Year: 2024

’24 resolutions

gwynethtytLeave a comment

2024 is over (I mourn the unhinged girl I left behind)… so it is time for an accountability report.

I’m embarrassed that the “incompletes” list is longer than the “completed” one, but maybe life is supposed to be like that — one’s gotta want more to do more. Besides, I completed the most important thing I set out to do: my thesis. (Were you expecting “finding a man”, huh??? Were you???)

Learning point: many of the incompletes are moving targets that cannot be satisfactorily completed once and for all (e.g. cleaning my room, which I DID, okay) — subsequent iterations should be worded with more concrete outcomes. I have no excuses for the concrete ones I didn’t do, though.

So… I’m leaving the incompletes up in hopes of embarrassing myself so much that I’ll do them in 2025. Though not everything, I’ll carry some over to my 2025 resolutions list. The new year’s always a good time to rethink our priorities regarding the kind of lives we want to live. I can be sure that my true self is reflected in the things I did, but not necessarily in the things I didn’t.

2024 was awesome, especially in the middle. It was exhilarating to just exist. I’ll miss those days.

I hope 2025 will be just as magical.

Originally published 24/2/24

COMPLETED
*bolded: stuff i really enjoyed

Struck out = done [completed date, comment]

Setting myself up for Success

  • Finish and submit thesis
  • Financial reconsolidation [Nov]
    • Clear debts
    • Emergency fund
    • Try side hustles: tutoring
  • Duolingo [streak: 468/500 goal, I accept my persistence]

“Hobbies”

  • 100k on blog [Jun] | 120k on blog [Nov]
  • Finish 12 books [my read of the year is Antifragile]
  • Commit to pilates [53 classes in 2024 – not bad if I say so myself!]
  • Post 12 iconic reels (once a month) [exceeded and wiped, except for crowning glory]
    • Purge social media pages following (what you follow shapes what you are)
  • Hyperoptimised partner-search project on dating apps [Jul: bonus comment — in time, you only remember the good ones]

Unhinged, Silly things

  • Tongue piercing [Feb: I love the way it hurts a little]
  • MORE tattoos [self-expression is an expensive hobby]
    • Devils dancing [May]
    • Gladiator gal [Jun]
  • Engage with the woo-woo by visiting a numerologist [he said I wouldn’t find someone this year, but then again I’ve never listened to a man]
  • Attend 5 concerts/musicals [total: 8]
    • Li Ronghao’s Free Soul (rating: 5/5☆)
    • Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (4☆)
    • Hacken Lee’s 《弦续李克勤》 (5☆)
    • Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism (4☆)
    • Jazz
      • Alina Ramirez Trio (3.5☆)
      • MAD LABS 3.0 (3.5☆)
      • Jazz @ The InterContinental (4☆)
      • Seeds and Flowers (3☆)
  • Travel [total: 6]
    • Bali
    • Batam
    • JB
    • Genting
    • Tasmania
    • New Zealand [SKYDIVED!!!]

Cleansing and organising

  • Purge problematic men [Jun: so true babe]
  • Elimination load exercise [Dec]
    • Eliminate non-value adding activities
    • Consolidate all ongoing commitments
  • Deactivate Motion and transfer data to Notion

INCOMPLETES

Cleaning and organising, but the boring kind

  • Spring cleaning
    • Work area [?]
    • Bookshelf and misc items area
    • Purge wardrobe and replace with babygirl vibes
      • Wear every single piece of clothing I own (shirt, shorts, socks, sleepwear)
      • Compile clothes and donate
  • Get chair professionally cleaned
  • Clean mahjong tiles + buy new excellent quality playing cards for good shuffle
  • Clean up electronic devices/files
    • Clean up phone
      • Apps
      • Chats
    • MacBook and Google Drive files
      • Clean up photos
      • Organise Notion completely
        • Transfer all notes from phone to Notion
  • Clear candy
  • Purge blog, retag all posts, standardise categories/tags

