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huilianwrites · 4 years

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2019 Reflection

It’s the end of the year! And the end of the decade, but I’m not going into that. The end of the year is enough for me. I want to reflect on my 2019 new year’s resolution: see what I achieved, what I didn’t, and why I did or didn’t achieve it. So here it is!

1. Read the Bible

Yeah, this one is a no. I didn’t manage to read it from the beginning to end this year, and it likely didn’t help that I went to university in the middle of the year. But even before that, I hadn’t been reading the Bible like I did before, religiously every night. Maybe this is a sign that I am straying? I don’t know. I likely won’t put this as a resolution for 2020, just because I know I won’t be able to actually do it.

2. Meditate (5 minutes a day)

I tried, I really did. I did well for like, three months, then the end of high school got the better of me, so I stopped, but got back into it again for like another four/five months, but then as uni life got harder and harder I just stopped again. It’s okay-ish for me because this is better than last year, but I will try to do better again next year. Like, try not to have long periods of time when I didn’t do it at all.

3. Be humble

Okay, this is a weird resolution, because I can’t actually quantify it. I wrote in the six ways to be humble by Mother Theresa (I think I cut out some of them, because I know I just can’t do it), but I don’t actually know whether I managed to do this one or not. I think I did better with the third one (on my list), which is to accept small irritations with good humor. I did better on this, I think. And the sixth one, which is to choose always the more difficult task, I think I did it like, half of the time, so it’s good enough for me because I used to do the easiest one I can get away with like, all of the time.

4. Workout

Everyone has this on their new year’s resolution, no? I did okay on this, I think. I put in lifting heavy, and I did it during the summer holiday after high school graduation, and all the time in uni I had been going to the gym to lift heavy. Not that heavy, not yet, but I’m getting there! Swimming twice a month did not go so well. It went okay during the summer holiday, but at uni, yeah, it just did not happen. I swam like, twice in the course of four months. Will try to do better on this though.

5. Read 1 book per month (3 are non-fiction)

I actually managed this! I read 13 and a half (let’s see if I finished the last one before new year came) books, 4 of which are non-fiction! I did even better on this because I wrote book reviews on this blog! I am actually very proud of this! It’s not really a book a month, because some months I read more books than other months, but that was not what I meant when I wrote this resolution. I actually meant reading at least 12 books this year, and I met that! I probably should word it like that though.

6. Write 2500 words per month

I expected this to only be fic, because I didn’t plan on writing these kinds of blog posts at the beginning of this year, and I wrote 22517 words on fic, as of AO3 statistics. That translates to around 1876 words a month and counting all the other things I wrote, like all the book reviews, this blog’s entries, fic that I wrote not for AO3, I’m pretty sure I met the 2500 words per month limit. I’m good at this! (That’s not counting all the essays I did for high school and uni work. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I met the 2500 words per month mark.)

7. Practice violin twice a week

I did this for the first half of the year! Then after I went to uni I didn’t bring my violin, so this resolution is moot anyway. I plan to get a violin early next year, so I’ll put this again in my resolution for 2020. This was the ultimate test for my discipline back in the first half of this year because I’m not that good with the violin. Not like academics or dance, I actually have to struggle with violin to got to the place I am now. I have to force myself to practice because it was hard and sometimes I hate it. I had improved so much over this year because of the constant practice, that I am so glad I forced myself to do it.

8. Mind what you eat

Would you believe that I am actually better at this in university with my meal plan? It’s so much easier to eat healthier when I am only eating for myself instead of trying to eat healthier with my whole family. My mom cooks, so I ate what was in front of me, no questions asked. But here at my dining hall, I actually eat much more vegetables and fruits than I did back home. The caveat is that there are cookies and treats every day in my dining hall and it’s so much harder to ignore those cookies when it’s there in front of you every day. Like, back home I would just not buy cookies and snacks, so there are no ‘bad snacks’ in my home, but here they make it anyways. Well, win some lose some, I guess?

