Supergiant did it! The sequel feels like a sequel in that it pays homages to the orginal storyline and extends ot so beautifully, but it's much bigger - in terms of story, scope, and ambition. I'm finding myself relating to the character of Melinoë much easier than I did Zagreus. Perhaps it helps that she's a first-bencher kind of character. Maybe it's just that she's a woman.

I am tired because it's strange to be an employee. When you're contracting, deadlines are important. But you're also mostly working by yourself and you're in control of how work gets done. With teams, a lot of the time your work is dependent on other people's. And timelines get pushed but people don't seem to talk about it. I think I have work to do to get comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. This is actually a call i need to make - as a consultant, my ability to clarify ambiguity and hedge uncertainty is an asset. As an employee, it feels... annoying. How do I marry the two?

I'm also tired because it's back. The flare is back. What else to say?

I have placed an order for running shoes. Very very excited. Also my most expensive shoe purchase to date. In keeping with my small movements philosophy for this year, I'm going to attempt to do about a 1 to 2km run every other day. Here's my to-do list from when I was running last:

Figure out my bpm (mostly so I can find music to go along with my run)
Actively breathe in rhythm with the steps and the beats
And do this so naturally that it feels like this is easy.

I wrote most of this weeknote at a concert - I went to Glass Beams all by myself. I have attended so many gigs in the last three or four years, but this is the first time I went by myself. It was an incredible experience. I got there reasonably early and was sorry of doing my own thing. I ended up sitting next to some folks who looked loud and boisterous and in a tight group - i realised later that I probably gravitated there because they looked different from all the heterosexual couples I was seeing around me. But also because they looked chill... And then while eavesdropping i discovered they were gay. Of course I would gravitate towards the gayze. We wouldn't have spoken to each other except some dude came and caused a fight - and he threw a slur at one of the people!! The way we instantly became best friends to ward off this asshole, I'm telling you us minorities have got each other's backs every where. Of course I had matched with at least one of them on Bumble haha. The queer community everywhere is incestuous, and Bangalore/Goa cross-pollination is strong. I'm wondering if Bombay/Goa is similar?

I really enjoyed going by myself and making friends there. Surprisingly, I would also have been okay if I didn't make friends! This is brand new. My new friends also added me to a few gig and ticket resale groups for Bangalore, so I suppose I will do this some more. I was considering doing Lollapalooza alone (managing a large group is hard, and without some regulars showing up this time will be harder), but I don't know if I'm brave enough to do a whole festival by myself.

Week of October 4th, 2025

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

Work this week has pulled me in a lot of different directions. I am working very closely with a colleague on building a platform for an experiment. In a fast paced environment, I see the value of being able to build across the stack more than ever. My colleague primarily writes python, so maybe I will be able to get more familiar with it over the next few weeks/months.

“Came for the language, stayed for the community” is a common slogan on t-shirts at python conferences. Some of the kindest people I know in programming circles write python. I ran Pyladies Bangalore for about a year, but stopped as it became less relevant to my everyday work. Bangalore is bursting with communities and with tech communities but there still isn’t an active Pyladies event that happens here. Maybe one day in a few years I’ll support efforts to run it regularly again.

I took two days off this week so I didn’t get as much done. I also spent a lot more time than I should have debugging some issues with deploys. Maybe I need to watch senior frontend engineers debug things more on some livestream? Taking recommendations. What are other ways I can get better at debugging systems?

Also; with fast-paced jobs, how do people make time to learn about entirely new concepts? I really need to understand service-to-service auth better, but I simply haven’t found the time. I think I should be taking advantage of llms and their study modes here.

Health

Wednesday morning was Litchee’s schedules dental scaling. Halfway through the scheduled time period I got a call from the doctor saying that some of his teeth were so rotten the roots were exposed. They had to be taken out. He’s lost six teeth in total, mostly molars and premolars, and one incisor. Recovery was hell - so much worse than his last stint with general anaesthesia. Perhaps it’s because he was in a lot more pain, perhaps it was just a fluke, but the poor boy just kept yelling unhappily all night, insisting on going in and out of his litter box when he could barely lift his legs. Last time, it was funny and cute and I took a few videos and was generally in good spirits. This time I was worried and on edge. I didn’t sleep at all on Wed night or Thursday all day. I had a bad back from lying on a shitty floor mattress. I was distracting myself by drowning in narrative (again).

A friend put me to bed on Thursday night and since then I’ve been relatively more stable, but it has not been a good week for me or the baby. After the first two days post surgery he has thankfully been alright. He’s been sleeping a lot more and less social, but he was curled up with Jalebi when I left the house today morning. Most importantly, him and Jamun haven’t fought yet (that I saw). I hope it stays this way.

Litchee is on a slop diet for the next three weeks at least. I have three cats and they all have different diet requirements. I don’t work from home any more, so this is going to get a little challenging to wrangle. I am also on the lookout for easy to make liquid food diets so I don’t rely on wet food packets all the time. Please tell me about what your pets ate and went through so I feel less alone in this.

Life

I am finally getting my Nothing Day tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it. I did work from home this week but since all of my time was spent in caregiving my home feels like an even bigger mess than usual. It’s smellier, and more things are out of place, and there’s medication everywhere and split shelving that I need to fix.

I don’t see myself getting a roommate. Maybe I should downsize.

A friend earlier this week sat me down and talked to me about how they are sad I don’t spend time with them any more. I started blaming on work, but then I stopped. I was on the other end of this exact conversation last year, and I know from experience that the response I was going to default to feels like bullshit. When someone is telling you they miss you, it’s not to force you to reprioritise them. It’s to bring attention to a lack. Then, after acknowledgement, the thing to do is figure out ways to be able to fulfil that “lack” even if you don’t have the same time/energy wells any more. Of course, the nature of the engagement will change, but the feeling of the engagement doesn’t need to. I don’t have 5 hours to work on my friend’s couch any more, but I can still rant in their DMs about a specific git thing or react thing and they will feel close to me.