Projects

  • Sleep by 4am every night, wake up by 11am every morning (+/-1h) – 80% of the year [I don’t have to crunch any numbers to know that 80% definitely was not attained]
  • Make Monumental happen (by Dec 2024) [70%]
    • Data transcription
    • Data analysis
    • Build programme
    • Run programme
    • Execute events
  • Write blog posts [oof… what happened to My Passion…]
    • Reflections on grad school
    • Tips from a TA
    • Analyses on my Ultimate Life Tracker
  • Volunteer weekly [8 sessions total… shame]
  • Balance bonds and stocks portfolio
  • Apply for 50 overseas jobs/education
  • Side hustles
    • Write for an online platform?
  • Learn R coding / other data presentation software

Hobbies

  • Dance classes [I went for 1 class, at least – we’ll get there]
  • Improve Japanese to N3 level
    • Register for intensive group classes after graduation
  • Get better at pool [# practice sessions logged: 5?]
    • Master cuing action (hit balls accurately top, middle, bottom)
    • Pot balls faster and more accurately
  • Piercings cont
    • Navel piercing?
    • Industrial piercing??
  • Tattoos cont
    • One to commemorate thesis/graduation (“the struggle”, feminised)
    • Dopamine/serotonin pair
  • Stream on Twitch 4 fun
    • Yakuza 0
    • JSRF, 100% (xemu)
    • Chained Together, with friends
  • Visit a psychic
  • Go to Lisdoonvarna, Ireland for matchmaking festival [note: maybe someday…]
  • Go to 10 social gatherings to meet new people [count: <5??? loser]
  • Open Water diving cert […someday I’ll see a shark]

unanswerable questions, #2

gwynethtytLeave a comment

In the dark, I asked him why he loves me.

I got a “huh?” in response.

It’s something he says when he comprehends a question but doesn’t know how to reply on the spot.

Silence passed, the sound of his mind racing.

How interesting. So I gave him an out:

You could just tell me i’m pretty, or that you love how witty and funny I am, something like that…

But perhaps his inability to answer is a satisfactory response in itself: I have a naïve interpretation that works for me.

Such is love — the projection of the self onto the other.

unanswerable questions

gwynethtytLeave a comment

A reliable (disqualified) source recently informed me that in his search criteria for a wife (a topic worth a standalone post), the criteria I did not meet for him was ambition. I corrected him, quick as lightning, that his observation was erroneous — I have ambition, but I lack ability (presently).

As if in tacit agreement, he promptly caveated his position, remarking that my primary issue is that I have not yet demonstrated ability. That is, being on the cusp of graduation (my thesis is under review), and having never held a full-time job from birth, I haven’t had a chance to establish myself yet.

In other words, I have potential, theoretically [+] (?)

However, realistically, potential with no demonstrated outcome is worthless [-] — yes, darlings, regardless of how IPOs function in practice.

It was a sobering revelation: I was aware of all of the above but had failed to connect it to my place in the marriage market in the past. In retrospect, it adds up: men who were established did not want me because I was, I am, not yet established. (That and among other things.)

You seek someone better than you; you settle for someone as good as you. Lies, games, partner evaluations: all the same if the outcome is equivalent.

And hence we must speak about him, my lover: what does he see in me? Is he able to see something in my future that I can’t, yet? Does he believe in my potential?

Or, almost frighteningly — to him, am I enough as I am? Because I am not enough, not to myself, not ever, possibly never.

Why does he love me?

I don’t know.

Even if I were to ask him point-blank, even if he could respond in a decipherable string, it will take a long time before I can comprehend his reply.

But every time I’m his arms, I instinctively understand that some things do not need to be said —

there are questions not answerable by words.

the beach

gwynethtytLeave a comment

thoughts of the past inadvertently find their way into my bouts of reflection; they’re a potent cocktail of yearning and regret. i don’t think there’s an English word for it — i haven’t found its foreign, untranslatable variant. it’s a feeling of watching life passing gently, like running your palm through the beach and watching the sand slip through your fingers. you can hold on as much and as tightly as you want, but it makes no difference. the pigeons will continue to caw, the trees sway in the wind, and the sea will recede, before rushing forward, only to recede again.