Tag:

journaling

Chronicles of Optimizing BluLexi - Part 2!
Journals

OPTIMIZING BLULEXI: BEHIND THE SCENES PART 2

by Yasin Ghasemi

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my daily journal. Please note that the content shared here is for personal documentation purposes only. It doesn’t involve significant matters; it’s a simple daily reflection. Thanks for understanding!

I’m here after two days! 🎉 And it has been a hell of a two-day experience. There’s so much to share that my mind is blowing up, and I don’t even know where to start!

On December 4, two days ago, I went to a track in my home for a nice speedwork session. It was just me, some of my faster teammates, and my coach. It was a really fun session, although I couldn’t break my 400-meter PR. What a shame. I was short of only 2 seconds.

The session felt good, generally. But the weather was so polluted that the mountains in the North of Tehran couldn’t be seen clearly! 😷 I had a terrible headache all day. It was a really tough day. I gave myself some rest and binge-watched some good YouTube content. This is basically how I spent my precious time on December 4.

But December 5, yesterday, was a great day. There was no sign of that damn headache. I had talked with Pouya previously to join him in their country house to sit down and pinpoint our focus on BluLexi. So I went there. We hung out for a bit and then planned for the day. He worked on the front while I started working on our Telegram bot’s logic.

Sometime around midnight, the code for the logic was finished. It worked seamlessly. It felt like a great personal achievement. Before sleep, Pouya took over and refactored my code for better readability and understandability. We left it at that.

This morning, we woke up to a beautiful day. We had some breakfast and headed to our laptops for more work. Pouya worked on the aesthetics of the Telegram bot. Now, it looks beautiful! I’m proud of what we’ve done so far. Meanwhile, I worked on our Telegram channel. I created it, gave it some color, and prepared it for future use. It’s gonna be a great added value to BluLexi.

Proximity is really the key. When Pouya and I were at home working on the project in our personal space, it wasn’t as fruitful as this. Right now, we’re sharing our burning enthusiasm for the growth of BluLexi. And that is catapulting the whole project miles ahead.

For the rest of today, we will finish designing the bot completely. We should rent a virtual server for the bot and for setting up the website and mailing server. We need to do our market research. So, the plan is to share this bot and our material with some users today so they can come and test it. I’m really hopeful that we get some precious feedback. For now, using BluLexi is completely free but a bit limited.

Just a few minutes ago, we realized we could build another bot to create awesome content for our Telegram channel! That is a whole other project that we’re gonna work on in a few days. First, we need to add the WordPaper feature to the website. That’s very important. Hopefully, by the end of tomorrow, we will have that. The journey of building an awesome product is never-ending!

Stay tuned for some exciting news!
Hugs 🤗

0 comment
2 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Discipline is destiny!
Journals

Discipline Is Destiny!

by Yasin Ghasemi

Hello, hello, hello!

Yesterday was a very lazy day. I woke up at about 9 AM, left Parisa’s house, and went for a run. I didn’t eat almost anything, just a spoonful of honey, and it felt really bad during the run because I was hungry all along the way.

I came home, ate my brunch, and because I was still hungry, I ate my lunch a few minutes later. I had a nap. I woke up and felt absolutely terrible. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, I see the need for a nap to refresh my mind, but if the nap lasts for more than 20 minutes, I wake up feeling really bad, like I was beaten up. It’s a really bad feeling, and aside from that, you suddenly get that rush that you are behind your schedule and need to do everything just to be on schedule. That’s a really bad feeling, so yesterday, I had this bad feeling all evening.

I talked with Pouya about BluLexi. He asked me to help him code the backend. It’s a bit challenging for me because, first, I don’t have the confidence, and second, I don’t even know where to start. Pouya can help me with the second part, but the first part is about confidence; only you can help me have better confidence. So, the plan for today is to write a script for user authentication. I don’t know if I can do it today or if it will take longer, but I will do my best.

Being self-disciplined is absolutely necessary if one wants to succeed in one’s life. At the same time, I have discovered that self-discipline is one of the most difficult virtues a person can adopt. Being punctual, being organized, and having humility are also very important virtues, but I believe practicing them is much easier than self-discipline.

I don’t know if this applies to everyone or is just me, but I can be more disciplined when someone else tells me what to do. It would be a challenge if I want to organize my life for myself because I often cannot perform based on the agenda or the schedule I make up for myself. Maybe the problem is with the schedule I mentioned, but I often procrastinate and don’t do things the way I should. Actually, I do them on a really good day, but I do not deliver them in a timely manner.

