2/12/26
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I’ve felt this need to document everything going on with my life. Not because i think it’s good but it actually is good lol
- i feel like my memory actually peaked in high school and it’s just been on the decline since then…rip. i feel like this was also partly due to COVID19… i have a pretty big gut feeling. nothing really felt the same after covid, i’ve struggled with brain fog immensely since then.. (i also cant believe COVID was 7 years ago??)
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During my stay at Korea, I’ve had the time to see the characteristics of the dev community here, which was quite different from US.
- Unlike America where there is no particular emphasis on documentation, here in Korea every developer is expected to document their projects/events/thoughts, probably led to blogging platforms being popularized (velog, tistory, naver blog, etc.)
- This is also why I think that… in the US a resume is expected to be only 1 page, but in korea, a resume can be up to 2-4 pages even for an intern/new grad. In korea, people also put a self-introductory summary essay (1-2 paragraphs) on the top (!), which is something u should never do if ur applying in the US lol
- This characteristic? tradition? actually influenced me in a positive way because I’ve noticed that even for my personal projects/experiences I couldn’t remember many of the details of what happened.. so i realized i need to adapt this because it would really benefit me in the long run (my memory sucks)
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Some things in particular
- Writing generally helps me to remember things, both handwritten and typed (although more handwritten).
- When i consciously write down something to form a thought, when i try to remember something about that specific topic i wrote i can actually remember what i wrote. Now this should be fairly obvious, and it is something that literally everyone says, but somehow i’m only seeing the effects now?
- The important thing is that the writing should be formed by me, as in i should be the one consciously selecting the words to write, and not just copy pasting some article or LLM generated text (which just gives me prettier notes). I need to do the annoying act of actually parsing the info and writing it in my own words.
topic -> parsing (with brain) -> writing abt topic
- ALSO this helps in remembering my life, like actually fr
- documenting my experiences with friends/family, what i am thinking about, things that happened around me, games i played, places i went, food reviews, etc. writing helps to remember life better.
- On top of remembering things, writing has helped me to understand things better too.
- Again, this should be very obvious… but for a long time i was stuck in this cycle where if i had summarized notes for a particular topic i thought i actually understood it… But when someone asks me about it, i would sometimes forget a lot of the important portions/details. Which meant I actually didn’t really understand it.
- Also writing not only helps in academic studies at UW or taking online courses, but it generally helps in, like, all areas of life.
- fleshing out your thoughts and opinions in general, making u more opinionated
- media analysis (did u agree/disagree? what is the message? what is good/bad?)
- seeing news & understanding what tf is happening (piecing together the information on the internet → seeing the picture/coming to a conclusion)
- solving different problems (getting info/context, making steps for conclusion)
- structuring messy, tangled thoughts into coherent structure
- for example if i am overwhelmed with tons of things to do, i can just write down step by step and sort things out. i don’t know the science behind this but i know it HELPS
- fleshing out your thoughts and opinions in general, making u more opinionated
- related note: learning + understanding things
- Writing generally helps me to remember things, both handwritten and typed (although more handwritten).
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some other resources/inspirations