Time has that unique property — the year seems to have flown by, yet there were times in the year when an hour seemed like ages to me. Sometime I wish I could rewind to the last new year’s eve, and set some things right. This year had its share of joys and sorrows, and on the whole it was a big learning experience for me. I met a lot of new people and made (perhaps discovered/realized is the better word) some very good friends. I can’t claim I came out a happy and satisfied man at the end, but then thats seldom the case.

I can divide this year into three phases — pre-summer, summer, and post-summer.

Pre-summer was the most significant: I failed to prepare the dilation paper in time for SIGCOMM, and barely managed to push it into SOSP; I went through the most painful week of my life and it almost broke me; I re-realized how friends can be the supporting pillars in times of crises; I bought my first car in the US (she’s a beauty!) and had an amazing time driving up to the Bay Area.

The summer (internship) period was a time for new people and places: I had a great time with a wonderful bunch of interns at HP; I had tons of fun-filled weekends playing taboo and pictionary and roaming around the Bay Area scouting for food places with my friends; I learned what it was like to work in an industrial research lab; I moved my web site to paid hosting and discovered Textdrive; I started taking an interest in web based technology and related startups; and I became formally involved with the Apache Forrest project.

Post summer, it was mostly a follow through in the momentum of the past events: submitted NSDI paper; met up with Jason and had him take a picture of me with davie; got involved with Udai; I began an introspection that will hopefully evolve into something meaningful in the coming year; made a trip to India; started working towards a USENIX paper;

I don’t believe in new year resolution, but there //are// some things I look forward to doing in the coming year. In short, I need to fix all the things about my life that I don’t feel good about: my working style (I think I can be far more productive than I am if I stop wasting time in the less important things), I need to put some more enthusiasm in the work at hand, and in general I need to act more and think less.

I also do hope to get some more experience and exposure, and meet some more people. Finally, I hope to continue the introspection I began some weeks back — its basically a small effort on my part to try and understand who I really am, both at an individual level, as a person, but also at a more global and societal level. Whats my identity as an Indian? What does it mean to be an Indian? What is our identity as global citizens of the world? Do we even need a national or even a global identity? And so on.

Globally speaking, 2005 was perhaps one of the worst years in recent times. We saw the terrible Tsunami, the US elections, the deadly hurricanes, the Iraq war, the earthquakes, the terrorist attacks, the bird flu and several other unpleasentries. But I hope, as a race, as a civilization, we end the year at a positive note, with hope in our hearts that mankind will yet come out with warmth and compassion and show the vitality and spirit that has helped it survive tumultous times before.

This post might sound pessimistic and cynical, but things are not as bad as they seem. Its just that when I sit down to think, its usually the bad things that stand out.

Here’s wishing everyone a great new years ahead!