This was written December 29, 2024
Introduction
Hello Everyone! My apologies, I know it has been a while since my last post. Unfortunately, my life has been hectic lately. In particular, on top of studying Chinese, I’ve been teaching English. While the workload should be manageable, I have yet to adapt to my new schedule, where my days are bookended by school and work (I have class in the morning, and teach in the evening). Along with transit in the afternoon, I’ve been struggling to find the required time and motivation to accomplish anything outside of school and work. However, most eggregious of all is my sleep schedule, which has become a miasma of unhealthiness.
Well, enough complaining, it’s time to discuss what I’ve been up to, what I plan to do, along with potential improvements I would like to bring to my life.
Ongoing Projects
The first thing you might ask is, what about on-going projects? Am I going to complete them? When it comes to the programming projects, I do plan to complete the study app, and to create a blog post about it. I’ve even made progress on a working prototype during my spare time. However, it’s shifted to a lower priority lately, and so I’m not sure when I’ll actually get to it.
What about drawing? It’s been shelved indefinitely, though I would still like to return to it eventually. I might start by reading some material first, and learn the theory before fully diving into it. It’s relatively easier to find time to read, being able to do so almost anywhere. For example, I can read on the metro, whereas drawing isn’t really an option.
What have I been up to?
Over the past few months, the biggest change to my life has really been getting a job as an English teacher, and trying to adapt to it. My Chinese has also been steadily improving to a noticeable degree. And my social life has also benefited from meeting some new friends. But through it all, I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking.
What kind of thinking you might ask?
My future
One of the biggest things that’s been on my mind has been the desire to work on some larger projects, an endeavour I can be proud of completing. Yet, I haven’t really accomplished anything on that front. Friends and family have pointed out that learning a language and moving to Asia by myself actually IS a huge undertaking, but….
Yes, it’s definitely something big I’m proud of, and will grow prouder of as I get more and more fluent in the language. Still, it’s not quite a tangible, concrete thing. It’s an extra ability I’m acquiring, but it’s not a project per se.
Moreover, this past year, I’ve been feeling a bit old, having gone back to a school setting in my mid-thirties, surrounded by people in their late teens, early twenties. It’s not a bad thing, but it does make me ponder over my own future, and what I want out of it.
For this reason, I’ve arbitrarily decided that I want to get a bigger project underway, and get it completed by my 35th birthday. Overall, this gives me a timeline of a smidge under a year and a half. Will this be enough? Who knows! But if I don’t try, I’ll definitely fail.
But…what project should I consider? A programming project? Something to do with drawing? What about a video game? While I would love to dive into any of those, I don’t think it’s that judicious to start with something of that scale. Especially considering my current constraints. As I’ve said before, with school, work and transportation, I think it’d be best to choose something that I can work on from anywhere in small bursts. Thus, I think the first big project that I’d want to get off the ground will be writing related: I’ll be attempting to write a novel. I already have multiple ideas underway, along with a novel I’d started writing a few short chapters for last year.
I obviously have very little experience with writing, but I do have plenty of ideas (many of which I’ve been keeping track of). Moreover, considering I read every day, I don’t lack exposure. And once I start writing seriously, I’ll undoubtedly be looking at novels in a different light, (hopefully) absorbing ways to improve.
Unfortunately, due to copyright/leaking concerns, I won’t really be able to fully document my progress and experience with writing. However, I’m hopeful I’ll still be able to share some of the challenges I encounter along with potential solutions I iterate through during this journey. I might also have regular posts dedicated to my writing journey (E.g.: Every other week or every month).
What about the blog
Even though I have this new plan, I don’t intend to give up on the blog. For starters, I recently had renewed the hosting services for this blog, and it was roughly 150USD. While it may not seem that steep, in my current position (making Taiwanese money on a job with more limited hours, while not making any money through the blog), it still was a non-trivial decision. Therefore, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m definitely planning to pour more energy into this blog.
But then, what will I be doing here? For at least the next few months, I don’t expect to do any challenge posts, nor any big projects. Instead, I want to focus on things getting into healthier habits, both mentally and physically. I also want to figure out how I can become more disciplined and better use my limited time to accomplish what I’ve set out to, and maybe even more.
For this reason, I’ll open up a new section on my blog, which I plan to dedicate to this journey, along with discussing my past experience on that front.
Where will I start? I should prioritize based on important. First off: sleep. Currently, I have sleep issues, some which stem from self-discipline, some which stem from bad habits, and some from physical concerns. While the latter would best be handled by medical professionals, I can still focus on the first two. I’m hopeful that once I can improve my sleep, I will have:
- More energy and better motivation
- A better schedule to work with (E.g.: be able to use my mornings)
Once that’s done, I’m not sure what I’ll want to add. Maybe regular exercise, maybe a better diet, maybe improving my handling of “todo items”.
Conclusion
I’m planning to come back to the blog, altough it will be at a somewhat more moderate frequency. Moreover, I have big plans for myself for the upcoming year and a half! Though none of this is actually related to the new year, haha.
Hope you’re all doing well, take care everyone!