Hi!! I'm Roshini Saravanakumar, and I'm really excited that you're here.
Let me tell you my story.
My journey began two years ago as an incoming freshman in Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I've lived in California for nearly my entire life, so the fact that I was halfway across the country with no connections and surrounded by flat land (no hills?¿!) absolutely blew. my. mind. 🤯
I'm an adventurer. My curious brain simply refuses to live a normal, passive life. College was by far my biggest adventure (and challenge) yet, and I was thrilled to live it to my fullest. Despite barely knowing how to code, I was so excited to start learning that I would read my Introduction to Computing Systems textbook for fun 🤓 while listening to my favorite Indie game soundtracks. My early efforts and hard work certainly paid off as my success in these inital courses set the foundation for my lifelong love of Computer Engineering.
In the past two years, I have designed and built projects from scratch that I could have never dreamt of creating prior to college. You can see all of them here. Below are a few of my favorites.
I have also met my lovely best friends, saw snow for the first time ⛄ (!!! This is very exciting to me as a Californian 😂), begun my transformative journey into mindfulness and yoga, made tons of art, read 15 books for fun 📚, resurrected a jasmine tree 🌱, and decided to create this blog to record these adventures.
Outside of school, I love exploring my creativity in its countless other forms. Prior to college, I had picked up bullet journaling as a method to track my tasks and achievements. However, through college, my bullet journal has become my go-to location to explore and record my thoughts, artwork, calligraphy, to-do lists and passions. Around the same time that I began bullet journaling, I became interested in brush calligraphy and I have been practicing it ever since.
In my free time, I also love listening to music (especially Indie game soundtracks) and creating my own music on the piano. Speaking of Indie games, my absolute favorite genre in gaming is Indie games, simply because they have a perfectly entrancing blend of music, art, and story; one that truly speaks to my heart 💜. I am also a huge fan of puzzle games, especially Rusty Lake's Cube Escape series! Some of my all time favorite Indie games, with links to their soundtracks (or website if not available) are: Rusty Lake: Paradise, Rusty Lake: Paradox, Monument Valley, The Silent Age, Nihilumbra, and Limbo. I have also fallen in love with several soundtracks of games that I currently cannot afford to buy (I'm looking for internships!), but would love to play in the near future. These include: Journey, Abzu, Braid (I've only played the demo; it's so beautiful 💛), The Last Guardian, and Ori and the Blind Forest.
I've also been a book nerd practically since the moment I laid finger on the countless folktale and fairytale books my mom read to me as a child. Although my all-time favorite genres are fantasy, science-fiction and mystery, in the past few years, I have dipped my feet into the self-help genre, in an effort to discover habits and ideas that would help me piece my life back together after being in a mental slump for a year. Many of the books that I picked up, starting with The Book of Joy by the 14th Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu in my freshman year of college, drastically shifted the lens through which I see our world. They have taught me invaluable skills from time management to living my life in the present moment. Most importantly, they have taught me that I am capable of learning and achieving so much if I simply go for it. I take the lessons I have learned from these books with me into my everyday interactions with others and the world, treating everyone with compassion and kindness, and exploring what it truly means to be alive and thriving. Here's a list of the 5 books that have completely transformed my perspective on life.
Thank you so much for listening to my story. If you would like to get in touch, or tell me about your story, I would love to give you my time.