BluLexi and being out of employment simultaneously teach me how to be more organized and develop some kind of self-discipline. If I want to succeed in any aspect of my life, I believe self-discipline is very important, so I’m taking it really seriously these days by coming here, writing my journals, and going for daily runs because these two things help me stay on track, and I can hook my schedule for the important stuff to these things. For example, I start reading about important and necessary articles for BluLexi right after I wake up and before I go for a run or immediately make a small to-do list before journaling. These small things have helped me to stay on track, although I am very much behind my schedule, and today is Friday.

Fridays are off in Iran. We have decided to launch the next version of BluLexi today, and I feel like a student who hasn’t done his homework all week and should deliver all of it right now. So today’s a very busy day.

Let’s focus and do the tasks one by one
See ya

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
My friend Parisa is leaving to study abroad. We hung out for one last time.
Journals

Friendship’s Twists and Turns: From Childhood to Adulthood

by Yasin Ghasemi

Hello everyone

Yesterday was an interesting day. I skipped running because I had to see one of my friends. I went to see Parisa. Parisa is technically my oldest friend. I actually don’t know when we first met up and became friends. But we’ve been friends since early childhood.

Parisa’s parents were MDs, and mine were teachers. They were our neighbors. We spent a good amount of time together for years. She went to music classes. I went there too. She went to English classes. I went there too, but skipped most sessions. She was one of my good friends in those days. Her family left the town and went to live in another city. A year later, we left the town too.

That was when we almost lost contact. Back then, none of us had cell phones or emails; we were kids. It was a complete silence. Fast forward 15 years, and one night, my uncle called me and said he had found Parisa! How he found her is a whole other story. Let’s save it for later. We got in touch again in October 2019.

We met up in a cafe and hung out for a few hours. There was a lot to catch up. She had grown up, but her face hadn’t changed a bit. We talked a lot, took a selfie, said goodbye, and went our separate ways. Then covid came, and we didn’t see each other for a long while. We were in touch, but no meet-ups.

Last night, I went over to see her. She’s leaving to study abroad in a month. It’s a weird feeling. She’s my oldest friend, yet we haven’t spent much time together. That little time we shared, we were through much. And now, we’re losing touch again. Our friendship has never meant to be too deep for long. Or have we cautiously chosen not to? I’ve been a bit puzzled over this since this morning.

We had a night of passion. I don’t have her consent to talk about it in more detail, nor do I want to share x-rated stuff on my blog! But I can say that it was a fun night. We didn’t talk about our feelings for one another. We dodged our emotions by discussing superficial subjects. Our eyes communicated so many untold words and sentences when we said goodbye this morning, but our lips only uttered, “goodbye, take care.”

Human relations are so complicated. I wish we had been reunited in a better time and place. Then suddenly, I remind myself that this time and place might be the best time and place. I hope to see her soon. She’s off to a new, adventurous life. Who knows what life serves us? Maybe I go to her new place to see her. And there’s this massive race which is on my bucket list. I might see her and do that race. It would be awesome. 2024 already looks surprisingly exciting.

About today, I didn’t do much. I organized my files, tidied up my room, cleaned up some mess, and thought about the future of BluLexi. Tomorrow’s the day for the new version of BluLexi. I’m so excited about it. It’s getting into shape, I guess. As Gaga says, “we don’t know how to rhyme but damn we try.”

Let’s give BluLexi all I have and see what it becomes
Love you people

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
GPT is the greatest tool I've seen. But it takes some work to get the hang of it!
Journals

GPT Tales: A Night of Endless Trials

by Yasin Ghasemi

Greetings fellows

Yesterday was an exciting day. I talked about how it began in the previous blog post. I used text-to-speech to jot down my thoughts while driving back home. Then used GPT to correct sentences grammatically and extend it a little bit. 

After I arrived home, I didn’t take a cold shower, unfortunately. I forgot to do so. Instead, I took a long nap. I realized I’m a bit lethargic from 10 am to 12 pm. That’s weird. I had a perfect 8-hour sleep last night, yet at 10 this morning, I felt I needed to wind down a bit for an hour or so. No matter when I wake up, 10 am is when my eyelashes become too heavy to hold up.

I spent the rest of yesterday working on BluLexi. I coded a Python script for Google OAuth. I didn’t think it would work. But it worked! And that boosted my confidence dramatically. When Pouya asked me to do it, I thought oh man, that would take years. But with some help from GPT, I did it. 

