Happy New Year!!!
I wrote a really long a meandering blog post about how resolutions predict our own failures (and how my relationship to art has eroded during an otherwise happy year) and was sort of shocked at how parodically glass-half-empty it was, so I've decided to just conform and have fun and earnestly make some resolutions for next year.
Here goes:
- unarchived uploaded somewhere in some form
- make and print a zine
- lucid dream
- do another big watercolor
- keep reading but more fiction and poetry (had a 15 book goal last year but i kind of think numbers dont matter)
- memorize a poem or a passage from a book I really like
- complete 'remembering the kanji' or at least still be working on it by the time the end of the year rolls around
- get a job
- show up for an extracurricular (meditation? life drawing? volunteering?)
- try riding a bike again
- finish my website/rss
- I would really like to put together a dress up game or a paper doll lol
Not in order of importance otherwise employment would be first. A 'would be nice' objective is like being able to confidently do n5/n4 practice tests and read at a basic level in Japanese but I'm going to focus all my power on getting through RTK so that reading acts as reinforcement. Yepppp that's about it. And my art goals seem like things that would be fun, I want to do collage and watercolor and work with my hands again, digital has really lost its luster and though I've improved insanely at writing (I wrote a book this year that was really bad but leveled me up) self scrutiny attacks me when I'm writing prose and theres none of the instant satisfaction drawing has...
Quit my job, pokemon tcg got too expensive to play, crash coursed myself on makeup so I could normie pass but it didn't work, got my wisdom teeth out, moved to Australia, wrote a book, grandma died, ocd mental illness attack, got married, homesickness mental illness attack, and ate a fuck ton of good food.
2025 had given me a lot of perspective and I'm experiencing more color and friendship in my life than I've had in a long time. I don't think I wanted to admit how much I was suffering from agoraphobia before this move it's been really nice and I hope when I visit home again that the feelings travel over (but I think I'd have to learn how to drive in that case lol).
- Movie: Elvis (2022), saw OBAA & Bugonia & My Private Idaho in theaters this year and it twas awesome
- TV Show: Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2000), shout out to M*A*S*H and season 2 of The Simpsons lol
- Book: The History of Sexuality (1976) was really shocking & mind expanding but it'd be hard to say it or anything I read this year was a favorite since it was almost entirely depressing parables and nonfic my runner up probably would be The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936)
- Exhibit: MOPOP Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form
- Game:I finished Subarashiki Hibi on like new years last year and haven't really been able to let go, I also really enjoyed playing Ten Metre Tide and Kenshi, it would probably be good for me to game less in 2026 bc I got addicted to three seperate slop rouguelikes this year and its bad for the mental
Why no favorite album? For some reason listening to music in headphones for the last few years here has felt like being assaulted with overstimulating noise and I don't know why, had my moments this year but have mostly been no music except for ambient playlists with rain sounds. I'm so far away from what's cool now too that I wouldn't even know where to start with new releases. Not really invested in where this goes, it is what it is, I will continue to enjoy a song every once in awhile until I like sound again.
I'm wishing everyone a happy and warm 2026 with exciting oppurtunities despite the global economic decline, I'm looking forward to journaling and learning and making some art and maybe blogging more and making the internet something that's still fun and/or interesting to be on. Happy New Years!!! If you read this leave ur resolutions or your favorite things or...start a blog....like me...yay
