2025

  • 4 minutes to read
Post cover: Will Smith as Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) walks through a sunlit city plaza in a worn business suit, carrying a bulky medical scanner, while his young son walks beside him.
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

I’m on vacation now, and I finally have some time to look back and sum up the passing year.

Work

Until April 2025, I worked at a non-IT company. I was developing internal tools for a fast-food company and handling almost everything myself — from setting up the NGINX server to frontend and backend development. There were no processes. I wanted to grow further, gain experience working in a team, and operate within serious IT processes.

On June 14, 2024, in my post “Graduation”, I wrote:

So what’s next? I plan to find a job in an IT company, to get fundamental knowledge that programmers get in universities, to study new technologies, in general to improve my qualification as a specialist.

Everything is going according to plan. This year I got a job as a frontend developer at CFT, on the product F.Doc, an online service for signing documents. A great product, a great team — what more could I ask for?

I’m especially grateful to my mentor, Valeriy, who helped me get through the probation period. After more than half a year here, I can say I’ve grown a lot as a professional during this time.

Life

This year, Lisa and I reached a new and very important milestone — we finally moved in together. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time, but I simply didn’t have the financial means to take this step earlier. I love you, my sunshine.

I quit smoking on October 27. I had been a smoker for 7 years. I tried to quit many times, but nothing worked. This time feels the most conscious and deliberate, and I truly hope I won’t return to this harmful habit. The main reason I quit wasn’t even the decline in my health — it was the growing realization of how much energy, attention, and life force smoking was draining from me.

New Tech

This year I bought a few new devices:

  1. A vertical mouse — the Logitech MX Vertical. For me, it’s the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever used. Before that, I had the Logitech MX Master 3S, which is superior to the vertical one in several ways: build quality, the MagSpeed electromagnetic scroll, and the Quiet Clicks. But the shape of the MX Vertical is a perfect match for my hand. If Logitech ever releases a premium version of the MX Vertical, it would have no competition for me.
  2. A 4K monitor — the Dell S2725QC. For $319.99 it’s an amazing monitor: a 27-inch 4K USB-C display with up to a 120Hz refresh rate and dual 5W speakers. Before this, I had a 2K monitor — and it was painful to use (macOS users will understand). Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this purchase.

I’ve almost completed my dream desk setup. In 2026, I’m planning to get a split keyboard — the Kinesis Advantage360 Professional — and a new chair, since my current one is definitely on its last legs.

Stats

And now, let’s take a look at some stats.

Blog

I wrote 3 blog posts:

Books

I read 9 books this year. I can recommend the following:

Films and TV Shows

I watched 33 movies and TV shows this year. These stood out the most:

Games

I played Resident Evil 4, an impressively crafted remake of the original game. Lisa and I also completed Split Fiction, another masterpiece from Hazelight Studios.

Since I don’t have much time to play, I decided to sell my Xbox. I might buy a console again when Grand Theft Auto VI comes out, but I’m not sure yet.

Conclusion

I consider this year to have been productive, and now it’s my well-deserved time to rest a bit and kick off the new year with renewed energy.

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