About GPT, something hilarious happened last night when I asked it to help me with the OAuth task. The prompt was simple and to the point, “give me a script for google oauth,” or something along these lines. It provided a bulk of code. Asked it to provide a test. Ran the code. An error popped up. Copied the error for GPT and asked it to solve the issue. Gave some suggestions. None of them worked. And it was when that endless cycle of trial and error started. I even used GPT4, and it didn’t return useful results.

The problem was that GPT was using libraries with deprecated methods. And it was not telling me what alternatives could be used for those methods! All of a sudden, something came to my mind. I asked it to handle the job without using any libraries. It returned a big block of code. It worked! I was happy deep inside. I ran it, and it worked.

The interesting thing is that as much as GPT can be useful and can make life easier, it can also make life much harder. If you’re completely unaware of a subject, like I was about Google OAuth, and if it gives you wrong information, you may spend the next couple of hours fixing a hot mess of wrong information. And it keeps getting worse when you ask it to fix bugs. Unless you suddenly realize what’s wrong and how to fix it. Use GPT for things you are familiar with.

Onto today, I had a lazy morning. Woke up immediately, grabbed my laptop, and started working on on BluLexi tasks. That Google OAuth had given me some good confidence and motivation. Had some breakfast. Eyelashes started to have a situation as described earlier. Winded down a little bit. Did some extra work on BluLexi. And now here I am.

Yesterday, I worked on a prompt to solve the issue with my code. I mean that code for the coding project. I need to work on it later today to see if I can finish it once and for all. I’m confident I can. If this bug is fixed, there will be only 2 more steps to finish the project off.

Let’s hope for the best, and shoot for the moon
Cheers

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
A joyful run with Afrooz, and talking about the role of commitment in life.
Journals

Commitment Chronicles: Embracing the Run of Life

by Yasin Ghasemi

Good morning, beautiful people. Today unfolded with a remarkable start as I embarked on a refreshing run alongside my coach and newfound running companions, eager amateurs embarking on the journey of learning to run. The joy of encountering familiar faces from the past further heightened the experience, creating a sense of camaraderie.

Our 5K run with Afrooz took an unexpected turn in the middle of our route as a gentle drizzle began to fall, casting a serene ambiance over our journey. Amidst the rhythmic pattering of raindrops, our conversation flowed freely, touching on a myriad of topics, including some light-hearted gossip about our fellow running enthusiasts. These recovery runs, filled with friendly chats, have become cherished moments of connection.

Yet, beneath the surface of this uplifting day, a subtle undercurrent of sadness prevailed. The weight of uncompleted tasks, neglected in the past few days, cast a shadow. I found myself frozen and unproductive, unable to face my responsibilities until the late afternoon. Only then did I rally, delving into a data set for BlueLexi with determination.

The paradox of being busy but unproductive emerged as a personal challenge, one I grapple with despite a full plate of commitments. The looming coding project, particularly unappealing and devoid of passion, stood as a formidable task that demanded attention.

As I reflect on today’s run, which, while not intensive, left me in need of rejuvenation, I contemplate the day ahead. A soothing shower and a wholesome breakfast set the stage for confronting the less glamorous side of my routine—the coding project. Though lacking in intrinsic motivation, I recognize the need for commitment to propel me forward.

Drawing parallels to my recent marathon training, I acknowledge the inevitable fade of initial passion, replaced by fatigue. In such moments, commitment emerges as the unwavering force that prevents surrender. This realization becomes crucial as the motivation for BluLexi development and coding project completion rapidly wanes.

However, the impending release of the new version of BluLexi on Friday injects a renewed sense of purpose. Pouya’s commendable efforts in managing various aspects of the project, from the website to user interface, contribute to the overall momentum. With two looming deadlines this week—for BluLexi and the coding project—I set my sights on overcoming these challenges, striving for a triumphant update when we reconvene.

See you soon, beautiful people.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Journals

Getting Behind, Getting Ahead: A Personal Journey of Transition

by Yasin Ghasemi

Good day everyone.

Yesterday at 6 pm, I had an online tutoring session. Right at the start, my student said he didn’t wanna continue since he had to go to work and didn’t have time. And I said OK. Right now I’m officially unemployed. Hadn’t been like this in a very long while.

I can say that in the past 10 years, I have actively been working. I might have worked part-time, but I have been working nevertheless. It feels weird. And I see it as a sign. A sign that reads, “Work on your own stuff, boy.” Yes, I should work on my own stuff.

