2019 was a fascinating year for me. I learned so many things and met so many people. I forged strong relationships and discovered a lot about myself. I worked hard and achieved many of my goals but also failed in many ways and realized how many things I need to improve on. I traveled around the world and I missed home. Thank God, I was healthy and my parents and friends were also healthy and I am grateful to be have been given opportunities to realize my dreams and pursue my interests.

The year is almost at an end. I am grateful to be able to spend these last 2 days in my home, with my parents. I will not work in this time. Instead, I will devote time to reflecting on the year that has passed and examine what I did, what I learned, where I can improve upon and what exactly I can change in the future.

How to fit one year into one post? Shall I examine 2019 chronologically? Or maybe categorically? I have decided to reflect in a categorical fashion. That is, I will first try to list out what I have learned academically, then I will look back on the relationships I have built, thus drawing some conclusions about what I have learned in a social setting and lastly I will try to look back on my travels and general experiences and see how my personality has changed in comparison to last year. I will not mention names or become overly specific about any information that doesn’t concern me.

1. Academics and work

I took a lot of very interesting classes this year, in Mathematics, Computer Science, Middle Eastern Studies and Russian Literature.

In Computer Science, I learned about:

• • Generic Algorithms. The course covered topics from the famous CLRS book. Proofs of complexity and correctness were generally covered. Among the topics covered were:
    • Graph algorithms: Topological sort, Minimum Spanning Trees (Kruskal + Prim), SSSP and APSP, Maximum Flow.
    • Data Structures: Red-Black Trees, Heaps, Binary Indexed Trees, Segment Trees, Union-Find Disjoint Sets.
    • Algorithmic design: Dynamic Programming, Exhaustive Search and Greedy.
    • Complexity analysis: Expected running time, Average case running time, Amortized Complexity, Recursion solving
    • Sorting algorithms
    • String matching algorithms
    • Medians and order statistics
  • Theory of Computation. A very fascinating topic. The course was particularly difficult, but offered me the chance to gain real mastery with the concepts presented. Among the topics covered were:
    • Finite Automata, Regular Expressions and Regular languages. Design of automata. Equivalence of deterministic and non-deterministic automata and regular expressions. Pumping lemma for regular languages.
    • Context-Free languages: push-down automata, context free grammars, pumping lemma, equivalence of PDAs and CFGs.
    • Turing Machines: mathematical definitions and properties.
    • Decidability, recognizability and unrecognizability of certain languages. Proofs by reduction.
    • Computational complexity theory: NP-completeness. Reduction proofs. 3-SAT and related problems. Cook-Levin Theorem. Computational Tableaux.
  • Smartphone Programming in Android. Learning how Android APIs work in Java was quite interesting. There are a couple of concepts underlying the way an app works. Stuff like fragments, activities, XML and the UI, services, Google APIs like Firebase and Google Maps, Databases ans SQLite are all topics covered in the relevant course. I made an app called MyRuns, which was basically an activity tracker with GPS, database and cloud support and an app called NoChances, an antithesis to dating apps, whose function is to help people avoid each other!
  • Machine Learning Basics. This course was definitely a great experience. I had a first experience of what everyone refers to as the current “trend” in Computer Science – data science. The way I see it, the task at hand is basically modeling the world not through precise equations as mathematicians do, but through existing instances of recorded facts. No one can take into account all possible factors that lead to a patient exhibiting some type of disease, but by considering millions of example cases and hundreds of measurable factors, we can statistically make assumptions with high accuracy. In the course, I learned about lots of classifiers, like Naive Bayes, Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, Perceptrons, Logistic Regression and others. I also learned about clustering algorithms and a little bit about feature engineering.
  • Compilers. I learned the basics of how compilers work. Going from lexical analysis to syntactic analysis with lex and yacc (byson) and then to an intermediate representations and optimizations (both global and local). Finally, I learned about code generation techniques and a little bit of Assembly. I actually built my own compiler for a small C-like language.
  • Mixed Reality and 3D design. Through a research project, I investigated programming Mixed Reality interfaces. I experimented a lot both with hardware and software, learned the Unity platform and also investigated a bit how to make a simple server-client connection for an MR interface. Along the way, I picked up some 3d design skills in blender and Unity, realizing however how vast the field is and how much of an art it constitutes.
  • Communication Complexity: As a research assistant, I learned the basis of a field in theoretical computer science that studies the efficiency of information exchange. I studied basic communication protocols, rectangle and rank methods of proving lower bounds for complexity, randomized protocols (public and private coin), distributional complexity and Yao’s lemma and the method of discrepancy. I also started investigating some properties of the Direct Sum problem and focused a bit on the disjointness function and its communication complexity properties.