I think it also helps to know there is an end date to these kinds of things. I firmly believe that romantic monogamous domestic long distance relationships (LDRs) shouldn’t be attempted unless there is a clear plan or date to “closing the distance”. LDRs are a good example of something that is universally seen as a thing to be sad about and gets understanding from society at large. A similar feeling exists in society when you have a (romantic monogamous primary domestic) partner that works long hours such that they no longer have the time/energy to put into the relationship, but I’ve found that the solutioning of this problem is just “oh, one has to deal with this” or “oh, what can you do, such is life”. I find this so frustrating! And utterly useless. I feel like this generic social messaging also validated my then partner’s relationship to the problem and the approach they took to it.

For platonic relationships? The social understanding of this messaging exists even less (or not at all). I think as more of us live in found-family like communities we have to internalise how to talk about these problems. And I refuse to be the person to blame a situation for a “lack” that someone I love is feeling. This might be a reactionary bout of idealism from me. I might be setting myself up for burnout or failure. I hope I’m not. We’ll see.

Media Diet

Reading

I am finally moving on from Dramione - into rarepairs. That’s Neville/Pansy, Harry/Pansy, Theomione, Wood/Flint for some reason, and other various permutations.

One of these days I have to break down why, after a decade of not wanting to do anything with this fandom, I am back and consuming things with a vengeance.

Week of September 28th, 2025

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I deployed a service I wrote, architected a bigger service (but didn’t get to implement it yet) and architected another experiment that will be my first one working with a proper team in a year or two. We also finally have an issue tracker and a general everyday tracker! I get so much energy from being a part of things just starting out, and the momentum on this feels bigger than the other things I’ve been a part of.

I’m focusing on familiarising myself with the breadth of deep tech over the next few months. I don’t have the time or energy to spend on honing my product building intuition (yet) but I’m part of product discussions every day and I’m learning so much about it just by listening and osmosis.

We already have a 7 person team! The whole team was in Bangalore for the week, and that in-person momentum was also very energising. By Friday everyone had left and the office felt a little dull. I am not very happy with my commute but I am not going to stop going to office for as long as people are around.

Health

I fixed my ergonomics set up, which meant I moved a lot more this week in the day to day. My wrists are very happy. I need to buy a high chair, with cushioning, a feet rest, swivel, and possibly a back rest - am open to recommendations.

My flare from last week went away by Monday but was back on Wednesday, and I’ve been a little more fatigued this week than the last. Saturday was especially bad, but that is because I stayed up late and did a small house party at a friend’s on a whim. I was working in their living room! But then Ghalib was playing and one thing let to another... This weekend wasn’t super restful either, but we have a Thursday holiday this week and I’m wfh WedThuFri so let’s hope it doesn’t get worse.

I spoke to the vet at Casper yesterday. After looking at Litchee, they said the gingivitis is definitely bad but we can give dental scaling another go before the teeth removal - yay! We also need to up his teeth brushing regimen. The scaling is scheduled for Wednesday.

Life

Self-care consists of two things for me - movement and people. I’ve fixed the former for my self at work, so the latter had to happen post work. The batteries need social hangs to be recharged, even if it’s an alone-together kind of presence. That has meant I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends at the cost of sleep. I have spent not more than an hour each day at home alone - and it shows! I am really looking forward to getting that time with house and self during WedThuFri - and maybe even SatSun given that this is festival week, I’m unlikely to do social calls.

Week of September 20th, 2025

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I have done so many things in the last two weeks that I have never done before.

Wrote an api surface for a form
Set up a database and worked with Prisma
Set up a Zap
Worked with webhooks
Worked with some version of TDD
Worked with micro services. This one was the hardest thing and broke my brain a little bit ngl
Set up a slack bot
Git rebased 42 commits over 216 commits in a codebase with broken builds, tests, and everything

Things I have done before that I did again

API calls to llms
Used ngrok
Set up swagger UI (But I was under the impression that it was auto documenting? Is that only with specific languages? Given that TypeScript is... well, strongly typed, wouldn’t that give swagger more information to work and auto build with? Why the over-reliance on jsdocs? Need to investigate.)

Things I learnt about

OLE date format
Git worktrees
!fixup command (and the flow in which to use it)

Concepts I learnt about

Server-client architecture
Dependency injection

Things I need to look up

Understand evals better
Figure out why localtunnel was crashing when I used it to execute api commands via swagger

codegen practices

I’ve found that I have significantly better results when I ask the llm to create a plan in an .md file than to use the plan mode. For one, it’s much easier for me to go in and edit the file than get the llm to understand exactly what change I want. Then, I can keep clearing context while holding important state in the file.

It’s also been easier to do TDD if I describe the feature, spec the file, THEN write the test and implement the feature (rather than the other way around).

I went in to the office all week, after about 5 years of no physical space. I really enjoy the energy I get from building from the same space as other people. The face time, the quiet understanding you build with your team over shared fruit etc is unparalleled. I just wish I didn’t... have to be there physically.

Health

My biggest issue with the office has been ergonomics. Some of this is fixable: I took in my monitor, I’m getting a desk converter next week, I might have to buy a new (higher) chair. But my biggest issue has been movement. I gave up on spending chunks of time in the gym a few months ago because it just didn’t fit with my lifestyle, but I still get in lots of movement during the day. This is because I am a fundamentally active person - I move a lot every day, I do chores that require bending and effort, I work when standing, and when I feel like it I move! All my friends’ living rooms have footmarks from my handstands. I will break out into a down dog if my body needs it. Except now I work in an office filled with people in finance, with completely transparent walls, and I feel horrible about even stretching! The desks are small too - 1.5x3 as opposed to the 2x5 that I’m used to at home. And this means that I feel conscious of myself even when I’m standing and rotating my shoulders. I feel awkward about taking up the space I need to fold my body. I hope that as I get more familiar with my colleagues, and my workmates, I will feel better about taking up the space my body needs.

