projects | blog

[all the things] [rss]

January 4, 2026 7:49 PM

Happy New Year

Man, 2025 was absolutely nothing like I expected it to be. I was looking forward to a year of relaxing, a year of doing things for me. It didn't really feel that way. And I want to get my thoughts out, so buckle up and click on Continue Reading if you want to see a recap of my past year, and what I'm hoping for the year to come.

2025 resolutions

I wanted to write a blog entry to mention my 2026 New Year's resolutions, because I weirdly love New Year's resolutions, but I decided to look back and think, did I make any for 2025? I guess I kinda did?

For some reason, I really wanted to consume less caffeine. So I started by skipping my morning coffee some days, and also drinking more decaf. Sure, I got some headaches in the beginning. I expected that. What I didn't expect was just how tired I would feel without caffeine. I know it's kind of obvious when you think about it, but I never felt like coffee was "waking me up" in the morning before. I just kind of got used to feeling how I was feeling.

Anyway, I did eventually get to the point where it felt like I could go days without drinking real coffee and my body seemed to function okay. But I asked myself, "Am I really happier this way?" I love coffee. I missed having my morning cup of coffee. It was just something nice that I could look forward to every morning. And if you know me, you know I just want to sip on coffee all day. (Maybe my food blog tagline should be changed to "How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, dinner, second dinner, and my daily cup of coffee?") So I started drinking it again. Not all day, but I have my morning cup...and sometimes an extra cup at the library.

So, mornings overall have been good lately. I still try to have a good solid breakfast every day! Breakfast is SO important to me, and it just feels so good to eat breakfast that of course I can keep up with consistently eating a hearty breakfast. I have also tried to incorporate reading in my morning breakfast, which I realized only works as well as I like the book I'm in the middle of reading. So I just need to read more engaging books :P

I have kept up with pen-on-paper journaling. I bought a new journal this year that has thicker paper, and I've been writing entries almost every day. And when you have a good pen and a good paper, it really does feel good to write stuff down. My hand muscles must be getting stronger!

what I expected in 2025

When I was nearing the end of my time at GSG, my co-workers would ask me

What are you looking forward to doing with your time off?

My go-to answer was "I want to make a really nice lunch for myself during the day". And I was doing that in the beginning! I was so excited to make more food blog updates! I was cooking almost every day and blogging about it, and my mind was so wrapped up in my next seven meals, especially because I was also really concerned about money. So I was super diligently tracking not only my total spending, but also the cost of each food item I was purchasing. And this lasted for maybe a couple of months, but MAN, I got tired of it. I realized I don't like cooking that much. My ideal would honestly be to cook ONE really nice dish each week, and then have all my other meals be made by someone else. :P So I am still cooking a lot. Because you know, I gotta eat to live. But I haven't been blogging as much because that just requires a lot more extra work. Maybe one of these days I'll get someone to take all my food photos for me.

I did still keep track of my total spending throughout the whole year, but I very quickly stopped tracking prices of individual items. And I did okay as far as spending goes! I was so frugal during the first few months of the year, but it really did take up a lot more mental energy, and I told myself, if I really have to think about money this much, then I don't have enough money to stop working!

The other thing that I expected to spend more time on was The Space. Not necessarily working on improving the space, but just...enjoying it I guess? I would finally have more time to play dance games during the day! It turns out that I almost never played dance games during the day. The Space was never really my thing, but yet it took up so much space in my brain. There were just so many unexpected things that happened. I tried to help out by looking into potential new locations and learning about nonprofits. I contacted everyone I knew that I thought could help with their expertise. And I still don't know if any of this extra effort is going to amount to much.

What I wasn't expecting to actually do this past year was work on anything Teochew-related. Guys, my brain was tired at the end of 2024. I knew how much work all the Teochew stuff would be based on how my sabbatical went. So I just figured I would need a really really really long break before diving into a big project like that. But there was some point during the middle of the year, I can't really pinpoint it now, but I was feeling really dissatisfied with my life. I felt like I was spending so much of my mental energy on The Space, on my relationship, on helping file paperwork for my family, on cooking, on doing household chores of all things. And I hated it. Like I felt like some sort of house...person. And I didn't quit my job to become a stay-at-home anything.

At times, I even wondered whether I should have quit my job. I mean, I'm not going back, but I kind of missed it.

So yeah, I made a post in the Gaginang server. I attended one of their "Learn Teochew" calls. And I talked to the creator of What Teochew Say and asked if there were plans to create a web version of the app. And there were! There were plans for YEARS. But clearly nothing had officially started. I realized that this was my opportunity to work on something new, something that matters to me personally, but not just me, it's also something that can benefit many other people. And finally, I felt excited again.

I started 2025 so ready to be done working, and by the end of the year all I wanted to do was get back into a normal "work routine" and spend more time writing code again.

2026 goals

I'm still trying to use up all of the longstanding ingredients in my kitchen! In November, I wrote down a list of everything that I wanted to use up. I wrote down 43 items. I've been able to cross out 11 of them so far, so I still have a long way to go. But I'm making progress!

I'm also working on implementing a really big feature for WhatTCSay: giving admin users the ability to edit the dictionary data in the app. When I was first approached about this idea, it didn't seem like that big of a deal to add, but I later learned that they want a whole review system, where you could submit multiple changes at once and where someone else has to approve your changes before they are live. I keep saying that I'll finally have time to work on this feature, and then other issues will pop up that are more pressing. But I am committed to getting this done.

And uh, maybe we can turn The Space into a nonprofit? There's still a chance that we decide against moving forward with this, but for now I'm doing a bunch of research.

and if I can get those done...

So, those are my three focus areas right now, and hopefully I'll be able to finish them and then I can just cross them off my list so I can be freed up to do other things! Like

what am I looking forward to in 2026?

Really, the same thing I was looking forward to a year ago. Relaxing, I hope? (for real this time) So far, it's been a pretty busy few days. In fact, I think I'm a lot busier now than I was a year ago. But I think that will eventually calm down, and I will get more time to do the things that I want to do.

And of course, I'm looking forward to spending more time with friends and family, but hopefully doing that on my own terms, at a pace that feels good for me.

#personal #happy-new-year