First Update of 2025

I’ve fallen even more off the radar than usual because December really piled on the negative, and I was very busy and burned out in November. I’m not entirely sure where to begin. I feel like I’ve started and stopped this update a dozen times before settling on this final version, so thankfully, decisions were made and words were put down.

Main Story: 2024 Lightning Round ⚡

Right, too much has happened since I last sent out a blast. I’ll do a few bite-sized comments and tales to let you know how I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and all that good stuff.

⚡I went to Tokyo Disney for Halloween. They allow people to wear costumes, and they were magnificent. I also went on Splash Mountain for the first time since I was probably 10 years old. I feel I have conquered a fear.

⚡I got a Malenia hoodie (birthday) from this fashionable museum collaboration, as well as the second art book for Elden Ring (Christmas). I also also received my Jar Warrior Alexander mug that I preordered back in the Spring. I am a fully kitted out nerd.

⚡I turned 38! I can’t remember much of what I did, not because I drank a ton, but because my memory is shit.

⚡A proposal I wrote for a course on minority languages, language preservation, and language death got approved by the university! I feel like a real linguist!

⚡In December, my grandmother passed away. She’s the last grandparent to pass on. I still remember when grandpa passed away, how difficult it was for her, how I drove my mom to the airport while I was still in undergrad. It’s odd to now be in the “adult” cycle with my mom and dad in the “grandparent” cycle (even though there are no grandchildren; you get the idea, though). It was surreal to be back in Ohio, but very comforting: It was so nice to just decompress and focus on spending time with my mom and extended family. I was in a bit of a bubble and it felt very nice— a sorely needed mental holiday, despite the circumstances surrounding me being there. I ate some great food, bought lots of gifts for people in Japan, and watched baking competitions with mom. I miss that, just watching tube with mom. We did that a lot when I was funemployed between teaching jobs after graduating from UT.

⚡After coming back to Japan, I got Covid! Thankfully, I was so vaxxed up that it only created minor inconveniences, like having to avoid going to work, which really messed up my rhythm and 90% of the lessons I had planned, but so it goes. Fun fact: After each vaccine, my hip joints hurt real bad, and when I had for-real-real Covid, my hip joints hurt a bit. What’s up with that?

⚡I had a lovely tea time at the Ritz Carlton in Tokyo with the Mrs., a bit of a recent holiday tradition. They brought back the ballet dancers! Young women danced the nut cracker and it was a lovely evening all around. A bit heavy on the sweets this year, but the price is still so good I can’t complain! You’d think it’d be insanely priced, but if you’re willing to spend a bit, it’s not bad in the grand scheme of things. Highly recommended! 🫖

⚡We also visited Okinawa again during a holiday in November. All of the boat activities we wanted to do got canceled because it was too damn windy. I did find the best espresso in Japan, though: Coffee People in Onna, Okinawa. Swam in the ocean, bought some nice pottery, tried to just relax and listen to the ocean.

Good Thing: Notebooks and Stationery

While shopping at LOFT (a home goods shop mixed with a drug store vibe; it's super lovely) for Christmas gifts, I had to buy one for our friend, Aaron. He’s big into gaming and gaming history, so imagine my surprise when I saw some stationery (mostly yearly notebook planners) for the Mother series.

If you don’t know, Mother was a pretty obscure RPG that came out back in the NES era. Only one game made its way state-side, Mother 2 (renamed Earthbound), but the characters have been in the wildly popular fighting series, Super Smash Brothers. It’s not the type of game you typically see merch for, given that its much older and has less of a popular profile in the popular consciousness, both in the USA and Japan.

So, I bought the notebook and gave it to Aaron. He really liked it and dropped a bit of lore that I had no idea about, which made the gift even more special.

The Mother creator, Shigesato Itoi, is actually very well known in the stationery world. See, he runs a website called Almost Daily Itoi News. The website is free and completely ad free, which he supports with the selling of anthology books containing articles from the website and lifestyle goods. The most popular lifestyle goods from the Hobo Nikkan line? Planners! Turns out that this year, they made a planner uniting Itoi’s former work in video games with his current work in lifestyle goods and writing.

In addition to his Mother planner, they had a nice, durable One Piece planner with a picture of Luffy being brought to life with an ink brush. Got that for myself— hoping to use it often this year as I try to reduce the amount of time I’m staring at screens and just doing nothing online. I like the tactile nature of analog. Ever since I started listening to records with Halee, I’ve become more interested in de-teching a lot of aspects of my life. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?

Miscellaneous Media, Year-End Edition! 🎆

I find the amount of data out there in the world overwhelming and borderline baffling: Why do they need to know some of this stuff? What sorts of zany correlations are they drawing based on this data? And how, if they have so much data on me, are my targeted ads still irrelevant or terrible?

It seems like everyone has jumped on the Spotify Wrapped bandwagon: Take all that data you collected from your users, make a spiffy visualization, and feed it back to them. It fuels two of our most human desires: our narcissism and our desire to see big number go up.

If you don’t care about any of this, then you may stop here. Thank you for reading, and for those of you who wish to see what products and services gave me the year-end summary, here we go!

First is Spotify. A lot of people online were grumbling about the AI-ass music genres the Wrap spit out this year. For me, in May, I was listening to a lot of Le Tigre, Bikini Kill, and other girl punk groups from the 90s. There’s a name for this genre: Punk. Or, if you’re feeling sassy, Grrrl Power. What did Spotify label it as? “Goth Mall Punk Hang After School.” That wasn’t is exactly, but all of those words were present in one shape or another. I think it’s silly and an absolutely bullshit and wasteful use of AI, if that is indeed the case, but ultimately unbothered otherwise.

I also got a summary from my podcast app, AntennaPod. They tell me it’s all gathered on my device and none of my data is shared with them, which was refreshing to see.

Playstation does this every few years, but their consistency has always been hit or miss. The nice thing is, they keep collecting data through December 31st, so it truly is the entire year, which is nice, because I went on a bit of a bender with Unicorn Overlord during my mini vacation for Christmas and New Year’s.

I also go my yearly GoodReads data, which was grim compared to other years. With all the moving and new jobs and what-not, I only completed a little over a dozen books. I also find myself getting sleepier and sleepier when I read. Is my brain shutting down? I sure hope not.

I’m curious if you’ve made it this far: How do you feel about all this data collection? How do you feel having it presented to you like this? Novel? Dystopic? Waste of time? Shoot me a message and let me know!