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january 3, 2024 / 7:56 PM
today, i met up with jonah for brunch, we got soup and doodled in each other's sketchbooks. the rest of the day was lazy and uneventful. it was really nice to see him again.
last year, i made a bingo card with my high school friends at the start of the new year. i haven't looked at it since then, and i didn't really look at it until i was talking with ryan about new years resolutions last night. i was kind of scared to look at my bingo card because i figured i wouldn't have hit most of my goals for the year, but i think i hit about half--which is definitely better than nothing.

completed goals:
  1. be a vendor at my college's student craft market
    2. this was super fun and i'm so glad i did it. i'm working on more stuff over this break to sell at the spring market, and i hope i keep doing this every semester!
  2. visit boston
    3. i added this goal because i literally went to boston zero times freshman year when my school is only like an hour away. this semester, i went to boston thrice! once to see yo yo ma perform with boston symphony orchestra, once to see twoset violin, and once to go to an away football game. all three were so much fun :D i hope i go again sometime in the spring!
  3. be in a pit orchestra
    4. i was part of into the woods this spring! i wanted to do the nutcracker and light in the piazza this fall, but nutcracker fell on the same weekend as another concert i was performing in, and piazza got cancelled D: i really hope i join a pit orchestra next semester, they're seriously so much fun and i love the little community it brings together.
  4. be an intro cs ta
    5. this fall, i was a teaching assistant for the intro computer science course i took last fall! it's an awesome class that focuses on making cs fun, and the job was super rewarding. i'm super lucky that i got to do this, and it's probably going to be my only opportunity to ta this class lol. it was a ton of work, but i'm so glad i was able to do it!
  5. learn a new dish
    6. over the summer my mom taught me how to cook a bunch of stuff, mostly just stir frying veggies lol but it also extended to stuff like bak kut teh and different types of soups and san bei ji which is one of my favorite dishes. i also steamed eggs for the first time! i hope i learn more dishes so i can cook more next fall when i'm on a more reduced meal plan hehe
  6. drive somewhere by myself
    7. i was able to drive myself a few times this year and i'm really glad!! i drove to my friend's house, i gave rides to some friends, and drove around town. i hope that i can start making solo trips to like, walmart, lol, because there's always stuff i need to buy. the one thing holding me back is that sometimes my parents need both cars or the only car available is the minivan (which i still can't drive confidently)
  7. get better at chinese
    8. i listened to chinese music SO obsessively this year lol i seriously cannot get enough. i think it's helped me a lot to retain my vocabulary even though i've started forgetting how to write a lot of words, i can still use the pinyin keyboard lol. i talked shit with my chinese neighbor the other day it was hilarious
  8. stay in school
    9. this was my free space! happy to say i'm still in school
  9. make a flyer for my music club
    10. i in fact did make a flyer for the fall recruitment rush. it wasn't hand drawn like i would ideally have done, but it still was a flyer and it was an upgrade from what we had last year! i hope next semester we can have an even better flyer lol
  10. do skincare routine daily
    11. i'm actually so proud of this one, i did not miss a single day of my skincare routine once i started it right before fall semester. i've never had a consistent skincare routine until now. it just clicked all of a sudden idk. and now my skin isn't totally clear, but it's better than it's been in like, ten years :D
  11. use most/all meal swipes
    12. i did use the majority of my meal swipes every week! this fall semester i switched to a 14 meal/week plan which is probably one of the reasons my eating schedule has gotten increasingly erratic, but at least i'm mostly getting my money's worth
  12. read book(s)
    13. i listened to exactly one audiobook this summer, and it was of they both die at the end. absolute banger of the book, what a journey. i want to get more into audiobooks because right now i'm frying my brain on reels. i want to finish a little life and read the midnight library, at least.
  13. get a job
    14. like i mentioned i was a ta this past fall, and i'll be doing research this spring :D i wasn't able to get a summer job in 2023, but my hopes are high for this year
  14. socialize more
    15. this one is hard to judge, but i think i was more social with the people i actually wanted to be social with. this means mostly my friend group and people in my music club, lol. i met a ton of new people this year and literally all of them are so cool and i'm so happy i know them now!
incomplete goals:
  1. work out at least 2x per week
    2. lol the one time i stepped foot in a gym this past semester was for one badminton session with my friends in the last week of school. that was IT. otherwise i did go with my mom sometimes to the gym, but only during breaks and at most once a week.
  2. learn a new piano piece
    3. okay at least i tried. i tried to learn the yuri on ice piano solo but it's SO HARD BRO. omg. i think i got 2 or 3 pages in and i haven't been able to progress since that shit is so difficult piano is so hard. i'm trying to revisit my answer by exo and maybe learn some easier songs that i'm into right now (like hebe tian's a little happiness).
  3. remain in my college's orchestra
    4. i did not have time this semester to audition for orchestra LOL taing and being part of the music club's eboard has sapped me of everything and that's before my classwork. omfg. maybe in the future. i still have to decide whether i want to audition for spring.
  4. learn a new concerto
    5. Nahhh wish i did tho bro. Brahms is looking real good rn idk
  5. join a new club
    6. i really thought i was gonna do this one. i'm almost marginally part of the art market club, but not enough where it actually matters. i wanted to join cs-related clubs this semester, but a lot of them either needed applications (i am very lazy) or met at a really unfortunate time that i couldn't make. maybe i'll try next semester?
  6. get a 2024 internship
    7. working on it *dies*
  7. finish a resume project
    8. working on this one too *sobs*
  8. upload on youtube
    9. i'm sad this one did not come to fruition. i recently rediscovered all my old video ideas that i stuffed in my notion and some of them are lowkey pretty fire!!! they take so much time though and i'm still pretty rusty at drawing. i want to revive my youtube thoughh
  9. practice at least 2x per week
    10. there were some weeks i only touched my violin for rehearsal. the practice rooms are a lil far. i will practice more this year...
  10. reduce phone use to less than three hours a day
    11. hoo boy this one is still a toughie. omg. i am so addicted to instagram reels and screens i love screens. it's becoming increasingly worrying. i need to cut my internet access. or somehow stop watching reels. i probably averaged 5-6 hours of screen time per day this year. that's embarrassing for real
i still have to finish my bingo card for this year--i think there are five more squares left at this point that i have to ideate. i think my expectations for next year are a little bit lower LOL but i'm super glad i did the majority of the stuff on my bingo card this year!! it was also such a fun way to reflect on what i did this year because i have really bad memory when it comes to this stuff lol. soooo yeah! i'll probably write up my bingo for 2024 soon :D

also for the record i did not get a bingo in 2023 lol i was like a square away