I went to Postex yesterday to collect my personal belongings. I saw my old colleagues and said goodbye to them. It was surreal. It wasted a lot of time just going there and returning home. I went for a run after going to Postex. I went to the Azadi sports complex. It had been a while since the last time I was there. The run gave me good feelings.

I came back home and had an online session with Pouya. We talked back about a possible backlog for developing BluLexi. We’re using Trello to manage this project. Until I went to sleep, I was busy adding the backlog to Trello and reading about the usage and rate limits of OpenAI. That was yesterday.

This morning, I went to Pas Stadium to run a track session with the coach and a few of my mates. I broke my 1 mile PR, shaving 11 seconds off my previous record. It felt good. I returned home and had some breakfast. I took a nap. But the nap turned into a 3-hour sleep! It’s around 2 pm right now.

Aside from running and setting a new PR, I haven’t done anything fruitful about my day. And that makes me sad. I’m sad because I feel like I’m much behind my schedule. Whenever that happens, whenever I get behind my schedule, I feel like the matter I’m worried about is a lost cause, like my coding project. I had set to finish it off by the end of this week. It’s the third day of the week, and I haven’t even opened the file to see what’s happening.

I’ve been like that most of my life. It’s just basically a vicious cycle of fear of being left behind, getting sad for not doing what I had to do, watching a movie or getting busy with something trivial, getting even sadder, getting tired and going to bed, waking up the next day being the saddest, start repeating the cycle.

What the fuck, man? Why the fuck am I like this? I’m not a loser – that I’m sure of. But why do I behave like this? Why am I so much afraid of not doing something, that I completely stop doing that? It doesn’t make sense! When people are left behind, they just do their best to get ahead. Isn’t that the logic? Why do I quit so fast when I get behind? Does this look counterintuitive to me, or is it really counterintuitive?

Spending so much time on this post is another way to procrastinate. I have to stop that. Let’s get to work, baby.

See you tomorrow with some good news.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Optimized BluLexi's back-end. And I have some good plans for today.
Journals

Optimizing BluLexi: Behind the Scenes Part 1

by Yasin Ghasemi

Hello dear reader

I spent all my time at home yesterday. I didn’t even go out running. I hadn’t done that in almost 6 months! It felt good. I think my body needed it. And I focused on BluLexi a lot, optimizing the back-end part of the website.

I didn’t go to Postex yesterday. I stayed home. I worked on the last report I had to give them. Then, I pinpointed my focus on BluLexi. You see, BluLexi uses a model train on OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 Turbo model. And we’re about to train a bigger, better model. But training a new model, or as they say, fine-tuning a model, can be a bit costly. So, I optimized the prompt we’re going to use. The old prompt was about 2100 tokens, and this new one is a little more than 600 tokens! That’s a big win.

The first phase of BluLexi is assessing writing for academic English tests like IELTS and TOEFL. This phase can be done by the end of this week. I think the bottleneck here is creating a good UI. That slows us down since Pouya is a little bit busy these days. We’re using Google Chats to manage the project. It’s handy and can be used for smaller groups. I like it.

One thing I realized yesterday was the significant internet speed drop from 6 to 10 pm. It’s weird. You can’t use the internet efficiently. This means I should arrange my schedule to finish working by 6, do other stuff after that, and then go to sleep. I watched a movie at around 9:30 pm last night when the internet started playing games with me.

Let’s talk about today. Today is the day that I focus on my coding project. Yes, I didn’t do anything about it yesterday. It gives me bad feelings. I should do it today. I am only 3 steps away from finishing it off. After that, I should write the text for this paper, which is much easier. So, that’s the priority for today.

I need to go to Postex today and collect my personal belongings. One of my friends’ younger sister asked me a Python question. I should find some time to help that poor thing. I should also go for a run. I feel my body needs some good training. Finally, I need to take care of some data-entry tasks related to BluLexi.

That’s it. See you around
Yasin

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Journals

Work Hard, Play Hard

by Yasin Ghasemi

Greetings my fellows

OK, let’s focus on the important stuff. I have much to do before I leave to serve in the military. The clock is ticking, and time is against me. I spent the last two days clearing my mind. Today is the first day of the week in the Persian calendar. So, let’s make a short to-do list for today.

First, I should start the procedure for serving in the military. You see, I want to serve in the military as one of the Iranian Elites. These people are usually bright young people who have done well at university. They get special benefits for serving in the military. The only reason I was working at Postex was this. I should reread the rules and regulations and apply for Iranian Elites membership.