The result of the last week on my brain has been incredible. I am not very thrilled about my speed (even though I did so much!!!!), but that’s a micro adjustment I will make in the course of knowing my client and their priorities better (and being able to decipher better what they say vs what they want) but physically I am exhausted. Apart from the minimum eight hours I am spending in office, I am spending two hours in commute, and at least two hours pre-and-post commute. The kittens are BIG MAD, and they have every right to be!

My life feels very full, and there’s barely any time for anything else I want to do outside of work. But it doesn’t feel hectic. It doesn’t feel overwhelming. This is what I signed up for, and it’s glorious.

Life

Outside of work? Mum had a birthday, and it was nice to spend time with her. I haven’t been able to head back to RC Tuesdays (and I don’t think I will anytime in the next month or two, big sads) but Tuesday evening dinners with the subset of RC folks has still happened this week and I’m grateful. Despite the packed schedule I’ve been able to have a conversation or three with friends. I continue to slowly make changes to the home. I still haven’t potted the plants I made naked ten days ago but it feels like I have a handle on the house.

Media Diet

My only media consumption has been albums listened to in the office or via commute.

Listening

I didn’t like the new Sabrina Carpenter on first listen, possibly because it was someone else’s car and I was distracted (and also there were skips). I deeply dislike looking at the album cover (enough ink has been spilt on the optics of it) but the album itself sounds decent to listen to and hilarious to sing along to.
The new Lola Young album I’m only F**king Myself feels like the breakup album I didn’t know I needed. If you only know her via her megahit single Messy, you won’t be disappointed with this latest offering - and you might even find that you recognise a bop or two in there.
Aly & AJ were Disney twins who appeared on the popular TV show Phil of the Future, as elder sisters to the eponymous Phil. As a preteen, I enjoyed their role in the quiet unassuming way it was impossible to enjoy Cyrus in Hannah Montana, or Gomez in Wizards of Waverly Place. As a teen, the lead single Potential Breakup Song off their album Insomniatic was perhaps the first instance of breaking the fourth wall (“This is the potential breakup song/Our album needs just one”) that I remember. Their latest EP, More Silver, feels like a decent outing with more country than punk influences compared to their usual, but a smooth 16 minutes nonetheless.

Week of September 13th, 2025

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

This week I’ve spent most of my time at work architecting things I don’t understand. The work I’ve been doing has been either

Think very hard about how to best do X
Spend very little effort babysitting an agent implementing X

I have a very strange relationship with the code I’m “writing” now. I wrote a little about it earlier in the week.

The folks I’m contracting with are getting an office! I’ll be in the CBD area of Bangalore very often for the next few weeks, please DM me if you want to catch up in the area :)

I’m strangely excited about the office space. I’ve been enjoying the perks of remote work for a good 5 years now (thanks pandemic!) but I recognise that there are some kinds of work, and some kinds of teams, that just need to meet regularly and in person for ideas to be brought to life. I think it also allows for passive learning a lot more, and I’m so ready for it.

Life

It was my birthday yesterday, and it was an excellent ~~day~~ weekend. I (like most (depressed?) people?) have had a complicated relationship with my birthday, gift giving, obligations etc. Three years ago I met someone who insisted on not only giving gifts but also receiving them, and that forced me to confront those complicated feelings. Also shout out to adult friend groups for remembering birthdays but not going overboard.

This year, I did something radical (for me). I didn’t do a party. I wanted to spend time with my friends, but I didn’t want to plan, and follow up, and stress, and worry, and organise, and handle shit. So... I didn’t. Quite a few people asked me what I’m doing, and I told them I’d love to spend time with them but I wasn’t planning a party, they were welcome to my house but could they please bring their own dabba, figure out party planning etc?

No one figured out the party planning, but that’s because no one else is me, and that’s fine. Some people showed up, and it was excellent. Several people could not, and that was alright too! I felt very taken care of by people all around - and most importantly, I didn’t really base any of sense my of self worth on the events or outcome of this day. I also now know what it’s like to have 15 people in my house. Maybe next year I’ll throw a thirty person party :) but I know I’m not going to stress about it.

This weekend is also Maya Bazaar weekend! It’s a carnival filled with queer businesses, queer performances, and queer people strutting, trawling, or fading into the background. I did so much shopping! Some highlights - a handloom sari in a beautiful rare light purple, binders!!!!!!!!!!!!! from the very excellent Black Eagle Binders, a gorgeous cotton-linen tank dress with deconstructed element accents, a few gorgeous vases. Some things I wish I could have bought except no budget - corsets from Ashutosh who makes them from waste scraps, candles from Good Conscience Co. I feel very satisfied with my haul.

This has been a very queer week for me. Fighting some uhaul stereotypes, fighting some airhead stereotypes. Find myself being desired. It’s a heady feeling.

Health

I’ve had a cough left over from last week’s fever that just won’t go away. Sipping hot water regularly is the only thing that seems to help, so I’ve been doing that. I also have a fatigue cycle that’s led to me having some very strange working hours and sleep cycles. I deeply dislike this. I’ve slept at 5am 4 nights this week! to wake up at 8/9am and go about the rest of my day. I’m hoping the office routine is a forcing function to fix that.

Media Diet

Reading

I’ve read all the dramione, so now I’ve graduated to anypairs with Theo, and Pansy/Neville. I think I will soon be doing anypairs with Pansy.

Listening

King Princess’s new album is pretty decent!

Around the web

I paid very little attention to my feed this week :( more in the next one!

Week of September 7th, 2025

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Health

Nothing happened this week except dealing with my health. I came back from the wedding late Sunday night with a mild headache but fully prepared to just take a light day until I woke up with a terrible fever.

The fever lasted 4 days and oscillated between 99 and 102. By day 5, I was so fatigued, I napped for 6 hours, went out to meet a friend for an hour (cabin fever!), and immediately came back home to pass out again.

It was a bad week.

All the lying down also made my body HURT. I took an hour to really slowly and methodically do a stretch routine that ordinarily takes me 10ish minutes on Thursday morning, and it really helped.

Life

There was some good stuff.

