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12.31.2018: Looking Back on the Last Day of 2018


Today's soundtrack is Polarboy: Back from Nowhere. Though I prefer their album 4008 for purely sentimental reasons, this is a solid album in its own right; it's clean acoustic rock, a bit folksy in places, and sometimes reminiscent of the Matthew Good Band. The album has aged incredibly well, considering the fact that it was released twenty years ago!


Today is the last day of 2018; tomorrow, a new year begins. Today's post will be a bit different from normal; this evening, I will pause and reflect on this past year.

 

2018 has had its ups and downs, of course; all years do. Overall, though, it's been a good year.

  • In May, my wife and I were blessed with our third child - a happy, healthy little guy. Our two older kids adjusted to the change well, and we're finally getting some sleep again.

  • I made a career change a couple of years ago, and in June of this year, I successfully bid on a single-location placement. Up until then, I'd been floating between multiple locations, which, while arguably more interesting, made it harder to build a routine and work on long-term goals within my position.

  • Math, I'd always believed, was my weakness. "I'm more of an English Lit guy," I would tell people. But I began to question that belief a couple of years ago after taking a course that talked about the four modalities of learning. What if the problem wasn't that I was bad at math, but that I hadn't learned it in a way that worked for me? So in 2018, I decided to face my fears and give math another try. I worked my way through the Basic Math & Pre-Algebra For Dummies books, and I've been taking math courses since then. I got a 96% final mark in a 10th-grade level Precalculus course, and I'm now halfway through an adult Precalculus 11 course!

  • I started this blog on February 4, and it's been a really positive part of my life. Being able to post something new every day is both cathartic and motivating. Integrating this blog into my daily routine has been noticeably beneficial for my mental health, and has helped to keep me accountable in my goals.

  • In April, my best friend got married, and I was honoured to be his best man. It was a lovely wedding.

  • In July, I released my sophomore album, Cephalopod, Eater öv the Void, checking off one of the major items on my bucket list: releasing a metal album.


Goodbye, 2018. May 2019 be even better! And to anyone reading this, I wish you a happy New Year!

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