2025 Wrap up, Site Updates

Sooner than I could prepare, the year has come to an end. I decided to take a moment to tend to a few things on the site, and reflect a bit, on the coming year.

Site Updates

There is only one, really. I moved web hosting. I had been curious about what it would take to configure a web server from scratch, and my previous hosting situation had been set up for me, so I wanted to take an opportunity to learn. I am experimenting with some other new things as well, like how I will host media files and I may change how the web pages are served entirely. I anticipate messing with this, and learning, a bit more throughout 2026. It feels good to have more ownership over my site architecture.

Reflecting on my 2025

Most of this year sucked quite badly. Everything was kicked off with this horrific administration in the United States, and the horror did not stop for a moment. Beyond that, though, I felt extremely adrift for most of the year. Office politics at my day job kicked into high gear, tensions consistently ran high, and I felt very alone in managing it all. Even though I had people around me willing to help, I didn’t understand what I should even be asking of them. It felt particularly alienating and painful to know that I desperately needed help, but be totally lost with how to ask for it.

One major win for me was that I successfully pivoted to a vegetarian diet. It is something that I had been curious about for my entire adult life, but due to my past as a picky eater, I was always afraid to fully give up anything on my already limited palate. I started the year with the intention to eat meat with only 30% of my meals, and by about April, the meat meals felt more out of place than the meatless ones. It was around then that I decided to give it up. There were a few moments where I broke the diet earlier on, but the second half of the year was meat free, as far as I can remember. It feels good for me to reflect on that. I think it is right for me.

As far as gaming goes, this year was fairly successful. I checked off a couple goals, Death M grade in TGM2 and getting my first quad star in ITG/Stepmania come to mind. I got much further into riichi mahjong than I ever anticipated. Before 2025, I knew the basics of how to play, very little about scoring, and I didn’t feel comfortable leading a table. This year, I learned to score, I can teach others how to play, I attended 2 large tournaments, and placed fairly well in both of them. I found a new community of people to make friends in, and I intend to continue that momentum next year. I returned to Neon White, at least for now, and I have made solid strides in cutting my overall time down. I broke 95 in golf, though my swing fell apart shortly after that.

Art was a mixed bag. I’m really happy that I ended the year by starting vocal lessons. I started 2025 strong with visual art, I was drawing a lot and it was fulfilling, but I fell off the habit. I struggled to regain it. One thing I’m proud of is I think I pushed my understanding of color theory a bit further than it had been before. I hope I can return to drawing in 2026 with a new focus.

My career has always been a mixed bag. My relationship with my job has been touch and go for years. I found myself working harder this year, and I think the work paid off. I put myself out there more, and forced myself to become someone that people could trust with important questions regarding the products I work on. I was scared of it, I’m always afraid to say the wrong thing, but it hit me that any time I sidestep responsibility, I’m really offsetting that work onto someone else. It felt like it was my turn to own some of that work and I believe that yielded some solid professional growth. I put more work into recognizing and mentoring my junior coworkers. I have heard some positive feedback for that, which is nice. The biggest career move of 2025 is that I am starting a new job in 2026. I am looking forward to this clean slate and hoping I can put everything into motion from the start.

My social life was a bit tumultuous for the better part of the year. Friendships faded or strained, or fell apart completely. There were fights that I was and was not involved in, I tried my best to navigate things, and I’m sure I made plenty of mistakes. I do believe that I tried my best. I’m sure I have a lot to learn, as we all do. Partway through the year, though, I hit a groove with reaching out and finding new friends. The mahjong group helped me shake off some of that rust. I made some new local friends, as well as online ones. I still keep up with most of them, though I have a tendency to drop focus here and there. I hope anyone reading this knows that I am doing my best, and that I don’t think less of someone just because I haven’t reached out in a while. I am looking forward to sharing the future with many of you.

Conclusion

I don’t have any clean way to end this. I know that I will press on into 2026, and that I will try to push my art, my athleticism, my mental wellness, my career, and my happiness to the best of my ability. I hope you all do the same.