summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2026-01-02 12:24 am
summercomfort) wrote2026-01-02 12:24 am
2025 Year in Review / 2026 New Year's Resolutions
Well that was another Year. I'm currently half-awake and jet-lagged, but I really can't put this off for any longer. My usual thing of doing the year in review on/directly after my birthday was stymied by the fact that we were in China and then spending 28 hours traveling home, aiyah.
Anyway, here goes:
2025 in Review:
- Well, it's the return of Trump, ugh. Which means a lot of bad things, some of which got walked back, and others of which got pushed through, and just all of this constant news of more bad things coming down the pike. Someone at work said that nowadays she reads the news kind of at arm's length, like holding the phone at a distance and squinting, and I can't agree more. But also, I think I've learned from the first 4 years of Trump to have more of a "wait to see what's under the hubbub" instead of reacting to the initial salvo with despair and outrage, which has helped a bit. It's also helped a bit to hear that some of the folks who voted for Trump feeling quite a bit of buyer's remorse, and seeing some of the signs of the lame duck presidency. It's... well, it's still fucking horrible, but no longer in a "Congress will change the Constitution to allow Trump to have a 3rd term" bad. Things I'm most imminently worried about now, compared to half a year ago:
---> some sort of war, because Trump wants an "easy" international win as he's struggling domestically, and he hasn't been able to score an international win by brokering peace
---> the Supreme Court, who seems to be completely commandeered by its more conservative justices, potentially overturning birthright citizenship and doing other horrific things
---> US faltering economically on the world stage to a point that it's going to take us decades to recover (China is already so much farther advanced in many fields of tech, the shitty-ass tariffs leading the rest of the world to build trade networks without America, all of the anti-immigrant bullshit turning all of the people who form the backbone of the US economy towards greener pastures, and to add to that, the stupid AI bullshit. I want the AI bubble to pop, but how many people's pensions is it going to pull down? Will it lead to a decade+ of economic stagnation?)
---> the Big Beautiful Bill giving so much money to build up ICE (aka Trump's secret police) at a moment of faltering US economy means that for some people, ICE (and its resultant indoctrination) is going to have major cultural and political impacts 3-4 years down the line, just in time for the next presidential election
Whelp, that's still a lot of things to be worried about, and the world is still horrible, but I also hear about people doing more concrete climate action stuff, or at least continuing to do what they've already been doing. Like, there's a lot of sturm und drang in the rhetoric, but underneath, there's more people hunkering down and doing solid work. It's probably because I'm in the most progressive bubble of bubbles, but it feels like people have been pulling out umbrellas and putting up temporary shelters in the storm. And still trudging forward as they're able.
Oops, I've meandered quite far from the year in review.
Let's see --
- a year ago Spouse was in a very bad mental place, and I was veeery worried for him (like, very very). He's at a much better space now, though -- he quit his old job that wasn't paying him and then found a new job! He's looking into job retraining potentials as the tech world enters the final judgement days re: AI (as in -- AI is a hammer that they're trying use to replace all tools, but will AI find its proper niche and will the AI bubble deflate gracefully? or will everything crash and burn?). He's been doing so much cool creative things this year, from drawing (near)-daily comics to writing songs and designing terrain mods. He's really found a groove finding projects that allows him to harness New Project Energy and then leapfrogging to Finishing Energy. God, such a big change from a year ago, I'm so glad.
- this year we did a lot of travel (partially due to my New Year's Resolution from last year), and going to Japan was cool, and I just got back from a pretty successful China trip, and we also visited a bunch of folks in the Northeast during the summer, but wow, travel is also exhausting. I think part of it comes from my need to plan everything, but travel is when I'm just constantly on. New experiences yay, being constantly on, boo. On the one hand, I want to cut back for the new year, but on the other hand, what else would I do with school breaks re: the kiddo?
- Miss Rutabaga is maturing and I'm super proud of her growing ability to do stuff that's really hard for her ADHD brain. It sucks that we weren't able to get an official diagnosis, but we're going to try again in the new year. She made a new friend over the summer who lives close by (a 3 minute drive instead of a 45 minute drive like her best friend from school), so that's been pretty exciting. The math struggles continue but at least I'm getting a better insight into what her actual challenges are (her inattentive brain runs away before she's able to put anything down on paper, but she does know how to do the math)
- It's continued to be a rocky year for me, creatively. I did get my July 4th comic out, as well as a Batfam fic that has generated some nice comments, but have also been stymied the rest of the time. I feel like the only time I can be truly creative is in the summer when I have these long stretches without other humans around. (As in, coffeeshop or library, 3+ hours of time). For whatever reason, having downtime in the evening doesn't actually engender creative time, just fic-binging escapism time that pulls me away from being with family or doing anything else productive. sigh. I feel like I need more creative projects that are <30 minute time commitments. Too many things that are long and drawn out. This is why crocheting a blanket is easier than drawing a 24 page comic.
