marginalia 🌿

2023 in review

January 29, 2024
Categories: personal

Books

I had a reading slump in 2022, so I was relieved to have been able to find comfort in reading again in 2023. These were some of the highlights:

• Completed my Jane Austen reread that I started in 2022. I’ve been a Jane Austen enjoyer since I was in elementary school, but I hadn’t read all of her works until now (including Sanditon and the novellas). She is so good at capturing the voice and personality of each of her characters—even reading her works 200 years later, the human experience of her characters is relatable (or at least understandable). Jane Austen novels are a timeless medium for people-watching.
• Listened to audiobooks of some old favourites: War and Peace, Red Mars, Green Mars.
• Read some “trendy” books (My Body, Yellowface, Boy Parts) that I wanted to enjoy but found too many aspects that annoyed me.
• Read Dracula Daily with some friends (first time reading Dracula!)
• Dipped my toes into Chinese literature (The Vagrants by Li Yiyun).

Podcasts

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I frequently feel like my brain is buzzing with anxiety (like in those cartoons where they show someone with a thought bubble containing a black scribble) and podcasts help soothe the side-channels of my brain so that I can actually focus on what I’m doing. I discovered some great podcasts this year.

• Psychology in Seattle
  I’ve learned a lot from Dr. Kirk Honda about how to look at the world and people’s behaviour through the lens of attachment theory, and listened to many hours of deep dives on personality disorders and psychological theories. Th is kind of led to my developing a fascination with reality TV and documentaries about cults, and thinking about people’s motivations and reactions to things (yes, I know that some scenes are manipulated by producers and/or editing).

As I get older, I find myself having to unlearn things about the world and society that are bigoted, corrupt, and harmful (I’m sure this is common). The following podcasts debunk and criticize mainstream media narratives and are refreshingly honest and blunt.

• Behind the Bastards
• It Could Happen Here
• Busted Business Bureau
• Current Affairs
• If Books Could Kill

Video Games

• Final Fantasy XIV
  I am not good at video games. I can’t aim to save my life (pun not intended) and am easily scared. With that being said, I got very absorbed into the story of FFXIV and eventually also learned how to do the combat competently. There is also an endless number of things to do after finishing the story (getting nice clothes, seasonal events, relic weapons, crafting, house decorating, collecting various categories of things). I also started replaying the story with my partner who is playing for the first time. I’ve spent over 1000 hours playing this game…

• Minecraft
  Building in Minecraft is really fun. I don’t know how to plan things in creative mode and just freehand everything and experiment.

My favourite project has been learning about using note blocks to make doorbells. The Minecraft “engine” is not great for having actual music (none of the available samples come close to resembling an actual instrument, and the redstone system has random lag so your notes are not consistently on time) but nevertheless I enjoy the effect of walking into my botanical garden and hearing Clair de Lune.

• Guild Wars 2
  I have no idea what the plot of this game is, but it’s been relaxing and enjoyable to explore the map and do quests and errands for locals. I think one flaw of FFXIV (that GW2 does well in contrast) is that many of the locations feel barren and lifeless. There may be a few token NPCs around but on the whole we have large masses of chunkily rendered rocks and crystals (and some oversized ornate buildings) that are not even worth travelling through once you have unlocked flying or can afford teleporting.

TV/Movies

• Succession: probably my favourite TV show of all time. There is endless character and personality analysis to be had.
• Love is Blind: this isn’t a high-quality show at all, but it has occupied an unreasonable amount of my brain space. I find this show more worthwhile than typical dating shows because there are usually enough contestants who seem genuine about finding a partner (instead of just being dramatic on TV). It’s unfortunate that they don’t have counselling resources on set because Dr. Kirk Honda often points out that some of the conflicts the couples go through are common in his practice and usually solvable.
• Watched movies with my partner: Everything Everywhere All at Once, West Side Story (the new Spielburg one), Arrival, Sound of Music, Dune (the David Lynch one). The Sound of Music was my favourite of this set—my family must have found the soundtrack from the library when I was a kid or something, but I never ended up watching the movie until now and I was surprised to find out how serious and mature (and healthy!) the movie was. I honestly thought that the way the movie handled sensitive topics (loss, getting a new parent and family conflict, adolescent romance, Nazis) was one of the healthiest depictions in media I could think of, even compared to contemporary movies. The scene where the nuns ultimately saved the day was very funny and charming.
• Watched anime with friends (Spy x Family)
• The Vow: interesting rabbit hole about the NXIVM cult. The documentary is apparently made in a “cinéma vérité” style and uses a lot of old footage from Mark Vicente (a former NXIVM member) who was tasked with documenting everything the leader Keith Raniere did (to preserve his “genius” word salads for future generations). Because of all the in situ footage, the documentary is fascinating because we see the former members while they were in Raniere’s thrall juxtaposed with talking head interviews in the present time as they reflect on what happened to them. I found the NXIVM cult really interesting but I may write more about it in a separate post.
• Star Trek TNG: I’m on Season 3, watching select episodes using a guide.

Personal projects

• I learned to crochet!
• Started this website after a long hiatus from working on personal coding projects.
• Ballet (ongoing)
• Figure skating (ongoing)

Goals for 2024

I don’t like to set personal goals anymore, and prefer to just spend time on whatever I fancy, because I always end up falling into the mindset of “I must practice x times a week” and putting pressure on myself to “succeed.” However, I do have some general themes that I want to focus on:

• Work on this website consistently—I used to do more blogging on my personal website but fell into multi-year hiatus/slump and ended up deleting most of it and migrating a few remaining posts here. Writing is cathartic and helps me clear my mind and organize my thoughts and emotions. This website is anonymous and not searchable, so I am able to write without people I know being able to freely access my vulnerable thoughts.
• Community involvement—I’ve had some sporadic attendance at a local crochet/knitting group, and book clubs in the past. I also want to do volunteer (not sure for what yet).
• Donate 10% of my (net) income.
• Continue doing various art projects (without any particular goals or structure).

Reading goals for 2024:

• Read more nonfiction. I tend to do a lot of reading while lying in bed at night (after already having gone to bed later than I’d planned), and when I’m tired it’s easy to resort to just reading comfort novels on my phone.
• Read more of the books I own (The Sympathizer, A Brief History of Seven Killings, Grapes of Wrath, The Books of Earthsea, Master and Margarita).
• Read some technical books (another multi-year hiatus/slump of mine).
• Read more Chinese lit.
• Join a book club.