Mum came by with lots of food.
Friends checked in and regularly asked for updates on temperature and status, which I appreciated (even if they called and interrupted me from sleep haha)
Two different friends came by braving fear of contagion (and sick person smells) and put me to bed. Shout out especially to A who stayed over with me that first night when my fever peaked at 102.6 and I was a tired mess. It’s hard to sleep when you’ve already slept for 12 hours that day, and these heroes helped deal with that.

What do you do, when you’re sick and unable to brain at all? I used to drown in narrative but for the first time in I don’t know how long, narrative felt too heavy. I mostly got a lot of shopping for the house done. I knew what I wanted, it was just the administrative task of add to cart, coordinate pick up, etc.

I came home from the wedding to a house that felt empty and immediately fell sick. The only thing that really bought me solace was how much the babies crowded around me during this time. I had declared the master bedroom a cat-free zone, but... I was suffering and it felt like dealing with my allergies would be preferable to feeling empty and alone (and having to hear them cry outside my door). I’m going to regret this. I tried shutting them out again for an hour today and they absolutely lost it. But that’s a problem for later Tanvi. This week Tanvi is glad she had 4 hot water bottles instead of one to help with the chills.

I was just about well enough to make it to IndieWebClub 9, and Unmana discussing Chikkamma Tours at Atta Galatta.

Media Diet

Around the web

I succumbed and got a subscription to Gergely Orosz’s Pragmatic Engineer newsletter. I have been doing a lot of work that could be considered “AI Engineering” over the last few months, so it made sense - esp if I’m going further down the stack.
I discovered Seema Hegde’s weeknotes (via) - this one is special to me because Sirsi - the district Seema lives in - is also where my grandma grew up. I spent some time with family there earlier this year and it’s nice to be able to experience the slow life and landscape from a different (yet same) point of view. I’ll admit, I was getting a little cynical, associating all of these beautiful places with bigotry because that’s what I’ve been dealing with/seeing. But reading Seema’s blog reminded me that there’s more.
Akila responded to my weeknote from two weeks ago with “????”. I know some of my audience is technical but not a lot, and I always assumed y’all just skip the “work” section from these things. I think maybe that’s what I would do if I was reading the weeknights of someone working in a very theoretical academic field? But Akila is very curious, and she captures the feeling of outgroup that happens from not knowing the right words super well. I feel this way all the time even in technical groups (if people are talking about machine learning model tuning, or about infrastructure details, or) and I think one’s response to that feeling determines their eventual ability to integrate the unknown thing into their lives.

Week of Aug 30th, 2025

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

what goes into building an agent?
what goes into building a [thing? agent?] that builds agents?
how can I “overengineer" something? Not in terms of yak shaving, but in terms of levels of abstraction? This one has been surprisingly hard.
I’ve always thought of things in the backend as a “black box”, as an abstraction layer I don’t need to care about. It’s been a struggle to get rid of that mindset.
I think I’m stressing too much about work. Reminder to self - you’re building toys!! Yes, you’re getting paid to build toys but it’s the process of building that is valuable here and right now! What a privilege this is.

code gen practices

It’s been easier to work within a .agents/prompts/ folder and tell Claude to use the folder than to work within the terminal alone.
https://agent-rules.org/ has been a good thinking guide
I need to get better at prompt engineering ugh

Life

This has certainly been one of the weeks of all time.

Anu and I bid goodbye to each other last Saturday. He’s been such a vital part of my life in the last four years. But our relationship is going to change now. I’m grateful having had him the way I have, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how our relationship evolves over the next few months/years.

On Sunday I held a friend through a bad mental health situation. Then we went and ate bbq tandoori momos, and like, three bun maskas. All was right within the world again. I really like where my house is located, and have big gripes that more friends don’t come over. There are SO MANY excellent food places around me! I have tried a very small fraction of them.

Tuesday RC coworking ritual has extended to a subset of us heading to someone’s home, and hanging out until late at night. We talk about tech/society, cook, and generally just be in each other’s presence. It’s a new experience to me to have friends younger than me. I’m really enjoying it! I think my only real experience with dealing with people younger than me is dealing with my brother. Of course, we have a trash relationship (when one sibling is queer, the other’s homophobia can throw a damper on things), but I’ve noticed that I also tend to fall into didactic mode when I’m talking to him. That’s not very helpful? Or how I want to conduct my relationships. It’s definitely something to watch out for.

Two days of work. I ate at reasonable hours, took breaks at reasonable hours. It is hard to push yourself when most of the work is in figuring out what actually needs to be done.

This weekend was my cousin’s wedding. It brought up really complex feelings for me. My mamas (who I have loved my whole life) want to deny my mum her inheritance. It’s not about the land at all (the inheritance would be a very small parcel) but it’s about the right to exist on that land. That house has housed four generations of my mum’s family. I grew up there. I want to know that I’ll always be welcome there.

I suppose being welcome has not much to do with rights and lots to do with the relationship you have with the people who live there. My extended family is extremely conservative (ie where my brother learnt his homophobia from, but also think: the people who funded the RSS 60 years ago) and it’s very hard to relate to them. In small towns all words are double speak. I cannot say one thing and slyly mean another even if it would save my life. I met some cousins I hadn’t seen in ten years as part of this wedding and immediately got made fun of for existing (not homophobic bullying! Just the regular kind) but learnt that they’re all pretty close to each other because they drink together (and lots) every weekend.

I don’t understand alcohol culture. I definitely don’t understand it from people who bullied me my whole life for thinking thoughts that defied the mainstream - or maybe the bullying was for not knowing the social structures enough to just say what I was thinking?

I’m going to be living alone for the next few months. I really want to do the residency but I’m probably going to have to go into an office for this contract so I don’t know how useful it will be to other people. I still have a friend who needs to build a portfolio and a friend with a short story to finish, so I will be annoying them about staying over until they do.

I also have a budget for home decor again. I have to spend some money on replacing appliances, and some money on buying things from my roommate, but I have ordered some new curtains and a balcony bench I’m pretty excited about!

Health

It has been mostly good! I have stopped doing the nasal sprays for a bit because my nose feels very sensitive. I need to get started on that again.