9. Spend time with friends and family

Again, like with the be humble one, I don’t know how to quantify this, so I don’t know if I managed to meet this resolution. I probably should write more quantified resolutions. But I did video-call my mom and dad most weeks here, and I made sure I check in on my friends periodically. I may have overlooked at the beginning of this year that I would actually be making many more friends this year, because going to uni. So I probably didn’t spend as much time with the new friends as I should have. That’s the one thing I haven’t done.

10. Mandarin and French

God. I wanted to continue learning these two languages so bad, but I didn’t think I managed to improve in any of them. I did Duolingo almost every day for a couple of months, but then I forgot about it and just… nothing. I joined a language exchange club but I don’t think it improved my Mandarin or French a whit. That got me new friends though, so I’m not complaining. I asked my friends to talk to me in Mandarin, but we defaulted to English anyway. God. I really need to work on this.

11. Care for yourself

Skin-care routine! Mental health! Pampering myself once in a while! I did actually establish a skin-care routine, so there’s that! My skin is better now, I think? Like it has fewer blackheads and stuff, and the big acnes only come once in a while. Mental health… probably yeah. The good thing about being here at UofT is that the culture is if you don’t feel like you can stay, you can just leave. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can leave. If you don’t want to stay, you can leave. There is no expectation of you staying until the end of the event. This did wonders for my mental state, because I’m an introvert, and I can just suddenly stop wanting to socialize. So this blanket permission to leave is really good for me.

Memories of 2019!

1. Going to Bali and Bandung with my friends after exams

Oh! These are amazing! To like actually go have a trip with my friends, especially after exams, when everything is done, just to have fun, this is amazing. Especially because after that we all went our separate ways to university. These were like the last hurrah.

2. Prom!

The chance to dress up? The chance to hang out with all my friends again? Oh, you bet this is an amazing memory! I actually love dressing up, I just don’t want to do it on a daily basis, so to have an excuse to dress up is really amazing.

3. Contemporary performance

We performed twice this year! Or at least, I did, because after that I went to university, so I didn’t get the chance to perform in the end-of-year performance.

4. Internship

Remember my unpaid, full-time, internship? Yeah. I do too. It’s a bittersweet memory for me now, because I learned something from it, and I can put it in my resume, which made it look good (though I haven’t had any job offers yet…), but at the same time an unpaid, full-time internship? Like, I didn’t even get food allowance. Man, that is not a nice deal.

7. Climate strike

I joined the climate strike!

8. Snow

I lived with snow for the first time ever! This is going to be my first winter ever! I can tell that I’m going to have a love-hate relationship with it though.

Important things of 2019!

1. I graduated high school! I can’t believe I survived those months full of exams and tests and every single shitty thing ever. I graduated!

2. I went to university! I lived alone for the first time ever! There’s a lot of firsts this time around. But the gist of it is I went to university, without having ever been to the university grounds. I’m in UofT now, and I had never been to Canada before, much less UofT grounds. So, I just, came here for the very first time, and...never left. You know the phrase, fit your entire life to a 23 kg suitcase? Yeah, that is not easy, people.

3. I got my first laptop! I’ve never had a laptop just for me before. I used to use the home computer, or like, the shared laptop that we have if we really need to take the laptop out. So having my very own laptop is quite an experience.

4. I discovered so many more musicals. Like, I started with Hamilton, and slowly made my way to other musicals. Like, Be More Chill, Heathers, Waitress, Newsies, Rent, Six, The Lightning Thief, Hadestown, School of Rock, Beetlejuice, my playlists all slowly turned to broadway songs. They are so good, though. (On that note, In The Heights’ trailer is out! God I can’t wait for that movie)

So that’s my 2019! Have a happy new year, (can’t wait to go back to school), have a happy new decade, and don’t forget we’re back in the twenties now!

#lian talks #2019 #2020 #happy new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#happy new decade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#lian writes

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