2025 Year-End Review

Note: This is a translation of my Chinese year-end review. I wrote it in Chinese because I wanted to express my thoughts more accurately. I’ve translated it into English using Sonnet 4.5 to share with more people. I hope you can understand and forgive any awkwardness in the translation.

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Winter: Post-Interview Wait

After returning from Cancun, I spent weeks waiting for results from my December 18th interview. Amazon didn’t send the offer until January 7th—ironically, after two or three weeks of silence, I actually became more confident I’d gotten it, since rejections usually come much faster.

Getting an internship locked down in January was completely beyond what I’d expected before leaving China—I’d estimated it would take until March or April. I recorded a video about my Canadian internship search experience on Bilibili, and unexpectedly connected with quite a few like-minded people through it, which strengthened my determination to create and share more content going forward.

The whole point of this master’s program was to find a job, so once that goal was achieved, I felt completely justified in coasting through my remaining courses. I spent the rest of my time researching crypto/investment-related topics and various tax-advantaged accounts and convoluted tax rules—basically figured out my risk tolerance through trial and error. I’ll probably need to dive deeper into this later.

In February, out of sheer boredom, I took a trip to Toronto—it was freezing. But I was really impressed by the underground PATH system that connects almost all the office buildings. A friend I went with knew someone at Amazon Toronto who gave us a tour of the office.

The rest of the semester until the end was pretty rough. Vancouver’s perpetually overcast weather and 5 PM sunsets made things quite depressing. Having read plenty of horror stories about Amazon online, I was also worried about landing in a toxic team (turned out to be completely unnecessary), so my mood wasn’t as relaxed as I’d expected.

After calculating the timeline, I decided to travel a bit before returning to China—little did I know this decision would completely transform my life rhythm and mindset going forward.

Spring: Asian Travels

Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Japan

After finishing my courses, from April 10th to May 2nd, I traveled to eight cities in sequence: Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. See my April travel log for details.

The April trip far exceeded my expectations. I’d initially thought I’d just casually look around, but Southeast Asia’s complex colonial history and current development models greatly sparked my curiosity about the world. I’d never before felt such fascination and charm in travel. Feels like all that history I studied for gaokao was wasted

From then on, I started seriously planning subsequent routes and arrangements. Travel itself is actually a complex combinatorial optimization problem—I plan to write an article summarizing my solo trip experiences when I have time. (New folder 1/n 🤣)

Returning Home

After another nine months, this time I only stayed in Beijing for about two weeks, same as in 22, 23, and 24.

What was different this time was spending the first week back in my hometown after 10 years away. The last time I’d been back was in May 2015—when my grandfather passed away. My homeroom teacher got a call from my parents that afternoon, so I left school and took three days off.

When my grandfather was still alive, from as far back as I can remember, we’d return home every Spring Festival—those were the days I looked forward to most. The county house was big and spacious, but most importantly, I could sneak in some computer time. On New Year’s Eve, I’d hastily eat a few bites of the reunion dinner before finding an excuse to slip away from the table and run upstairs to my second uncle’s place to play browser games on his laptop. I’d keep playing until suddenly hearing the crowd outside grow loud and the firecrackers reach their crescendo—that’s when I’d know it was midnight.

Back then—or really, throughout my entire time before going to Shanghai for university—life felt unchanging, and I’d never had any real opportunity to seriously think about where I was heading.

Summer: AWS Internship

Vancouver’s summer was incredibly pleasant—the most fulfilling and enjoyable summer to date (though I seem to think that every summer, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

Out of boredom in spring, I’d created a 50 Countries Cuisine in Vancouver project and researched tons of restaurants. During the summer after work, friends and I executed about twenty of them, though the project eventually fizzled out. The remaining ones all required special trips which was a bit inconvenient—might restart it in 2026.

I wrote a summary: AWS SDE Internship: Gains Beyond Technical Skills . I actually wrote it before the internship ended, but randomly received an interview from a local startup (HR reached out proactively, which was surprising), so I figured I’d better summarize to have something to talk about 🤣 Though it fell through in the end due to conflicting start dates.

I also recorded a 30-minute vlog , compiling my daily experiences together.

The internship ran from May 26th to September 12th. Right away my mentor told me the project was quite difficult—roughly L5 level if completed independently. I thought “damn, time to really push myself,” especially since my mentor would be on leave from late July through late August. During my first 1-on-1 with my manager, he even reassured me: “Don’t worry, even if you don’t finish, we’ll decide on incline based on performance and effort 🤣”

So I went hard the first two months, happily working 996 every day, even coming to the office on weekends to enjoy the sun and free coffee—really maxed out my effort. Though honestly, it was quite enjoyable, way more interesting than school.