Media Diet

Reading

I’ve made good progress on The Day I Became a Runner. Not much else, to be honest. My feed reader is getting a lot more love from me than books these days.

Listening

Ankur and Azan introduced me to the genre of math rock. Which is great! Think God is an Astronaut (one of my all time fav artists) but more... complex, more brain scrambly.

Week of Aug 23rd, 2025

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

My weeknote days so far have been Wednesdays. It worked great because on short contracts or when I’m funemployed I have the flexibility to schedule two hours on a Wednesday to reflect, write, publish. I’m changing it to Saturday now.

Work

I’m starting a very intense contract for the next three months. I’m part of a team that wants to explore what a platform to allow people to create their own versions of gen AI can look like (so I will happily accept all thoughts and links to blog posts on the matter!). The contract is going to be intense for two reasons:
a. While I will start by building some toy front ends, The expectation is very much that I am able to touch the rest of the stack - and quickly.
b. This is going to be the first “long” contract I’ve done in about a year or so. A part of me thinks that I will dive head first into it - which is great! - but I need to be able to pace myself. This is a marathon, not a sprint (we aren’t yet doing Agile, heh).

Things I am looking forward to with this contract
a. Learning. SO. Much. I’ll be working with some people who have operated at the highest level of consumer tech in this country. And this is a pretty big country.
b. Feeding my curiosity. The last few months have whet my appetite for wanting to know how things work. I’m going to indulge depth in all of them.
c. The friend I’m primarily going to be working with has been pretty enthusiastic about code gen practices lately. I’ve been spending a lot of thought time on it over the last two months, and I’m looking forward to figuring out what real systems I can build with agentic llms on steroids. (Spoiler alert, I have a hunch things aren’t going to go as well as one would hope for this part of the experiment. But that’s the point - experiment.)

CRDT systems feel like table stakes these days. I’ve architected the third such system in three weeks - this time for a friend who is building in the legal tech space. They are actively looking for a founding engineer to lead their (small but impactful) tech team, DM me if you know someone who might be interested? JD here.

Life

I’ve spent the last few days preparing for the contract. So I went to all the doctors - dentist, gynaecologist, dermatologist, therapist. Got my hair cut, in the process of acquiring new glasses, got new headphones.

Mom has agreed to help with food for the next three months, so I’m incredibly grateful. That’s one less thing to worry about. That didn’t stop me from making a 4 avocado guacamole, or frying up 3 batches of onions (some in bacon fat, some in rice bran oil) to season my cast iron pan.

The Kemp vs Kickstart match was yesterday - a decider for Kemp. Last year, most of the matches were in the mornings, so a large number of us friends would go to BFA to cheer on Mithila and her team. This year, most of the matches were at 3pm on weekdays. And weekends I’ve had IWC, so I haven’t been able to make it. Some friends and I finally made it for this match... and it was exhilarating, but also so frustrating. The calls the refs made truly baffling. I understand football culture so much by going to these matches. I can’t wait to get super rich and fund some football. I’m also always down to play some football, so please contact me if you are ever around the area and have 5 other people to play with.

I’ll be in Goa over the next few weeks - if you’re going to be in the area, please hit me up!

Health

I’m back on gluten and dairy! The tests should almost no inflammation without them, but I don’t have a baseline to compare them to, so I’ve introduced both back into my diet. I’ll wait two weeks and do another test. I expect to continue experimentation with the diet for the next few months.

I think I’m going to have to take some of Litchee’s teeth out. There’s no two ways about it - his gingivitis is simply not getting better. I’ve asked four different doctors now (and I was on my way to the fifth!) when I realised I was clutching at straws. He doesn’t seem to be in active pain, but that’s easy for cats to fake. The mistake I’ve been making is thinking about cat jaws as analogous to my own, but that’s not true. If their teeth are removed, their gumline bones get tougher to compensate for it. In nature, lots of older cats lose their teeth due to rotting. Many cats in fact eat better with their teeth removed after gingivitis because they are not in active pain anymore. Not that any of this has stopped Litchee - he is still the most food-motivated cat I know[^1] - but I’d also much rather make these decisions when he is still relatively healthy and can recover from something like this.

It is one thing to make health decisions for myself. It’s completely another to make these life altering decisions for someone who depends entirely on you, who you cannot explain any of this to. I’ve been thinking a lot about how my mother approached doctors when I was younger. How she responded to me when I told her about the diagnosis. I don’t think I forgive a lot of it (and I don’t think I ever will) but while earlier I had simply moved past it, now I understand a little more.

Learning

I’ve restarted learning the Kannada script with the help of Sarvabhasin. Calra and I have been trading each other pictures of letters - when we haven’t done it together in person, that is. The last time I did this (in 2019) I got pretty good at reading Kannada, but then I moved to Goa and lost it all. This time I don’t plan to move away indefinitely, so I hope it sticks for longer.

Media Diet

Reading

I’ve been listening to Shivani Vakil Savant read Sohini Chattopadhyay’s The Day I Became a Runner: A Women's History of India through the Lens of Sport. I really appreciate the lens Chattopadhyay takes in her writing. X happened, and it was important because Y was the predominant narrative. This event lead to Z being the norm for women in track/women in sport/women in India.

I started enjoying rap after I stopped listening to men in music. I started enjoying science fiction after I stopped reading books written by men. I started enjoying football after I regularly watched a women’s team play. I think I’ll get back into running in a way that’s actually sustainable as I’m reading this book.

Listening

Really like this new telegu song that feels like the spiritual successor of Oo Antava.

[^1]: Well, second most - Kiboo does exist in my life.

Week of Aug 16th, 2025

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I’ve been working on more editors! A few weeks ago I built a toy app on top of Lexical; this week I’ve been working with Prose Mirror. I can appreciate the complexity of some of the issues Haverbeke came up on that prompted him to build it.

Two (two!!) different projects I’ve worked on recently have had engineers decide that they can just reinvent the wheel and handle text editing functions themselves... though I don’t think it’s the engineer that actually made the decision, it’s the LLM they were using. They didn’t know better. I think this is what we will see a lot of in the next few years - codebases that have a lot of unnecessary complexity (and therefore fragility) because senior leadership thought it was okay to throw a bunch of junior developers with code agents at a problem and trust the outputs.