- School has been all right. Continuing apace, I guess. Slammed with grading in the fall, and I restarted Chinese School teaching, but mostly I feel like I'm treading water.
- Finally taking a moment to read my year-in-review from last year, and yeah, I'm less worried about finances. But also, apparently I've decided to start tracking "words kids say" each year, and this year, "cooked" is still around, but there's also more stuff about "aura". "slop" is an amazing word that I think will stand next to "spam" as a perennial. Kids are still telling each other to "lock in". And of course, "6 7" is huge. Along with the hand wiggle. (Oh, and this was the year of K-Pop Demon Hunters.)
How I did on last year's resolutions:
1. Lose 7 lbs. Didn't work. Sigh. Been +/- 2 lbs of 162. I did get a day without morning classes this school year, which has been a blessing on many fronts. Period is more irregular than before, but still occasionally making an appearance. D.
2. Help spouse weather the current transition. I think this was pretty successful, though that's more Spouse doing the work instead of me. A-.
3. Go to at least 1 new place per month. We did pretty good until Sep/Oct/Nov, but other than that, pretty successful. Exhausting, tho, and not something I want to continue for the next year. A-
4. Be creative during your daily downtime. Not great. Exhaustion + excapism really isn't a good combo. D.
5. Find an activity to do with Miss Rutabaga that isn't Chinese HW. Does watching vids on youtube count? Probably not. Maybe I'm too activity-based, and the direction to go is parallel-play. D.
Overall: C. Not a great year for me personally, alas. Oh wow, I thought I'd put "write 2 fics", and I only wrote one (although I'm 80% on 2 other fics). But I guess I don't have to give myself a mid grade on that?
Resolutions for the New Year:
- 1. Take 15 minutes to document my day. Daily journaling might not be practical, so let's aim for at least once every 2 days. I'm hoping this will help reflect and decompress from my workday in a faster and more productive way than just zoning out and reading 2 hours of fanfic. Maybe get my brain into creative mode more frequently, too.
- 2. Spend more co-working time with fam. Instead of hiding upstairs after I get home, I should try to do some co-working creative projects downstairs. I shouldn't think of upstairs as "me time" and downstairs as "must socialize" time, and instead find ways to actually be with my family in a secret third way.
- 3. Eat more vegetables. Okay, I need something more concrete, so maybe I'm going to aim for: Get lunch at school every Wednesday. Make something at home every Monday night. Is this 2 resolutions masquerading as one? Yes.
- 4. Finish Citizenship Comics. Might be a bit ambitious, but I really want to have it done, ideally by mid-June when the Supreme Court decision comes out. I don't like promising myself such concrete projects, but this might be important for me???
Anyway, here goes:
2025 in Review:
- Well, it's the return of Trump, ugh. Which means a lot of bad things, some of which got walked back, and others of which got pushed through, and just all of this constant news of more bad things coming down the pike. Someone at work said that nowadays she reads the news kind of at arm's length, like holding the phone at a distance and squinting, and I can't agree more. But also, I think I've learned from the first 4 years of Trump to have more of a "wait to see what's under the hubbub" instead of reacting to the initial salvo with despair and outrage, which has helped a bit. It's also helped a bit to hear that some of the folks who voted for Trump feeling quite a bit of buyer's remorse, and seeing some of the signs of the lame duck presidency. It's... well, it's still fucking horrible, but no longer in a "Congress will change the Constitution to allow Trump to have a 3rd term" bad. Things I'm most imminently worried about now, compared to half a year ago:
---> some sort of war, because Trump wants an "easy" international win as he's struggling domestically, and he hasn't been able to score an international win by brokering peace
---> the Supreme Court, who seems to be completely commandeered by its more conservative justices, potentially overturning birthright citizenship and doing other horrific things
---> US faltering economically on the world stage to a point that it's going to take us decades to recover (China is already so much farther advanced in many fields of tech, the shitty-ass tariffs leading the rest of the world to build trade networks without America, all of the anti-immigrant bullshit turning all of the people who form the backbone of the US economy towards greener pastures, and to add to that, the stupid AI bullshit. I want the AI bubble to pop, but how many people's pensions is it going to pull down? Will it lead to a decade+ of economic stagnation?)
---> the Big Beautiful Bill giving so much money to build up ICE (aka Trump's secret police) at a moment of faltering US economy means that for some people, ICE (and its resultant indoctrination) is going to have major cultural and political impacts 3-4 years down the line, just in time for the next presidential election
Whelp, that's still a lot of things to be worried about, and the world is still horrible, but I also hear about people doing more concrete climate action stuff, or at least continuing to do what they've already been doing. Like, there's a lot of sturm und drang in the rhetoric, but underneath, there's more people hunkering down and doing solid work. It's probably because I'm in the most progressive bubble of bubbles, but it feels like people have been pulling out umbrellas and putting up temporary shelters in the storm. And still trudging forward as they're able.
