Nineteen Months, and Then a Stranger Said It
In January 2025 I gave up on a refactor. Three hundred and something changes, abandoned. I wrote down why, in Chinese, in my journal — this is my own translation:
I have decided to abandon the refactor completely. I am disappointed with how I handled it. I don’t think I was on the right road: I spent I don’t know how long on it, changing things and reverting them, on a task that should never have taken that long — and I never even estimated how long it should take, or wrote any kind of plan.
And then, further down the same entry:
I feel sad. I keep thinking that I still cannot find anyone to discuss this kind of thing with. I want a friend who plays that role, someone I can think it through with. Right now there is no one. Maybe I should try posting on Reddit, and going to Discord or somewhere like that. I need to be more of a hacker.
I want to be fair to that entry: the diagnosis is right, and it even prescribes a fix. And I did act on it. I joined study groups on Discord — OSSU among them, not all of them about English. Then nothing happened. Nobody in them was waiting for me and none of it cost me anything, and it went nowhere for two reasons I would have given you at the time: my English wasn’t good enough to keep up, and it was never a high priority.
Eighteen months later, on 22 July 2026, I wrote this:
Why does my speaking practice never start?
Because I file it as a portfolio project (finish line, shippable, must be scoped right) when it’s a rep — a motor skill with no finish line, done in 20 min in a room, today. Reps don’t get scoped, they get done.
That’s a flashcard. I made a study card about why my studying never starts, tagged it, and filed it into my review queue.
On 9 August 2026 I emailed Toptal, who had rejected me at the first screen, and asked what had actually been wrong. The reply came back about forty-one hours later, from a screening specialist who had never seen my journal, my flashcards, or anything else on this page. There were exactly two items:
Articulation and pronunciation: Improve on enunciation and correct pronunciation to ensure smooth communication.
Clarity of speech, spontaneous speaking and pacing: Work on delivering responses spontaneously and naturally, while maintaining a steady speaking pace and slowing down when needed to emphasize key points.
Nothing about structure, or logic, or what I actually said. Both items are delivery — the layer that only trains in front of another person. Nineteen months, and it took a stranger to hand me a finding I had already written down twice.
Meanwhile, in a completely different room, something had worked.
| Boxing class · 25 Aug – 5 Nov 2025 | |
|---|---|
| sessions attended | 15 |
| sessions cancelled | 18 |
| times a human watched me perform and corrected me on the spot | 15 |
| the same count, for English, across twenty months | 0 |
Why did boxing get fifteen and English none? Someone was waiting, and I paid for it. Notice what that is not a claim about — discipline. I cancelled eighteen of thirty-three sessions, fifty-five percent, and it still produced fifteen real reps, because the appointment existed whether or not I felt like going.
Which is why the January 2025 prescription was right and dead on arrival. Reddit and Discord had neither property: they cost nothing, and nobody there was waiting for me. That is why joining the groups changed nothing — not because I lacked the will to show up, but because there was nothing to show up to. I had written myself a prescription that could not be filled, and then spent nineteen months blaming the wrong variable.
That changes what buying lessons means. I had been filing the payment as preparation — the boring administrative step before the real work of practising. It is the other way round. Paying is the only step that changes the structure, because paying is the act that manufactures the person who waits. Everything before it is a plan, and I now have a nineteen-month record of what my plans are worth.
I decided to buy the lessons on 7 August 2026. I am writing this on 10 August 2026. I have not bought them. There are other tasks, and I will pick one tomorrow.