It’s not the fault of the junior developer, of course. They don’t know what they don’t know! It took me a while too, to understand the kinds of complexities that can exist in any technical problem space, and how to best tackle them. They haven’t thought about how to prompt the llm to tell them what they should know.

I think I understand the hype that surrounded “prompt engineering” a while ago. Knowing how to tell [person/machine/blob] exactly what to do, what not to do, what to consider, and how to respond, all in one go is a skill of clarity that very few have. At the time the hype felt like snake oil. Now I still side eye people who use it unironically, but it’s interesting problem to solve: In a world where llms are a normal part of the toolkit, how can we help people ~~craft better prompts~~ arrive at levers for manipulating an information machine better?

Some solutions off the top of my head, specific to engineering contexts:

All codebases should have an agents.md that contains only the intentional patterns in your app. This thing should be more instructive than whatever Claude puts on an /init.
Maybe, at an org level, senior engineers regularly review prompts instead of reviewing (just) code.
I think pair programming gets more important (not less) because the levers to manipulate the tool of “prompt” is more amorphous than the tool of “IDE” or “terminal” or “search engine”.

Reader, after my last post I did in fact get sick. This means that some work stuff that was supposed to end last week has only ended this week. I’m unhappy about it but what to do? It’s a good reminder that with contracting, I need to schedule at 60% to 80% capacity no matter what.

I’ve been going fast for a few weeks now. I am really enjoying it and myself. This feels like one of those skills that compound with time. In the near future I’m hoping to work with more people who can unlock that for me.

Life

I hosted a TTRPG with the Museum of Art and Photography last Saturday. I haven’t been back since my disastrous attempt at a staycation[^1] in 2023, but realised that the exhibit I saw then halfway through is up for two more months! I hope I can go back again... but as I’m typing this, I’m realizing that work is going to get SO hectic over the next three months that I should be shelving even some of the community stuff I’m doing, not adding more things to my calendar.

I hosted a friend’s birthday board game (yes that’s a thing) on Friday, in the third room. I love the feeling of knowing I have a house full of people I love. The person I’m living with is likely to move houses soon, and I thought I’d need to get a flatmate - but do I? I don’t want to live with strangers, I want to live with friends. So either I do flatmate interviews (haha) or I get people from all over to come visit me. I would very much like to do the latter. If you know me, even tangentially, please know that right now is a GREAT time to come live in my house for a little bit. I will even offer this: Do you have a project you’ve been putting off doing that is important? Come home and don’t leave until it’s done. I’m working all the time so you won’t laze (body! doubling!), and I have a spare desk in my office too. And if you’re a friend with a friend who is cool and might benefit from this, send this to them. Offer valid for all of September (to begin with).

Health

My upper respiratory infection wiped me out, man. I was fine with the actual infection (which lasted Thu to Sat), but the week since then I have just been tired.

I’ve also been strangely itchy. Is there an allergen in my house that I don’t know about? Or am I getting more sensitive to the cats?

Week three of pushing getting the inflammation tests done. I am writing this on a Sunday with nothing scheduled. I wish Todoist had an “important but not urgent” filter so I could find the important things to get done on my nothing days.

Maybe I’m ready to start moving again. Maybe parts of this tiredness are my body yelling at me to move again.

Learning

Last Sunday some of us did a small home lab meet-up at Underline Center. The primary (selfish) goal was for me to get back into building tools for myself. I was feeling very tired and low; and yet:

I ssh-ed into another machine. The last time I did this was five years ago. There was so much raw power at my fingertips.
Person A complained that they couldn’t run meet.google.com on firefox because it ran the machine so hot. Person B responded that it was a problem with A’s chosen flavour of linux - they should just use a desktop environment based on Wayland like the rest of us. Aaah, the Fight of the Window Managers. It feels like 2008 in here :)

This was a balm to my soul.

Media Diet

Reading

Probably going to DNF Interstellar Megachef. My rant about South Asian writers needing better editors continues to hold here. The plot is compelling, but the metaphors are transparent, some conflict seems to have very little emotional depth, most characters feel one-dimensional. I want to like this book. I’m going to continue to read the author though, I’ve heard that this short story of hers has much nicer prose.

Listening

Love love love this groovy playlist Ankush shared with me. I’m looking for more music!

[^1]: I took a Thu Fri off of work so I’d have 4 days and planned out all the different museums in the city that I would go out to. On day 2, at MAP, while looking at a giant banana leaf vagina I started cramping, and realised I got my period. The rest of my vacation, of course, was spent in bed with a hot water bottle and some science fiction. I live inside a sitcom.

Week of Aug 7th, 2025

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

When it rains, it pours. There has been a lot of momentum on all kinds of interesting things I would like to do. Mostly with collaborators, but also some momentum on things I want to do by myself. I have been waking up energised every single day this week because I know exactly what I’m going to make happen in the world. What a beautiful feeling.

Rosh referenced Maria Popova in the context of her love for football yesterday: “If you want to fall in love with something you don’t, fall in love with people who do”[^1]. I can attest to this. I have always gravitated towards doing things in communities, and over the last year the community I have loved that has gotten me excited about programming again is the low-key tech community that Nemo runs via RC-and-friends coworking + the incessant curiosity that Ankur and Sohom have brought into my life.

I published a note about issues I had using cursor.

I have made significant progress on my own website, so that I can move away from this wonderful platform. No shade, you have been the best - but I intend to get a little more prolific than a single static page will allow me.

Life

This weekend was spent recovering after a really hectic WedThuFri of work. I went to a new bar with some new friends after Writer’s club and ate a bunch of overpriced small plates.

On Sunday morning I went to a two-hour Film Festival hosted by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation. It was Big Outdoors propaganda, and great fun! I dislike the outdoors - it’s nice when it is outside and I am inside - but I feel like a lot of that has to do with some terrible experiences I had when I was younger, plus my body being how it is. When I travel, I typically seek out cities, or urban centres of some kind. I love figuring out how people live their every day life in this completely alien environment. I love trying to suss out the fashion trends and micro-cultures that form in different localities and amongst different enthusiasts. People are so much more fascinating than trees.

