Welcome to my 2018 year in review, aka a winding tour of 20 thoughts about this year. Here we go!
(1) It’s been 10 years since I got married and six years since we’ve had our first child. We’re on our third place to live now. That’s pretty solid into adult life and adult responsibilities. I’m technically in the leading edge of Millennials and still feel I connect with that generation. But do I really?
(2) It’s been 13 years since I graduated from undergrad. Most of my peers have been in industry for that long too. While I think there is title inflation, a lot of us are at senior levels at companies – not just senior engineer/developer (which you seemed to jump up to with only a few years of experience) but management level. That’s another change that just creeps up on you.
(3) Like last year, I haven’t been using my core skills at work. I guess building new skills is important, and there’s still a lot of that this year. The most fun and useful one though is deal making – I wouldn’t want to do the front line negotiations, but it’s challenging to theorize.
(4) I applied that skill this year as we bought a new house a moved. (5) The deal making wasn’t bad, but it was a tough experiences to move. You know, I used to move every 4 months, from school back home or to a Coop placement. I never liked it, but it was manageable. Now there’s just a lot of stuff and it’s hard to go through the process. Just like when we moved into our old townhouse, there are a bunch of empty rooms and the house feels empty. However, as with the townhouse, I think it’s going to fill out as a matter of time.
(6) I hardly ever chat with other people (friends). It’s something most people do, and it’s so easy now with our phones. It’s just not something I want to do. I guess you could say it’s a hobby (people chatting with others) and it’s not one of mine. (7) I don’t have a lot of hobbies, but I always wanted to have one esoteric one. Everyone is interested in the same thing (photography, travel, etc). Well I found a unique one (and it’s something that I’m truly interested in, and not just saying it) – genealogy. I spent a lot of time this year researching my family tree and trying to map it out. It’s hard because eventually it leads into China and I don’t have the ability to search there. But I’ve made good progress in the US.
(8) When I was younger, I had a hobby of watching movies. But ever since we had kids, I have hardly watched any movies. There’s no chance to go to the movie theatre, and we don’t subscribe to Netflix. It’s not something I miss though – from the expensive tickets/concessions to chasing the new media rabbit. Except, this is not true anymore. I actually have watched a lot of movies this year (~30) and while most of them are on the plane, they still count.
(9) Time shifting movies like that is an evolution of my new life. This year I have felt that my time management has changed. I’ve always prided myself in preparation and having enough time to do things properly, but this year there were numerous times (daily or weekly) where I felt rushed. I guess one reason is because I am trying to hold onto priorities that shouldn’t be that important anymore (stuff from days before we had kids), and the other reason is just that there is more stuff going on at once now.
(10) Another thing that continues to be missing is having time to myself, to reflect and think. Not having a commute really affects this, and shower time is just not long enough. However, all the flight time is helpful because it gives me time to do this. For example, every year I have difficulty writing this year end blog, because I sit in front of my computer and can’t think of all the changes in the year. However, for this year’s blog, I actually conceived all the ideas and points on the plane (trying to sleep) and then edit it/fleshed it out on the computer. I need to find more cases where I can time shift like this.
(11) Flying has also changed for me. I have status on Air Canada now so I always get to board early. Sometimes I don’t even have to deal with the riff-raff so flying isn’t a hectic experience. There’s also this feeling of luxury in our new home now because there is a lot more space. However, it’s this strange balance between being the same that we always were (still the same clothes, furniture, cars, etc) and suddenly having luxury things in a few target areas. Not sure if this is faux-luxury, or upbringing holding us back.
(12) I’m a single child so my parents are my responsibility. As I get older my parents do too, and every cold or sickness becomes a worry. I know they don’t want to be a burden for me but that doesn’t alleviate the actual burden.
(13) On the flip side is our children. When I look over the pictures of this year, I see that Katana grew a lot. She’s almost 2 now, can romp about, and kind of express what she wants. That also means that she’s on the cusp of being a little kid like her brothers, and losing the baby cuteness. That is an inevitable outcome that I was struggling with all year – that this is going to be the last baby until we’re grandparents.
(14) Jovian is always the younger brother, but he has grown and is a big boy himself. Sometimes I see him and think he is Apollo due to his size. This year, I also became more familiar with his friends & etc, which means he is finally exuding some of himself into the family (instead of just piggy backing on Apollo’s friends).
(15) Strangely though, I don’t feel that Apollo has grown. He definitely has, especially when I look at his class pictures and all those kids are no longer your cute little kids. But in my mind, he’s still a little boy.
(16) Another year worth of gaming under my belt. This year, I continued to play Star Trek Timelines, started Disney Heroes in the summer, and stopped playing Hearthstone as much. Spending a little of money, but not a lot (maybe $100 total). Gaming is not a emphasis but it is ever-present.
(17) Another thing I’ve prided myself on is eating healthy when at home, so that I can eat crappy (fast food, etc) when I’m out (both in the city or traveling). I don’t think this is true anymore, I end up eating lots of junk food at home too.
(18) I found various instances throughout the year where I wished that I would revive my Twitter account. I just had one liners that I wanted to shout out at the world. In the end, I always ended up holding back because I didn’t want those random musing tied to my digital identity. I toyed with the idea of only tweeting hockey stuff, but even then didn’t end up going through with the idea
(19) This year’s Maple Leafs are good. Not promising, but actually good. They should challenge for the Cup in the playoffs (and if they flame out, it will be disappointing). I watched a bunch of games on TV and for some reason, Apollo is really interested in hockey this year too.
(20) This year ended optimistically because of our move. We needed to move, a bit because we were running out of space, and a bit because it was necessary for our plan in the next few years. The plan of when to move wasn’t concrete, but now that it is done, I am glad. The newness (to us) of the place means life is fresh and exciting (rather than being extremely challenging if everything had changed).
Being in a larger, detached house also helps validate the inflection point of 2017. Now it is about the home and family, rather than starting a family – something we’ll continue in 2019.
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