In Mathematics, I learned about:

• • Galois Theory and Field Theory: This branch of mathematics was really interesting and I can definitely say that I have not mastered it. Starting from field extensions, I learned about automorphisms, Galois extensions, Kummer extensions and the theory of polynomials. The class was particularly hard, but I learned a lot.
  • Complex Analysis: Complex numbers are really powerful and have some fascinating properties. I learned about how we define differentiation and integration of complex-valued functions. I learned about properties of analytic functions, about the Cauchy Integral formula, Liouiville’s Theorem and the Maximum Modulus Principle. I also learned about complex series and about residues. Later, I also investigated the topic of analytic continuation.
  • Other topics: I investigated by myself some other topics in mathematics, although I didn’t really dive in much depth. I looked into some number theory, with Riemann’s zeta function and into some information theory, with the basics of entropy. I also learned some basics of mathematical game theory.

I also learned a lot about Middle Eastern culture and history by taking the relevant introductory course at Dartmouth. I did research on Syria’s recent civil war and found out about some facts which I was largely ignorant of in the past.

Finally, I read some literature this year:

• War and Peace, by Lev Tolstoy. I really enjoyed this book. Reading it took a lot of time, due to its sheer size. But the descriptions are stunning and the story is fascinating. The book also made me think about life philosophically in ways I hadn’t before. I took a class on Tolstoy’s literature, the professor for which I absolutely loved. She really helped me develop my passion for Tolstoy and take as much as I could from reading his works.
• Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I haven’t finished that one yet. I am really liking it though.
• Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, the first critically acclaimed work by Tolstoy in his 20s.
• A lot of short stories by Tolstoy: Father Sergius, The Death of Ivan Ilych, Sevastopol Tales, Kroytzer Sonata, Master and Man

2. Social Matters

I have definitely built more relationships this year than any other year of my life. Initially, I think this can be attributed to a fervent desire within me to overcome a certain social insecurity: the constant desire of being needed. That feeling was consistently making me feel insufficient, and my seeking of social interactions was often, consciously of sub-consciously, aimed at extinguishing it. So I was living for myself. I was seeking friends to make myself feel needed. I recognized that selfishness within me and tried to move away from it.

I tried giving to people. I don’t have many things that people want from me, at least materially. I wouldn’t want to give in that sense either. But what I could give, I tried to give. I gave people time and attention. I gave them myself and I opened up and become more vulnerable. Many times this wasn’t appreciated and I was hurt. But many other times it was appreciated and I was really happy. I felt that giving unconditionally produced a happiness within me which I hadn’t felt before, at least intentionally.

However, I started to realize at some point that not everyone seeks to take from me. Deep inside me, I guess I was thinking of giving as a way to connect with everyone. Not being able to connect meant I just had to give more. But in building relationships with people, giving must necessarily be accompanied by at least some taking. One doesn’t demand nor expect to take, but mutual love necessitates some form of balance. Giving and taking also mustn’t be in the same form. Both people can contributed different things to keep the relationship alive. Their will to do so however, must be common and of relatively similar intensity. If only one person has a strong desire to cultivate the relationship and the other person does not, maybe the only way to guide the relationship to its natural state of equilibrium is for the one passionate giver to “back-off”. It is important to note here also, that “giving” and “taking” are very relative terms. One might, from their point of view, consider themselves as giving a lot, while the receiver might not even understand a tiny bit of what is being given to them, if any. Some agreement on these points of view is also necessary, at least in some subconscious level, for a relationship to blossom. But even a slight disagreement doesn’t ruin things. One thing that I have learned is that some things require effort to become effortless. Effort is usually good because it shows good intentions, but to stop trying is many times really hard and perhaps the best thing to do.

