2021. Slowly. But surely.

So another year has come to an end. I say it every time, but damn, that was fast! 🤣

2021 was a very interesting year. In stark contrast to 2020, we pretty much knew what to expect at this point, and so while we were all still bogged down for most of the year, at least had a lot more knowledge on how to be careful at this point.

I returned back to Japan in January 2021, and after spending 2020 in Perth, Tokyo was an insanely different beast in 2021.

I basically never left the house for the first half of 2021. I ordered all my groceries online, and wore N95 masks out when I had to pay bills. I exercised by playing Ring Fit Adventure on my Switch, and only went for walks late at night. As someone with asthma, I was extremely scared of catching COVID-19, and potentially having to deal with the Japanese medical system if it got very serious. I really respect people who move overseas from work. It’s very easy to lose control of the situation sometimes, and it’s something I’m always very wary of. ☺️

I can definitely say, as nice as working from home is, after you’re cooped up indoors for a few months, I found myself pining to go back to an office. One thing I never really appreciated in offices was all of the “friendly” chat that occurred there. When working remotely, there’s never really a chance for a casual chat with coworkers; it’s always 100% business all the time and this sometimes makes team dynamics extremely tricky. I honestly think hybrid is the best way to go. 🤔

In the middle of the year, I very thankfully was able to get vaccinated with 2 doses of the Moderna vaccine, and while I did become a bit more relaxed with going outside, Japan’s constant States of Emergencies basically kept us all inside until the end of the year anyway. So, all in all, living in Tokyo in 2021, was extremely quiet. 😅

But. As interesting as living in Japan was this year, most importantly, I didn’t catch COVID-19. Or if I did, I was thankfully protected enough that I didn’t even notice. And that alone is my happiest goal achieved of the year. 😊

I feel like I didn’t achieve as much as I wanted to this year, but given the circumstances, I’m still very happy with what I managed to do.

There were some amazing highlights this year:

• Despite all of the various travel restrictions, I managed to make it back to Japan. My friends did a fantastic job at looking after the place while I was away.
• Set up a really nice home office and gaming set-up in my apartment.
• Finally met my coworkers in person after working remotely for 6 months.
• MC’d iOS Conf SG 2021 remotely from my apartment.
• Ran some more workshops for try! Swift World, and helped MC the WWDC after-party event.
• Finally solved a texture filtering challenge in iComics that had been plaguing me for TWO YEARS.
• MC’d NSSpain 2021 for the APAC region.
• Finally repaired the broken iPhone 5s I had all this time.
• In the brief period at the end of the year, took a quick trip to actually enjoy Japan.
• Continued developing my career (More on that later!)

I feel like I got some good momentum going at the end of the year, and I want to carry this forward into 2022. Some goals I want to aim for:

• Continue going to the gym more often. I started getting back into the pattern towards the end of the year, and I think I can continue that.
• Ship one more “last hoorah” update for iComics before I move fully onto iComics 2.
• Ship the MVP of iComics 2 before iComics 10-year anniversary next year.
• Find out how to record my singing in Tokyo. I found at least 1 studio near my house, but due to the pandemic, it’s still looking somewhat tricky.
• Play more games. I’m still trying to work out how to balance my free time between exercise, iComics and games. But I’m making progress.
• Stream more. Streaming is really fun for me, especially when buddies come in to say hi, and I want to do more of it.
• Enjoy Japan more. One thing that’s really easy to forget when actually living here.
• Return the Australia to see my family. Whenever that might be.

I hope 2022 will be better than these last 2 years. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re nearing the end of the pandemic, but at the same time, I’m also still treating it very seriously. And I’d encourage everyone else to do the same.

I’m very much looking forward to everything going back to normal. However much longer that might take.

In any case, thanks for reading this far. I hope you also had a safe 2021, and are excited about 2022 as well.

Happy New Year! All the best!