Health

I think the flare is finally fading. I’ve spent most of last week in only the mildest of pain, and that also only when I’ve spent the whole day at my desktop. I still haven’t moved significantly - I am very afraid.

I am writing this early in the morning because my throat woke mw up with its itching. If I fall sick right now, when I have so much creation momentum going on, I will be very mad.

Media Diet

Reading

I started reading Jill Heinerth’s Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver. It is a memoir, and written to be very accessible. I first heard of the book when I read an excerpt that described a very specific situation. Jill was the first person to dive into an iceberg.

Listening

Renee Rap’s new album is really nice, and pop, and fun! There are a few skips, but it has emotional range. I’m definitely screaming along to Mad. 3/5, and this will stay on my rotation for a few weeks.

Around the web

The Wikipedia page for My Immortal - arguably the greatest fanfiction ever written (/s)
Scott Jenson explaining the reason for hype’s existence.
Herman’s blog post on how he manages his email. I took a very similar approach to my email a few months ago, and it’s been radical. I use my email a lot more for professional and personal communication now.

[^1]: I can’t seem to find this article anywhere. Probably paraphrased, but poignant none-the-less.

Week of Aug 2nd, 2025

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

Late by three days this week but for good reason; I jumped on a contract and was immediately swamped. I learnt a bunch from this contract despite how short it was; primarily that I really really need to write my playbook, but also that the last few months of playing around and working on my skills have been excellent.

I am very comfortable with the way I use llms to augment my dev flow, and it’s surprising to me how differently people do it (or choose not to). I’m unlocking different offerings for myself in the work I can do in this difference.

I am very glad I’ve been doing weeknotes, and generally more writing. svs, on being asked for advice on how to become a better engineer, apparently said “read more fiction”. I agree, and would like to add: consider writing some.

Health

Nearing two months of flare? I need to test my inflammation markers to see if the diet is making a difference (it’s not). I also need to start the doctor rounds again. It’s been long enough since I last presented that at least half of my symptoms have changed shape, or resolved themselves entirely (touch wood!!!!) so it’s best to get another set of eyes on it. But the process is inhumane. I hate the very prospect of it. Send hugs, not advice, thanks.

I drank three glasses of alcohol on Sunday night, and I basically lost all of Monday. The hangover resolved itself in 45 minutes, but the back knots went full ham possibly because of the vasodilatory effects of the drink.

Life

Spent 1:1 catch up time with: AA, AK, RR; all close friends whom I had been neglecting. Now the timer has been reset! Everybody came home and hung out.

I am also appending to my weekly Tuesday RC at UC ritual a Cooke evening/dinner. I am now meeting at least ten people a week. This feels like a reasonable amount of friendship to keep my extrovert heart recharged and healthy.

The Cooke evening/dinner has to be scheduled now because I am spending so much more time at home. I am pleased with how my relationship to home has changed. I feel so comfortable. I remember feeling like this and writing about it in October last year - I think that was the first time i spent the whole day by myself at home and actually had fun. This feels longer term, more permanent.

I did piece off this weekend and came 6th despite arriving 15 minutes late (!). I did a surprisingly large number of puzzles last month despite not thinking I would, because Pranav and I did pairs speed practice at least once a week. This month it will probably decrease, because the demands of work are getting higher which means I’m not sure about the state of my Monday evenings any more.

I still haven’t figured out when I should take the car and when I should call a cab, in time sensitive situations. \

I was telling mum today about how glad I am that I don’t have debt so I can make decisions on work mostly focusing on what kind of work I want to do, and I references my savings and a financial decision I didn’t make a few years ago that is turning out to be a good thing now. She agreed, but also explicitly told me for the first time that even if that wasn’t the case, I have a solid cushion of all kinds to fall back on in them. To hear this coming from the same people who pushed me to financial independence (and very bad decisons!) when I was very young was... something else. I am glad my relationship with my parents has changed shape so much. Now in my late twenties I think I can appreciate more of how their own relationship with money has changed in the last fifteen years or so, and let some of the resentment from much earlier go.

I also told her that she needs to tell me she loves me more. She laughed and did so. :)

Learning

I am afraid I’m going to become one of those people that talk constantly about llms. But I am fascinated by how they can be used to augment tool building! If you know of any kind of interesting conversations people are having around this (especially small closed groups etc) please let me know.

Media Diet

Reading

I finished listening to T Kingfisher’s A wizard’s guide to defensive baking. It was excellent. The tropes were a little tired and it wasn’t groundbreaking, but familiar enough to be comforting while being novel enough to be compelling.

This audiobook was narrated by Patricia Santomasso. She was incredible. She seems to narrate a lot of YA fantasy and mystery, so nothing else in her catalogue stood out to me; but I’ll be watching! I wish there was a single place I could follow all the audiobook creators I love (and no, not twtr).

Made some progress on The Wall. It was hard going back to it from AWGTDB. The writing seems even more flimsy, the situations even more strangely set up. But the story is compelling, so forge on I must.

I started rereading Agha Shahid Ali’s The Veiled Suite again. So much has changed since the last time I read it from cover to cover. Such a different set of poems appeal to me now. I suppose that is the point of poetry (and broader literature) you read repeatedly throughout your life. It acts as a warped mirror, reflecting all parts of yourself back to you.

Listening

Renee Rap’s new album out! need to make time for it.

re-listened to a bunch of 100 gecs again. man what bangerz. money machine has such a strong intro man I want to write like that.

re-stumbled upon some playlists Dee shared with me when we were first getting to know each other. No you aren’t getting them. But. So much love in there.

Around the web

Been thinking about this announcement of Toad - but specifically about the issues Will says exist with attempting to build cli interfaces with javascript. I want to sit down and think about what it will take to fix/circumviate this in javascriptland.
Vibe Code is Legacy Code. It’s true.
CSS Masonry is coming! I spent significant time trying to build an adequate one last year (and didn’t do a very good job) so I am looking forward to this.

