Journal Week 10 — A Full Week

Brief

This week, I took on a pretty funny number of commitments, but at the same time, I was able to make progress on and finish quite a few of them.

What’s new?

First of all, I finally gave my TED Talk. Honestly, it was meh—I got pretty nervous. After the talk, I got past that mental block and thought of a topic that I believe would have been much better to expand on.

Second, an old friend from other projects recommended that I learn about profiling in Cloudflare for another side project and get familiar with the tool. I STILL HAVE NOT DONE IT :D, but I should, especially because this blog is hosted on Cloudflare and it is a very useful tool.

Also, I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago, I was assigned mandatory company courses about security and cybersecurity in general. I had procrastinated on them, and honestly, I finished them about ten minutes before writing the end of this entry.

I still have a meeting pending as part of my university tasks, which also include this journal entry. I just realized that I had not submitted the previous two entries either xD.

I joined a part of Oracle’s internship program where I need to share part of my internship experience with future generations. I also need to create a couple of slides for a presentation related to the program.

I signed up for an integral-calculus tournament at my university because… why not? I have always been a fan of mathematics, especially calculus. Honestly, though, I have gotten pretty rusty, so I should start practicing again.

I had a session with my university mentor to validate my graduation requirements. Soon, I will be a full-fledged engineer :D

I still need to make progress on my internship project.

And, to top it all off, I ended up in a software-development competition or something like that.

But well, let us take it one step at a time…

Ted talk?

My TED Talk was a reinterpretation of a talk I heard in mentoring courses I had to take because I was once a mentor for incoming students. It was about purpose in life and how having one can improve our quality of life simply by existing.

My speech was not that good; I did not know how to give it the right amount of time. Afterward, I realized I could have talked about my favorite mathematician instead: Évariste Galois. I have always believed he is an example of how, even with little time or by entering a field “late,” someone can make great contributions.

Intermediate tasks?

In the end, I was able to take the mandatory work courses and upload my blog entries to the corresponding university assignment. I still need to schedule the meeting that is also part of the assignment, but I think that will be easier. I just have not known what time or day would be best.

For the internship program, I was given around a month to create and complete what I need to do.

My graduation requirements are mostly in order. I only need to validate my English level with a certificate. I plan to take the Duolingo English Test to keep things simple.

Competitions?

Yep, I ended up signing up for several competitions next month, and I hope I have time to study and practice for them.

First, the integral-calculus competition. I have always liked calculus. I have previously entered competitions organized by my university that also include other schools, also focused on integrals, and I have done quite well. In the first one, I placed second; in the last one, I tied for first place with other incredible mathematicians from the University of Guadalajara. I am very passionate about calculus, so practicing has never been a burden—it is something I genuinely enjoy.

The development competition has a funny story behind it. I was playing Minecraft with a friend from another university when he told me that one of his friends had left him on a team project to work with someone who was not involved in software. So I impulsively said, “I could help if you want…” I probably should have asked for the details first, haha. In the end, I signed up for a competition hosted by his university and supported by the Mexican Federation of Engineering and Sciences. That was funny because it involved restrictions I had not considered. Anyway, I will do my best to help him. At first, I was worried because I thought the project would have more restrictions on programming languages and frameworks. But after learning that it was a competition rather than regular work, and after asking my friend to check with his professor, I was able to help the team settle on an approach I am more familiar with.

Learning and progress

I have many things to practice in my personal development. There are many stages I need to move through for my university and for the projects I have already signed up for and committed to. All that remains is to give it my all and make projects I can be proud of.

Next steps

• Finish my pending university tasks.

• Read Cloudflare’s profiling blog post.

• Practice my calculus skills again.

• Start the team project with my friend from another university.

• Complete the tasks assigned by Oracle’s internship program.

Reflections

This week, I may have taken on a few too many responsibilities, but I think a life without challenges does not have the same flavor. I want to enjoy every experience, and I hope this extra workload helps me gain a better perspective across different projects and lets me use more tools.