Year in Brief
All in all, another turbulent year of drifting — from Russia back home, and then on to Japan. A lot happened, yet somehow it all feels like nothing in particular. A true master of going with the flow. Still, I’m genuinely happy with where I’m at right now.
January: New Year trip — Russia’s Mineral Waters region 🏔 → Armenia → Sochi → Abkhazia. (Photo: Lake Ritsa in Abkhazia.) See [2023 New Year Trip] for details.
February: Novosibirsk was still freezing. With the cook back in China for the Lunar New Year, I ate out every day. Had a lot of lunches with colleagues — drinks and burgers — which was actually pretty fun.
March: Time to bolt 🤣 (Photo: the view from the office window.)
April: Returned to China; bought a SteamDeck (collecting dust); watched Suzume and Detective Conan: The Baker Street Haunting; moved from Shenzhen to Dongguan on short notice and crashed at a colleague’s place. (Photo: the roommate’s cat.)
May: Went home to Harbin for Golden Week, attended a middle school classmate’s wedding. Got my nails done for the first time.
June: Visited the dentist while waiting for my visa, then headed to Japan. Summer was scorching.
July: Work, housing, various logistics — explored Tokyo on foot, watched fireworks, bought a camera.
August: Attended Wonder Festival 2023 (WF) and Comiket 102, plus a few Tokyo sightseeing spots.
September: Chiba beach, Kamakura, Enoshima, and TGS (thanks to a forum friend for the ticket!).
October: Saitama, Kasukabe, and a few other places. Shibuya on Halloween was an absolute mob. Bought an Xbox Series X (also collecting dust).
November: Ishii Nagako solo exhibition. Mount Fuji 🗻. Autumn foliage 🍁.
December: Bought a ROG laptop (Overwatch, let’s go!). Year-end parties. Started planning New Year’s trip to Osaka and Kyoto.
Reading
Read 56 books of various kinds this year.
The first book I read was The Three-Body Problem. I’d also watched the TV series, but reading it while huddled in a freezing forest cabin in Novosibirsk, staring out at the dark trees and moonlight, hit differently.
This year was again dominated by mystery fiction (no surprises there — probably for the next few decades). First wrapped up Hayasaka Rin’s Litchi series, then in April finally tackled The Sunshine Robbers — a hole I’d been meaning to fill for five years. In July I started reading Imamura Masahiro (also loved the Dushaen no Satsujin film adaptation — I want to be a beautiful girl detective’s assistant!). Later, I read Knock on Locked Door after following the drama. And at the end of the year I finished the Danganronpa: Kirigiri serial. Another great year for the honkaku genre!
If I had to pick my favorite from each half of the year: The Double Serpent Locked Room for the first half, and Monocular Girl for the second.
For next year’s reading, I mainly want to complete a few series: Nisio Isin’s Kubikiri Cycle series and Nishizawa Yasuhiko’s Takumi Sencho series — plus branch into some new authors: Shirai Tomoyuki and Nozaki Waku. My current reading list has 76 books on it; hoping to get through them this year.
Films
Didn’t watch many films or dramas. The most memorable was probably John Wick: Chapter 4.
Games
True gaming drought — basically nothing except mahjong.
2024 Plans
Looking back at last year’s goals, I completed basically nothing except reading 😅. That said, here’s what I’m aiming for in the new year:
- Japanese N2 — exam results aside, aim to solidify grammar and vocabulary
- Personal knowledge management
- Reading (see above)
- Photography & travel — now that I have a camera, bring it out more often
- Use GPT more for work and study
- Professional skills: graphics, deep learning, front-end
Looking Back at Last Year’s Goals
2022 Year-End Review — Holed Up in Novosibirsk
- Start writing a diary: on and off
- Daily planning, self-disciplined lifestyle: went with the flow
- Read 30 novels: achieved ✅
- Study Russian: said goodbye to Russia
- Cook on weekends: occasionally managed a hot pot
- Draw on the iPad: AI draws better than I do
- Work seriously: quit instead 😅