In total, I learned that it is important to have a balance and feel about giving in as much of an unconditional way as possible. One must not think about exchanges as a medium of feeling good only about themselves. People are interesting and beautiful and one can miss this beauty thinking only about their own self and image.

3. Traveling, Hobbies and Outlook on Life

I traveled around a lot this year. Let me list out all the places I went to, in chronological order:

• Athens, Greece
• Hanover, NH, USA
• Boston, MA, USA
• New Orleans, LA, USA -> LowerNine.org volunteer work
• Montreal, Canada -> RGLP Immersion Experience
• Athens, Greece -> Sounio! Beaches.
• Florina, Greece
• Hanover, NH, USA
• (close to) Springfield, MA, USA -> Six Flags New England
• San Jose, California, USA
• Sunnyvale, California, USA -> Google!
• Palo Alto, California, USA
• San Fransisco, California, USA -> Fog. Didn’t see the bridge 🙁
• Santa Clara, California, USA -> Swam in the pacific! Cold!
• Hanover, NH, USA -> UGA Training. Camp Akeela.
• Trips 2019! -> Trip leader! Hiking 2!
• Boston, MA, USA -> Swim meet at Harvard
• New York City, USA -> Columbia University, Ivy ISA Conference
• Boston, MA, USA
• Athens, Greece -> Driving lessons
• Barcelona, Spain -> Sagrada Familia!
• Granada, Spain -> Alhabra, tour of city!
• Malaga, Spain -> Beautiful beach and castle
  • Ronda, Spain -> Beautiful cliff and old city
• Barcelona, Spain -> reached park guell. Closed because of wind 🙁
• Athens, Greece
• Thessaloniki, Greece -> Reunions 🙂 Harbors, swimming pool, city center
• Florina, Greece
• Patra, Greece -> Saw bridge of Rio-Antirrio! Quick stop for pizza
• Athens, Greece -> War and Peace in theater.
• Bansko, Bulgaria -> Snowboarding!
• Athens, Greece -> Back home, reflecting on 2019!

Adding all the airports, I have been to this year, we get this map (I forgot Montreal):

I have taken up some new hobbies this year as well:

• Go (Chinese board game)
• Russian Literature
• Snowboarding
• Board games

As for my outlook on life, definitely a lot of things have changed this past year. I have learned some lessons which I will try to list below:

1. Live with love. This is the best way I can phrase it. I have learned that the most gratifying way to do things is with care and love. In every little thing we do, every little moment we live, we must live it with love. This is how work gains its best quality and how relationships gain the most meaning and authenticity.
2. Enjoy doubting. We must doubt everything we think we know. When we rest assured in knowledge we consider gained about life, we discover that there are countless other perspectives that may negate what we learned. There is no right answer or a single correct way to live. But there are always things to learn.
3. Live and let live. There are some things we cannot control. No matter how much I would like to sometimes, I cannot control how people act, what they think and what they do. That is something one needs to come to terms with.
4. Reflect critically. 
5. Be compassionate and empathetic
6. Don’t take yourself (or anyone) too seriously .
7. Keep your eyes and ears open!
8. Don’t judge anyone (or yourself) too harshly.

So that’s my reflection on 2019! In about 3 hours, it will be 2020 and I will devote time to planning out a new decade! I’m sure it will be very different from the last. I will keep updating this post if I think of anything else that I can put on the list of things I can recall for 2019, but for now, that’s it!

Happy 2019!