Second, I should go to Postex and collect my personal belongings. I should also get a recommendation letter from the CEO. Such a waste of time it is. But I’ll go there before noon and finish it shortly. 

Then, I have to code more hardcore! I couldn’t solve an issue I had with my code on Thursday. I need to finish it. I hope to spend an hour or two, which would help solve the problem. And it would be a challenge because I might be cut off from having access to GPT4. You see, I had access to that through an account Postex had provided. I don’t know if I’ll still be able to use it. 

Finally, developing BluLexi is on the list. Pouya and I had a fruitful online meeting last night. We defined some tasks for each other. I delivered 2 of the 8 tasks given to me. I think I can do all the rest today. BluLexi is on a good path. It has the potential to be a money-making machine. We shouldn’t miss this opportunity.

Well, that’s it for today. I need to be agile and deliver the deliverables and do the ones I can do. 

See you soon

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Shocks come in all sizes and shapes. But it is an art to remain stoic and respond wisely.
Journals

Being Dismissed: The Start of a New Chapter in My Life

by Yasin Ghasemi

I have much to talk about today!

Yesterday started all well: a cold but lovely autumn working day. I arrived first at work. I immediately came here to write my journal. Made a short to-do list for the 5-hour workday. Had some breakfast. And started working. 

At around 9 am, the CEO furiously replied to one of my text messages in a group chat and belittled all of us. I was shocked and angry. How does a person – CEO of a company here -almost unaware of a matter, think they have the right to shout out at others? He wrote his messages in the group chat, but I was reading the messages with his shouting voice.

I sent a text message to our marketing director. I told her we needed to talk. She didn’t reply. I left her a message saying the CEO needed to know he was wrong and didn’t have to shout at us. It finished work and left the company. She called, and we talked about it for a bit. She was upset, too.

Later, the Chairman of the Board called. He started talking about SEO optimization. I was like, dude, I’m not the owner of this shit at work; you’ve reached the wrong person. Then suddenly, he said I was fired and wasn’t performing well at work. I was fucking fired over a phone call! I admit I was shocked a bit. I didn’t see that coming. At least, I thought if I ever got fired, I’d get a warning before it, not that I was fired like I’d committed a violent crime. I felt like Sam Altman. It gave me some stupid confidence.

I remained stoic. I wanted to quit for a long time. A few weeks after getting hired, I witnessed things that made me rethink my employment. But I had to stay there because of my military service. I had plans to leave the company after serving in the military. So, it is almost a month before I go to serve in the military, and I have become jobless.

I didn’t do much. I just came home, relaxed, and shared this news with my parents and close friends. This was just on time. I needed one month to handle some personal matters. And this time was given to me on a silver platter. I was happy. It is time to rest and recover. It is time to publish an academic paper. It’s time to morph BluLexi into something serious. It’s time to focus on me more than ever. Let’s aim for the best and shoot for the moon.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow. 

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Coding, tea, and friendly get-togethers
Journals

Workday Adventures: Coding, Tea, and Friendly Get-togethers

by Yasin Ghasemi

Good morning, beautiful people.
Yesterday’s bitter cold made for a slow start, taking me a good two hours into late morning to feel warm. I spent most of my morning writing yesterday’s blog post and experimenting with DALL-E 3.

The good news is that the coding issue has been resolved, and the bug is fixed. Before resuming my coding work, I remembered solving a similar problem four months ago. After checking my old files, I found a beautifully written Python script that worked well but didn’t interact with other files.

With some help from GPT and a substantial prompt, I identified the issue—just three lines of useless code ruining a DataFrame. A warm cup of tea and a chunky prompt later, I had a beautiful Python script. Testing it will have to wait until today since I was in a rush; let’s hope I finish the project today.

The atmosphere was surprisingly good at work, partly because senior directors were absent. They were either working remotely or elsewhere, sparing us from sudden delegations of unpleasant tasks. I relished the focus.

The day’s highlight was meeting a friend after work, our first get-together in nearly a month. We delved into various topics, from my trip to Istanbul to her struggles as a young woman in the Iranian community and the influence of society on life choices. It was enlightening.

I realized that societal pressure often drives major life decisions. People find partners or immigrate to fit in rather than out of genuine desire. It’s frustrating. I, too, am searching for a new romantic partner and contemplating immigration, but many around me do these things to maintain appearances, not fulfill true needs.

Enough of the philosophical musings; let’s dive into work. Today promises to be a beautiful day.
Hasta la vista, amigos!

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
  • 1
  • 2