• At this time last year, I had just started a new job and still felt uncomfortable with the new environment and new set of technologies. Over the course of the year, I learned a lot (and realized that, especially at a start-up, everyone is still trying to figure things out). I also grew to appreciate how awesome the team I work with is. Next year, I am looking forward to working on a new project.

  • Specifically, I learned some things about modern distributed computing, which let me write a lot of Spark code that continues to save my company time and money.

  • I participated in a protest and called my representatives, both of which were new experiences for me.

  • Zi and I went to Malaysia for a wedding and to see family, and we added on a trip to Cambodia. Angkor Wat is really beautiful, and most of it is not as crowded as the main temple.

  • I read 15 books this year, which is a pretty big accomplishment for me. I did not read for fun much during graduate school. See below for the books I enjoyed the most.

  • I improved my baking skills. I made a few types of bread, pie, and a chocolate babka that received rave reviews.

Reading

  • My favorite book of 2017 was Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan. It is a well-written memoir about a lot more than surfing.

  • I also liked Ghost Wars, by Steven Coll, which covers the CIA’s long history in Afghanistan (yes, it’s long), and Haruki Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

  • Evan Osnos wrote a great, long piece in the New Yorker about the risk of nuclear war with North Korea, after he took a reporting trip there.

  • ProPublica, which does a lot of great journalism, did a series on maternal mortality. I have not read their most recent installment yet, but the piece before that digs into why black women die in childbirth at much higher rates than white women.

Watching/Listening

  • My favorite movie of the year, by far, was Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In fact, it may have been my favorite Star Wars movie period (heresy, I know).

  • We really enjoyed watching The Great British Bake-Off (available on PBS and Netflix). The characters are lovely, and there is a lot less manufactured drama than in American cooking shows. It definitely inspired me to bake more.

  • I love listening to podcasts, about anything from politics and policy to football and cooking. My favorite general purpose show is The Ezra Klein Show, which features interviews of people from all walks of public life. My favorite individual show was Recode Decode’s episode with Sheryl Sandberg that focused on grief.