After nearly 8 months since my last chess blog post, I believe it is time for me to reflect over the time I spend playing this beautiful game.
I had set myself multiple rating goals which can be found on my previous blog post. However, I did not nearly spend as much time as I had anticipated wracking my brain over puzzles and games. In fact, I think it is safe to say that I actually spent less time playing chess these 8 months than I had spent over the 4 months before my last chess post. The stresses of DP 2 got to me and I had to sacrifice a lot of my recreation time for keeping up with academics (if this was not already inferred from my lack of posts!).
But the time I did spend on chess helped me reach certain important conclusions. Firstly, I have noticed that I have spent more time doing puzzles than playing actual games. This has been greatly helpful since I believe that the puzzles have made me more sharp in spotting tactics and finding advantages in game scenarios. I have improved my ability to reach a winning position as well as convert such a position into a win quicker. Besides these, I have learnt more complicated techniques using the chess.com website such as the importance of pawn structures and how and when to create certain pawn structures given certain positions. Furthermore, I have explored more openings such as the caro-kann defense and the pirc defense. These openings strengthen my play with black.
Looking at my puzzle rating, it is clear that there is some improvement in the rating. This has reflected in the games I play however, the rating improvement for rapid has been negative due to the lack of games played. I believe that given more time, I could gain a couple of rating points and potentially reach 1400. The bullet and blitz ratings are not included in the post since close to no games were played in those time controls. 
My future goals for my chess journey would be to continue to play puzzles and aim to reach about 2500 rating points within the upcoming months. Not only would this greatly improve my skill to find tactics, it would help me progress my rating points in the rapid and blitz time controls. When it comes to the rapid time control, I hope to reach 1400 as mentioned before and try to stabilize my rating instead of oscillating between 1300 and 1400. In terms of the blitz and bullet time controls, I hope to spend more time playing those type of games since they are quick and fun although they provide little to no improvement in my game.
Through this experience, I believe that I have identified my own strengths and areas of personal growth, demonstrated commitment and perseverance in my CAS experiences as well undertaken challenges and developed new skills in the process.
I hope my chess journey will continue to serve as a valuable distraction to my busy DP schedule!