Oops, I've meandered quite far from the year in review.
Let's see --
- a year ago Spouse was in a very bad mental place, and I was veeery worried for him (like, very very). He's at a much better space now, though -- he quit his old job that wasn't paying him and then found a new job! He's looking into job retraining potentials as the tech world enters the final judgement days re: AI (as in -- AI is a hammer that they're trying use to replace all tools, but will AI find its proper niche and will the AI bubble deflate gracefully? or will everything crash and burn?). He's been doing so much cool creative things this year, from drawing (near)-daily comics to writing songs and designing terrain mods. He's really found a groove finding projects that allows him to harness New Project Energy and then leapfrogging to Finishing Energy. God, such a big change from a year ago, I'm so glad.
- this year we did a lot of travel (partially due to my New Year's Resolution from last year), and going to Japan was cool, and I just got back from a pretty successful China trip, and we also visited a bunch of folks in the Northeast during the summer, but wow, travel is also exhausting. I think part of it comes from my need to plan everything, but travel is when I'm just constantly on. New experiences yay, being constantly on, boo. On the one hand, I want to cut back for the new year, but on the other hand, what else would I do with school breaks re: the kiddo?
- Miss Rutabaga is maturing and I'm super proud of her growing ability to do stuff that's really hard for her ADHD brain. It sucks that we weren't able to get an official diagnosis, but we're going to try again in the new year. She made a new friend over the summer who lives close by (a 3 minute drive instead of a 45 minute drive like her best friend from school), so that's been pretty exciting. The math struggles continue but at least I'm getting a better insight into what her actual challenges are (her inattentive brain runs away before she's able to put anything down on paper, but she does know how to do the math)
- It's continued to be a rocky year for me, creatively. I did get my July 4th comic out, as well as a Batfam fic that has generated some nice comments, but have also been stymied the rest of the time. I feel like the only time I can be truly creative is in the summer when I have these long stretches without other humans around. (As in, coffeeshop or library, 3+ hours of time). For whatever reason, having downtime in the evening doesn't actually engender creative time, just fic-binging escapism time that pulls me away from being with family or doing anything else productive. sigh. I feel like I need more creative projects that are <30 minute time commitments. Too many things that are long and drawn out. This is why crocheting a blanket is easier than drawing a 24 page comic.
- School has been all right. Continuing apace, I guess. Slammed with grading in the fall, and I restarted Chinese School teaching, but mostly I feel like I'm treading water.
- Finally taking a moment to read my year-in-review from last year, and yeah, I'm less worried about finances. But also, apparently I've decided to start tracking "words kids say" each year, and this year, "cooked" is still around, but there's also more stuff about "aura". "slop" is an amazing word that I think will stand next to "spam" as a perennial. Kids are still telling each other to "lock in". And of course, "6 7" is huge. Along with the hand wiggle. (Oh, and this was the year of K-Pop Demon Hunters.)
How I did on last year's resolutions:
1. Lose 7 lbs. Didn't work. Sigh. Been +/- 2 lbs of 162. I did get a day without morning classes this school year, which has been a blessing on many fronts. Period is more irregular than before, but still occasionally making an appearance. D.
2. Help spouse weather the current transition. I think this was pretty successful, though that's more Spouse doing the work instead of me. A-.
3. Go to at least 1 new place per month. We did pretty good until Sep/Oct/Nov, but other than that, pretty successful. Exhausting, tho, and not something I want to continue for the next year. A-
4. Be creative during your daily downtime. Not great. Exhaustion + excapism really isn't a good combo. D.
5. Find an activity to do with Miss Rutabaga that isn't Chinese HW. Does watching vids on youtube count? Probably not. Maybe I'm too activity-based, and the direction to go is parallel-play. D.
Overall: C. Not a great year for me personally, alas. Oh wow, I thought I'd put "write 2 fics", and I only wrote one (although I'm 80% on 2 other fics). But I guess I don't have to give myself a mid grade on that?
Resolutions for the New Year:
- 1. Take 15 minutes to document my day. Daily journaling might not be practical, so let's aim for at least once every 2 days. I'm hoping this will help reflect and decompress from my workday in a faster and more productive way than just zoning out and reading 2 hours of fanfic. Maybe get my brain into creative mode more frequently, too.
- 2. Spend more co-working time with fam. Instead of hiding upstairs after I get home, I should try to do some co-working creative projects downstairs. I shouldn't think of upstairs as "me time" and downstairs as "must socialize" time, and instead find ways to actually be with my family in a secret third way.
- 3. Eat more vegetables. Okay, I need something more concrete, so maybe I'm going to aim for: Get lunch at school every Wednesday. Make something at home every Monday night. Is this 2 resolutions masquerading as one? Yes.
- 4. Finish Citizenship Comics. Might be a bit ambitious, but I really want to have it done, ideally by mid-June when the Supreme Court decision comes out. I don't like promising myself such concrete projects, but this might be important for me???