Week of Jul 24th, 2025.md

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Work

I have, in the last ten or so days, started at least four different script projects, five different blog posts, and committed to helping prototype at least three different applications. The next ten days is going to be Tanvi Finish What You Started Challenge (impossible!!!)

Early in my career, I associated my entire identity with the kind of work I wanted to be doing for employment. Work was only employment, and things I was doing outside of work was simply a side project. Later, I stopped thinking about work entirely, it was just the thing I did for money. That was also damaging, because it sucked the joy out of the thing I did for lots of my waking hours. Then I defined work as the things I am doing with code to produce some output. This definition has served me well - it helped me redefine the feeling that thinking about work gives me. It moved that feeling from drudgery to curiosity and tentative excitement.

Earlier this year, I decided to add writing to the list of things I consider work. This redefinition has also helped me. It’s helped me prioritise the time and effort I’m spending on doing this. Last year, I was just doing Writer’s Club. This year, I did Aditya Athalye’s Writing for Nerds experiment, started Indie Web Club, and have a standing twice-weekly writing accountability session with Ishan. I have concepts and outlines for at least 12 different articles I want to write, with more rattling around in my head. I’m producing so much more in general - book reviews, longer text messages to friends, emails! than I used to. This is... A Lot. I am losing track of all the things, that are in different stages. For code (even side projects) I have a really nice linear/todoist system. What exists in the writing world? Don’t say excel. Please don’t say excel.

I have some updated thoughts on the state of AI and opinions for developers, but this note is already 1.3k words so it will come in another post.

Life

I have made some new tech friends. As in, they are people who live in the area, seem friendly and share similar values, and who have a tech background and actually talk about it! I miss having tech friends. I miss talking about tech all the time. Yes yes there is a life beyond it etc but I’ve spent my twenties being hyper aware that I shouldn’t let the tech consume me. And honestly? Not only has it hurt my career a little bit, I actually miss it. I just want to be a little nerd. I just want to have fun being a little gremlin nerd. Little gremlin nerds have the most fun with other gremlin nerds.

On Thursday we did a rap day! Prabhanshu and Saket made beats while Ankur and I figured out some verses. Then, close to the end of the day Prabhanshu pulled out a melody he had made a few weeks ago and... wow, it really came together. I ended up figuring out a chorus and a pre chorus, and on Sunday we added two verses and a rap bridge. Don't get me wrong, all the lyrics are pretty cringe, but it's mine! I maked this! In the project to be creative this year this is certainly a highlight. I'm attempting to document how I am approaching this in the creative process digital garden. At time of publishing, I haven't had the time to sit down and fill the various headings out but I will do it slowly over the week inshallah.

I am having fun with Indie Web Club, but I’m a little wary of it turning into workshop central. We also don’t want it to be driven entirely by Ankur and I - we also want to get value from it, and let it sort of run itself. This has been a good experiment so far, and I’m excited to see how the community grows.

Last night, Sohom came home and we made

Toum
Mayonnaise
Chilli Oil He derided the quality of my kasundhi and was an excellent sous chef. Then we ate lots of leftovers from the fridge (mum FILLED the fridge before her travel!). It is good to know that staying home doesn’t preclude people from hanging out with me. It is also so nice that people will show up with me. I pushed myself to take a friend to the hospital on Thursday, and then other people pushed themselves to take care of me.

Health

Found a physiotherapy place much closer to mine (7 minute drive!) and they seem pretty good.

Coming up on Day 50 of my flare and my big priority has been to figure out how to do myofascial release without relying on the personal skills and goodwill of the people around me. The physiotherapy place will hopefully step up here.

I don’t know how to get rid of this flare. All the other times the flare just comes and then goes. Being home has been really good, as has not driving in the evening. But I need to do something different this time. I’m not sure what. Maybe my body needs to get used to more physical activity? I’m going to do a 2k run on Sunday. I’m apprehensive because last Tuesday I did a 15 minute stretch routine and that wiped me out for the next few days. But now that I am more rested, maybe things will be different.

Diet stuff

Oat milk is ideal for hot coffee. Soy milk is pretty decent, and at half the price, a good alternative. Almond milk will break if you look at it wrong.

As of July 2025, Gluten Free bread is available only at 4 places in Bangalore.

Sour House: Rs. 260/- per sourdough boule. Bakery in Koramangala, can order direct, pick up, or Swiggy/Zomato
Off Wheat: Rs. 300/- per loaf. Only available on Swiggy Minis, place order two days in advance.
Loafer and Co: Rs. 440/- per sourdough boule, place order earlier in the week for delivery on Thursday or Friday
The Chiffon Tree: Between Rs. 600 to Rs. 800 per sourdough boule, place an order two days in advance. This is the only real option for celiacs because the other two breads are made in a facility that also uses wheat.

Karachi Bakery has gluten free cookies! In THREE varieties! I am unreasonably happy about this. I have been subsisting entirely on boiled eggs with chilli oil and corn chuda.

Media Diet

Reading

I finished reading Nghi Vo’s Mammoths At the Gates, Dnfed The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, and am halfway through (and really enjoying!) T Kingfisher’s YA offering - A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking.

Listening

I’m not sure how I missed this, but Tierra Whack had a full length album out in 2024 and I had no idea. I’ve spent the last week getting intimate with World Wide Whack. It isn’t the most interesting to the GP but I love the repetition in the verses, and the two or three word play/concepts that she builds all of her (pretty short) songs around. 4/5.

Around the web

Sahiti has an essay centred around Butter, a book I really disliked. The essay is brilliant though. It’s not light reading, and it’s also not strictly about Butter. So you should go read it.
I really enjoyed Akhil Unnikrishnan’s response to (and endorsement of) Ankur’s essay on how he feels about his toolchain.
Did you know that speculative poetry is not on the permanent ballot for the Hugos? I had no idea! Lynne Sargent makes a brilliant case for why it should be, and what you can do to help make it so.