2025: Year in Review

From the first cozy day of 2025 relaxing at home to seeing many difficult times for everyone to the last night of 2025 out dancing with my sister and friends on New Year’s Eve to usher in a wonderful beginning to the New Year, 2025 was a tumultuous year but had its great moments, too, and was a year of change for me. I started 2025 taking the “Science of Well Being” class on Coursera, which was my first wish-list item, and I did implement several lifestyle changes last year as a result of it.

The class uses data to show how certain lifestyle changes can rewire your brain for happiness and how to successfully create habits. One key lifestyle change that I kept all year was ensuring that I got eight hours of sleep each night, I even have it added to my to-do list in my Do Habits app. Getting some exercise in several days a week and nightly meditation are two more habits that I’ve added, as well. The importance of getting sleep, exercise, and maybe even meditating seem like common knowledge, but I didn’t really consciously add them as habits until I took this class. Doing yoga has also helped me to be consistent in other areas, helping me to create more of a flow of movement in life and to stay consistent.

Another wish-list item I achieved was to write in a gratitude journal every day of 2025 (and 2024). This was a really good way to rewire my mind to focus on positivity. As for more wish-list items that I completed, I liked a couple of my oil pastels enough to frame them and hang them up in my apartment and I worked on writing in a diary/journal on a regular basis, and even found some great local breweries and coffee shops in which to write.

One area that I took a deep dive in last fall was languages. I decided to continue my Spanish learning, and also to add Japanese and Vietnamese. Each week since, I’ve spent about 16 hours on languages, doing a little over five hours a week on each one. This includes Pimsleur courses, which I’ve found by far to be the most effective language courses though they cost a bit; Innovative Language lessons; Fluent Fiction immersion podcasts, which are good for gauging where I’m at with a language; and Duolingo, helpful for putting spellings and characters to the words and phrases I’m learning in the audio courses. I love learning languages, if I had to choose one thing to stick with out of all of these things, it would probably be languages.

In my wish-list I had added watching 50 foreign language films in a year to the list as something fun and doable to do, and had started last year but it kind of dropped off, so starting this weekend, I’m going to add Spanish and Japanese language films each week and try to watch 50 of each by the end of the year. This is the perfect weekend to start this because I’m home with a cold and don’t have the energy to do much else. I would add Vietnamese movies, too, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to find 50 to watch. However one of my favorite directors, Trần Anh Hùng, made several Vietnamese language films that I absolutely love, and can watch over and over. In fact, I’ve heard other language learners mention that watching a foreign language movie repeatedly is a great language learning method. I also started watching more language videos and TikToks and just started to have a lot of fun with it.

One realization that I’ve come to this year is that in the past I had way too many projects going on, some of which didn’t serve me well, so I decided to drop them and make more time for key areas in my life, which are spending time with family above all else, learning languages, playing piano, and creating with oil pastels. This included closing my Etsy candle shop at the end of 2025, because between the cost of making the products and Etsy fees and trying to stay competitive, I barely made any profit. So I’m just going to make candles and fragrance oil blends for myself and friends and family who want them, and keep it as a fun hobby rather than a business.

I had set a personal goal of completing two ABRSM performance exams in 2025, which I did, but they were the easiest levels, Initial Grade and Grade 1. Although they were simple, preparing for them taught me to pay close attention to all of the little details of piano music again: the dynamics, articulation, and proper fingering. ABRSM offers face-to-face and digital exams, but unfortunately the organization is not well-known in the states and there’s no one in my area to conduct the face to face exams, so I can only complete the digital exams offered. This rules out the Practical Grade exams but allows me to take all of the performance and some of the theory exams.

In 2025 I didn’t read (or listen to) 50 books, but I did enjoy a handful of books and my favorites were The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, Just Kids by Patti Smith, and The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck. In music, as of late I’ve found myself listening to more classical and contemporary piano than any other genre, so I may share some of that here, as well, but shy away from posting the rest. That about wraps things up for my year in review. With better time management, this year I do plan to be here more often with updates, photos, and more.

I hope your 2026 is filled with love and happiness. Cheers!