My project was tightly integrated with the team’s system. My mentor and colleagues were very supportive, plus there was comprehensive documentation, so with enough time I could figure things out. I ended up resolving all the blockers by mid-July, and after that there were no major obstacles.

The last few weeks were actually kind of rough—I’d mostly finished, the other interns and friends had all completed their internships, and people on the team seemed pretty busy so small talk felt awkward. Being alone in the office got a bit isolating. I realized I need to work on and strengthen my communication with others.

What was dramatic was that my mentor ended up not returning until after my internship ended due to visa issues 😭 But things went smoothly in the end. On my last day, I was told I got the incline. Relief.

Although news of Amazon’s hiring freeze was everywhere at the time, and my manager told me not to rely on this too much and that the offer might come very late, he also mentioned I’d probably be working on a specific system module in the team—which I understood immediately, and stopped worrying.

Overall, this internship project was quite similar in nature to the plugin process merging project I did at Microsoft. The difficulty wasn’t in the code volume itself, but in finding a truly viable solution within given constraints—requiring understanding of existing system rules and proving the feasibility of the approach within the current system.

It’s more like a system design problem with very specific constraints and a very limited technology stack—kind of like solving competition math problems, rather than the more generalized system design common in interviews.

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I made some pretty risky decisions during the internship: First, I booked a one-year lease on an apartment downtown, 10 minutes walk from the office. Second, I booked multiple trips from September to December including Antarctica—betting I’d get the incline, betting the return offer would come through, and betting the available start date range would allow me to complete the entire itinerary.

Fall: Final Semester

Having experienced the misery of spring semester, there was no way I was going to obediently stay at school this semester. When selecting courses, my goal was to choose the easiest ones possible. I did deep research on course content and professor reviews, picking two courses with no exams at all, plus one I’d taken before.

So this fall semester was the ultimate in slacking off, leaving the most colorful mark on my decade-plus academic career. Other than doing presentations and taking exams, I never went to school once, never attended a single lecture (thanks here to @cuipy for carrying me).

Though before booking the trips, I did careful workload estimation to ensure enough time to handle assignments, projects, and quizzes for each course. Thinking back to undergrad—even by senior year spring, I was too timid to skip a single class 🤣 I’ve definitely grown. Should’ve been skipping all along

Receiving the Return Offer

Amazon’s return offer came on the evening of October 3rd, apparently among the earliest batch in Canada. After getting the news, I was completely relaxed and too lazy to look for other jobs. Before the offer came, I’d randomly applied to ByteDance’s Dubai office and a European fintech company out of boredom, and surprisingly both HRs responded to schedule interviews. I also applied to many companies with positions in Canada afterward, but didn’t get a single online assessment. The North American new grad market really is completely dead

Regarding work, I’ve always had a pretty clear sense of self. I believe I possess meta-skills like engineering thinking, adaptability/learning ability, and stress tolerance—especially after these two years of internship experience which greatly boosted my confidence (definitely good enough for being a regular engineer at a big company). But I still lack sufficient interest in technology itself—I’m only willing to dive deep into things that can substantially help with work. I’d say I don’t dislike it, but I’m also not as passionate as many open source contributors.

What I enjoy more is the feeling of “creating,” with writing code being just one way to do that.

Of course, my internships at Microsoft and AWS were genuinely quite enjoyable, and I was able to find fun and meaning in my projects. But they were just internships after all—the experience will differ from being a full-time employee. I should have a clearer sense of things this time next year.

My current expectations for working at AWS:

• Observe how large organizations operate
• Continue meeting interesting people through this opportunity
• Give me freedom (money, solving immigration status, etc.) to explore the world
• Success is not getting laid off within a year and keeping the signing bonus

Also, I feel that with AI having completely transformed the software development landscape, for most positions, technology itself will become increasingly marginalized (taste > technology)—especially for general SDE roles at big companies. If you’re in the field, you probably understand what I mean. I won’t elaborate.

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Risk-Return Analysis of a Gap Year Around the World

Then came deciding on the start date, which could be chosen between April and mid-September 2026. Considering I’d graduate in December 2025, I carefully researched Canadian work permit/visa policies and ultimately chose mid-July—wanting to use the eight months after graduation to travel around the world.

Although it only took two days from receiving the date selection questionnaire to submitting, it was actually the result of long consideration.

From an objective perspective:

Traveling around the world at this point in time is a quite worthwhile investment. Because it’s before starting work, it won’t interrupt career continuity like quitting would (though even if it did, that wouldn’t be a big deal—I’m quite certain I’ll interrupt it in the future anyway 🤣).

