Final Update Summer Bucket List 2022

Drawing to the end of a wonderful summer

Summer at a Glance

My summer break started a few months back. At that time it seemed like an almost endless period of time. One in which I could do all sorts of interesting, useful and fun things. And I had a long enough list of things to keep myself occupied with.

Almost 4 months later, I feel a sense of reminiscence and satisfaction when I look back at the summer. On the whole, I would say that I have largely achieved most of what I set out to. In such a long period of time, I have of course had changes of mood, mind and mentality. Even with a little bit of redirection, I feel like I have been able to lay out and work towards a set of projects that I have thoroughly enjoyed and grown through.

Wrapping Up My Summer Bucket List for 2022

To cut to the chase, here's how my summer bucket list has played out over the last few months:

1. Summarise my MBA
This was by far the biggest and most ambitious project that I took on this summer. I thought that I might put together 200-300 pages of notes consolidated into simple frameworks and stories. I have ended up writing closer to 400 pages.
Most importantly, I am quite happy with the book. I am happy because I feel far more in touch with all that I have learnt over the last 2 years. Synthesising what I learnt and connecting the dots in my mind was the number one objective. I am also happy because I believe that the book that I have put together is truly a useful resource that I have created for people entering, in or exiting B school. It feels great to have created something big, of actual value.
While I finished writing the book before the end of June. The process of creating a cover, proof-reading, getting feedback and publishing the book has proven to be far more time consuming than anticipated. For the last few weeks, the ball has been out of my court, and I'm hoping that the book should be available, at least digitally, early in August.

2. An Attempt at Fitness
My small improvements in fitness have been the most consistent part of the summer. It is also one of the bucket list items that I need to keep active in my life well past the summer.
I have succeeded in meeting my short term fitness goals. More relevant to me is the increased feeling of fitness and health. Sustaining the flexible exercise routine that I have put in place is now part of my long term goals.

3. Back to Driving
Getting through this bucket list item proved to be a necessity. Getting comfortable with driving once again was an important life skill that I had to gain. In this situation, it was only practice and repeated practice that was required. I was lucky enough to have enough empty hours in the day to drive through non-peak traffic hours before my confidence built up once again. And now getting around in Bangalore has become significantly easier.

4. Set up a Home
Not only my room, but also the apartment at large has pretty much been setup. We have been living here quite comfortably, and have even found a third flatmate. This bucket list item has also been happily ticked off. I have gone through my room setup in a lot of detail in my post on room setup summer of 2022.

5. Find a Little Fashion
I have started learning small little bits about fashion. I have even done a complete wardrobe revamp. I'm sure I'm not yet close to being "fashionable". But given the very low base that I started off at, I'm sure that I will be dressing much much better at formal and social occassions. I am rather pleased with what I have thus far documented under my fashion learnings. And the hope is to bring this in as a project again every now and then, till I can say that I have a decent fashion sense.

6. Stabilise My Lifestyle
One of the luxuries of starting work much later than my peers is that I can observe, learn and improvise. I have a better sense of what to expect, and have spent a good amount of time reflecting on how I would like to improve my lifestyle compared to my first 2 years of work.
I am right now reasonably confident that I have a few good systems in place that will help me maintain some work life balance. More importantly, I have a few mechanism in place to organise my personal, social and family life a bit better. With some luck and a lot of deliberate effort, I will be able to sustain these "life systems" through work and further improve upon them. I intend to elaborate on this and other ideas under the organisation page.

7. Dabble in Computer Science
At a stage, I thought I wouldn't have any time at all for this bucket list item. But I finally did spend a few days at least working on cleaning up my website a bit. I can't say that I have learnt more CS in the process. But at least a few ToDos were brushed out of the way. All of the big learning projects on this front will have to keep being scheduled in over time.

8. Cook
This bucket list item was dumped in favour of my education project. I have already covered good ground here, last winter. And I shall cover more, as a part of my education project.

9. Read
This bucket list item has been amongst the most satisfying of the lot. I have read well over 20 books, which was initially my target for the year. It's probably a modest target for a lot of people. But I haven't really developed enough of a reading habit until just this year. And I'm quite proud to say that I have read a lot lot more this summer than I ever have before. Better yet, I have really been feeling the joy of reading and learning. So, I expect that I will be carrying this habit forward.

10. Look Back at The Marvel Comic Universe
This bucket list item was also dumped in favour of my education project. It doesn't seem quite as important or exciting as my education project at the moment. I will of course touch upon it, in some way or form in the future.

11. My "Education Project"
There wasn't a super clear goal for me to work towards over this summer on this front. but I was very excited about getting started and figuring out what I'm working towards. That much I have embarked upon. And I'm not expecting too much clarity for the next year or two. But I like that I have started learning more about the space of education. It has been interesting for me. And I plan to keep paving the way to figure out what exactly I can do in this space under the education page.