2018. New Beginnings.

I say it every year, but it boggles my mind just how quickly every year goes.

I wrote last time that 2017 was a pretty cautious one for me. I suddenly needed to find new work completely without warning, and I also learned that my health was a lot more worse than I had realised. All in all, 2017 didn’t end all that well for me, but at least I knew what the stakes were.

2018 has been an incredibly interesting set of new challenges. I moved to a country that speaks a different language to me, and I went from an extremely small company to an incredibly large one.

That all being said, I think I’m happy with the way 2018 came out. I’m incredibly happy I’m in a position where I can continue doing what I love and contributing to a community of incredibly talented and lovely people.

But on that note, if there was one downside to 2018, it was that due to the move, the first half of the year was a bit of a write-off. Getting set up in a new country takes time, and so all the time spent getting an apartment and furniture and setting up the utilities was time I couldn’t spend working on my side projects. Granted, all things considered, I think that was a reasonable trade-off.

I’m saying that, because now that that is all taken care of, I think I’m extra excited for 2019. This will be the first year in a while where I haven’t been constantly uprooting and relocating myself and I’m really excited for this.

Like I do every year, here are some of the goals I’m setting myself for this year.

• I still need to focus on my health. At least now that I’m in one place, I can look at signing up for a proper gym.
• I plan to stream a lot more of my work and gameplay on Twitch. I don’t think I’ll spring for affiliate, but if I ever hit Partner numbers, we’ll see.
• I made some great progress on the file downloader for iComics, but it’s still miles away. I really want to finish it this time.
• I said last time that I want to do more with my singing than just karaoke. I’m making some progress on that, but we’ll see.
• I definitely want to maintain a proper work-life balance. This can be really hard to do in Japan sometimes, but I think I can make it work.
• I definitely want to make more time for hanging out with friends, especially those coming to visit or who already live in Japan.
• I want to have a happy, healthy year.

If you got this far, I hope you had a happy 2018 and are excited for 2019 as well.

Let’s make it a good one. Happy new year! 😀