In the first half of the year, I came across a concept called memory dividend in a blog, roughly:

• Happy memories you’ve already acquired will continue to bring you satisfaction as time passes. The more time that passes, the greater the accumulated satisfaction from these memories.
• Even for the same experience, the earlier you acquire it, the greater the return.

  

  

  I very much agree with this theory.

“Waiting until retirement to acquire beautiful memories, even if achievable, leaves you with very little time to accumulate dividends. In the end, all you have in life are memories—they determine whether you’re satisfied with your life.”

My travel interests focus on humanities, politics, and history (especially modern history). My travel style centers on hostels, city centers, and museums—not extravagant spending (estimated the whole journey will cost about the signing bonus). Even if I took this money and invested it in the stock market, the long-term economic returns might not match the compound interest from the “intangible assets” this journey brings.

Additionally, youth provides peak health, energy, and mental capacity—the same travel can be experienced at lower cost (hostels, red-eye flights) with higher enjoyment. It’s actually a form of low-risk arbitrage based on age.

More importantly, the current state of zero debt, owning nothing but completely free, might be the easiest window in life to “step outside”—there’s no sunk cost to speak of. By thirty or forty, with family, career, mortgage, the opportunity cost of wanting to gap would be much higher. Decision-making wouldn’t just consider myself anymore, but countless other things. As they say in Fight Club: “The things you own end up owning you”—the more you possess, the more deeply you’re possessed by them.

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From a subjective perspective:

The April travel experience was profound and actually sparked the seed of this idea before my internship even started (already planning what to do after getting the return offer before even starting the internship 🤣)

More importantly, I’ve always viewed traveling around the world as something I must do in life. My original plan was to do it during work vacation time, or after speedrunning Canadian permanent residency/citizenship—but thinking it over, this idea still continues the task-oriented thinking pattern shaped by test-based education:

• Gaokao is for university
• University is for work
• Work is for promotion
• Promotion is for…?
• … is for…?

I realized I was once again deferring what I want to do to the future.

The deepest impact was during those summer months in Vancouver. I fully worked, explored the city, and connected with people around me, regaining that long-lost feeling of living in the present. In contrast, from fall 2022 to spring 2024, I was in another state of “living in the future”: almost no deep social connections with people around me, unable to feel excess happiness or sadness, because any emotional fluctuation would affect efficiency and be detrimental to achieving goals.

“Everything I do now is for some future goal”—this is completely personal micro-level totalitarianism: Just as many authoritarian systems demand individual sacrifice in the present for some grand narrative, I was using a promise of “the future will be better” to gaslight myself, requiring my present self to obey, endure, and not question. Current feelings, emotions, desires must all give way to the big picture.

In fact, “the future” never arrives—after achieving one goal, the next one immediately appears. This cycle never ends.

Of course, if I could go back three years and do it over, I’d probably choose the same state—otherwise I wouldn’t even have the opportunity to reflect here now, and I did gain much training and growth along the way. But since I’ve come this far, it’s time to try breaking this cycle. (Conducting personal micro-level democratic reform 🤣)

Additionally, I’m increasingly feeling the world’s uncertainty. Who knows what will happen in the future? What if I don’t have a healthy body and sufficient energy in the future? What if global right-wing trends intensify and movement between countries becomes difficult?

Most importantly, as time passes, perhaps the future me will no longer have today’s curiosity and desire to explore the world, leading to regret in my thirties or forties that I didn’t seize the opportunity in my twenties.

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Thinking back, I’ve had gap year ideas since 2023 , but back then I was tangled up daily with courses, GPA, internships, and applications—there was no real catalyst to push this unrealistic idea forward.

As a child, there was a world map next to our dining table. Halfway through every meal, I’d leave the table to browse the map and the notes about each country’s population, area, and currency (that edition still listed China’s population as 1.28 billion), which is how I memorized many obscure countries. Now I finally have the chance to see with my own eyes those places I’d only seen on maps.

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Of course, there are risks, such as:

1. If IRCC works too efficiently and the three-year post-graduation work permit comes early, I might waste several months.
2. After the three-year work permit ends, Amazon Canada only sponsors work visas for L5 level (new grads are L4), meaning if I don’t get promoted (usually takes 1.5-2 years) or get PR within the work permit period, I’d have to return to China or find another way out.
3. Starting late might also mean getting moved to a different team under the org if there’s no HC.
4. …

But I decided to take the risk. These risks do exist, but worrying about them won’t change anything—getting laid off a few months after starting is also possible. Excessive anxiety about these things would trap me back in that cycle of constantly worrying about “the next stage.” I’m also learning to balance this trade-off—neither ignoring risks nor letting anxiety consume the present.

Even if something unexpected does happen, it could bring new changes and possibilities to life 🤔 Might even be a good thing.

The current travel plan is: January in South America, February in Southeast Asia + returning to China, March in the Middle East, April-May enrolled in a French language school in Nice, France, then June touring continental Europe, and if there’s time, a trip to Oceania (that way I can achieve footprints across all seven continents 🤣).

US-Canada City Tours

From September to October, I traveled sequentially to Halifax, St. John’s, Seattle, Honolulu, Point Roberts, Winnipeg, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Chicago, Puerto Rico, and New York. See my September travel log and October travel log .

I’ve now visited almost all of Canada’s major cities, greatly expanding my understanding of North America as a whole. I believe I know more about Canadian history than 90% of Canadians

My travel experience also rapidly grew during this period. Each trip felt increasingly enjoyable, and I also used travel time to finish reading A Global History , The Courage to Be Disliked , and A Random Walk Down Wall Street . I’m beginning to understand the meaning of “read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles.”

My backpacking planning and packing techniques also gradually approached those of a professional backpacker. My attention to detail is now precise down to: a smaller razor, a smaller umbrella, even replacing the bottle for melatonin pills with a gum container.

First Exploration of Mexico

Entering November, considering I needed to prepare for final projects and exams to avoid missing deadlines, I reduced travel frequency and only went to two Mexican cities—the humanities and history were indeed much richer and more interesting than US-Canada cities.

See travel logs for details: Guadalajara , First Exploration of Mexico City . I’m quite satisfied with these two travel logs. After several previous writing practices, I cleverly combined my personal touring experiences with local history and culture, while deliberately maintaining an appropriate sense of distance.

By mid-November after returning to Vancouver, I focused on handling projects and assignments for two courses and didn’t travel anymore.

Unique Finals Week & Antarctica

December finals week was also quite thrilling—execution maxed out.

First, the algorithms final exam finished in the morning, grades came out in the afternoon, and I absolutely bombed it with 23/100 (though the average was only 36). The main reason was the final completely excluded content from the first two midterms. The algorithms course I took at UCB only covered the first two midterms’ content. I’d calculated the weighting and figured with the typical final exam average distribution, passing should be no problem—didn’t expect to get ambushed by the professor 🤣

I really thought I was going to fail. The consequences would have been unimaginable. Spent several anxious days calculating with friends, but fortunately ended up pulling a B and graduating smoothly (not getting a C was truly miraculous). Thank god the midterm scores were high enough to carry it

Then a day after finals, I took the CELPIP English test—required for the work permit application. The insane immigration bureau added a language test this year just to collect fees. Speedran speaking and writing prep in one day. I was still in the anxiety of potentially failing finals while taking it, performed terribly, almost brought back desperate memories of taking TOEFL five times in 2023 and not reaching 100 . Fortunately ended up mixing an 8-8-10-8 in listening-speaking-reading-writing, meeting the requirements (work permit requires at least 7 in all, actually quite low).

Then registered for the driver’s license written test three days later. I’d actually studied for half a month in spring but slacked off then. This time I spent a day speedrunning Xiaohongshu question type summaries and easily aced it. The least suspenseful episode 😋

After that, preparing various visas for next year, researching work permit applications, while also preparing gear for Antarctica and South America. Booked a G-Adventures Antarctica Circle trip in August when it was 65% off—immediately took it. Will write about it next year (new folder 2/n 🤣).

Random Thoughts

Without realizing it, I’ve now written annual summaries for six consecutive years, covering my days from senior year of high school through graduate school graduation. It’s also provided rich training data for my future digital life.

The original starting point for this column was to summarize what photos I’d taken from a photography enthusiast’s perspective (I really had considered the possibility of becoming a professional photographer back then). Who knew it would gradually transform into pure life summaries. Quite interesting.

Looking back, I’ve basically achieved the goals I set three years ago and reached the “freedom” state I’d imagined back then. Yet the sense of satisfaction didn’t last too long—all the experiences along the way, whether arduous or happy, far far exceeded what I’d imagined when I first decided on this path. After experiencing these, the outcome itself no longer matters much.

Reading my recorded state of mind from each past year’s end is also quite interesting, especially 21 and 22. Back then I asked myself every day: What do I truly want? But as my horizons have expanded these past two years, I think I might have been using the wrong framework to think about this question.

I was trying to find a clear, ultimate answer: “My life’s meaning is X,” then use this X to guide all decisions. But this itself is a continuation of “goal-oriented thinking”—I’m giving myself another task of “must find life’s meaning.”

I’m only 23 years old. My perspectives are still evolving. Prematurely solidifying meaning is just another form of path dependency—any specific end state will kill off many life possibilities. Perhaps the process itself is where meaning lies.