soobin | Reading

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happy new year everyone <3

2025

✓ get a full time job — yes!!!! i don't even care that i didn't do too great on the other goals i had on this list. this was the big one.
track my spending — okay well i didn't really do this one but in my defense i was in china for most of the year and as a result basically wasn't spending anything. so i'm currently testing out different spreadsheets and trying to figure out a system in anticipation of the job. but honestly i don't think i really have the patience to stick with a spreadsheet i might just give up and pay for YNAB.
make swimming a weekly habit — okay lmfaoooo i fell off on this one so hard. but again, being in china made this basically impossible because swimming here is just not the greatest.
make writing a daily habit — i have no excuse for this one. i was just lazy.
✓ cut down on screentime — only remembered this goal late into the year (november), but i read a book and have been reflecting appropriately and while i still have some hurdles i'm definitely much better about it than i was before. it's an ongoing struggle though.
procrastinate less — this one didn't really apply to my life this year. crazy what being out of school does to you.
✓ get better at chinese — well yes! natural side effect of being in china for so long. but i did also finish a book (random webnovel, but i'm still counting it) and expanded my vocabulary significantly so it's not like i'm just imagining the progress either.
watch 35 movies — only managed 16/35. turns out that no longer doing weekly movie nights with your roommates will do that to you... i don't think movie watching is always a social activity, but i simply like it more when it is one.
✓ read 25 books — yes! i did this in bursts and fits (finished 4 books in the span of 3 days but also went 3 months without reading anything) so i'm not thrilled about the consistency but i'm happy to have met the goal regardless. i also read a lot of good books this year and am enjoying the freedom of not needing to read according to a syllabus anymore!
✓ knit from stash — i didn't bring any knitting with me to china but i DID knit from stash in the early part of the year while i was still at home. so yes.
learn embroidery — i didn't bring the kit with me to china and i didn't get around to it earlier in the year. so no.
✓ use up 1 bottle of ink and hit pan on 1 blush — i did both of these <3 finally done with the bright orange ink, and then not only did i hit pan on 1 blush but i also fully finished a different one.

2026

some kind of career-related goal — i'm still undecided on this, but i'm sure i'll think of something once i start the job.
some kind of finance-related goal — i'm actually very decided on this already but the job requires relocation and my finances are going to be kind of whack until i finish that. so i don't want to decide anything too early. and i also don't know if this is the platform to air out my personal finances lol. i want to become more financially literate in general though... my parents never taught me anything and i lived under the practice of just never spending money if you can help it, which is not the best practice and definitely has given me unhealthy hangups about money in general ("if you can help it" never works because i can always rationalize things as non-essential. and then i constantly feel like shit for spending money on... laundry detergent).
get better at cooking — in college i cooked a lot to save money, but because i was in college i was basically living on the bare minimum (thank you 炸酱面 <3). an unintentional side effect of that was losing so much weight so fast that my physician ordered blood tests for me to make sure that i was still getting all my nutrients in. i don't want to have another health scare like that again! so rather than cooking nicer dishes, i just want to make sure i'm eating healthy. especially because i think cooking/eating food in general is suchhhh a waste of time and i default to eating the same 3 - 5 things over and over again because i know cooking/eating/clean-up of those things will take half an hour total, max. so i need to get over the mindset that the entire business of feeding myself is pointless and put actual effort into it.
make an effort to meet people — moving out/job relocation means i'll be starting over in a place where i know basically no one. so i want to talk to people outside of work too, especially because i'm like 99.99% sure i'll be the youngest one there. specifically, i want to go to a meetup (book club, knitting, language exchange, etc) at least once a month.
make exercising a weekly habit — starting out small with weekly, but ideally i want to hit the gym/pool daily in the morning before work, because i want to take advantage of the YMCA young person discount membership while i still can.
make writing a daily habit — yes i keep bringing this back. i'm getting more specific this year though and telling myself that i have to write at least 1 sentence a day, which is easy enough or me to do every single day. i think establishing the habit is more important than the amount i'm writing at this point.
keep a sketchbook — i'm hoping to get into art again! it was one of my longest running hobbies/extracurriculars but i dropped it once i got to college.
read a book in chinese — i'm happy with another webnovel too. i just want to maintain this expectation of improving my mandarin literacy.
read 30 books — i went through phases with reading last year and managed to hit 25, so i feel like if i'm more consistent with reading this year then i should be able to handle 30.
- an aside on reading: i feel like the reason i keep going through reading slumps is because i usually read pretentious literature that requires quite a bit of work/thought to read no matter how much i enjoy it because i'm often thinking about how it can inform my writing. and also because the initial level of investment is a bit higher because the premise is fiction, so i need to spend the first few pages buying into the premise. fic builds upon an interest i'm already invested in, and then nonfiction deals with the world that i live in so i'm automatically invested. i'll often default to poetry when i feel like i've read too many novels/short stories in a row or if i'm worried about not hitting my yearly goal because it's shorter and therefore should be easier to finish. but in reality poetry requires the most effort to read, so that doesn't ever work. so i think i need to make sure i have variety above all (especially with nonfiction).
watch 25 movies — majorly downgrading this goal because clearly i'm not the biggest fan of watching movies alone. i do want to try watching movies instead of youtube while knitting though, so hopefully that'll help.
knit from stash — this time i think i can use up the entire rest of my stash, since i don't have too much left. it'll be exciting to buy new yarn! though i also worry about the fact that i'll have to do so with tariffs :/
knit a cardigan — i need to buy yarn fro this, so if this does happen it'll be towards the end of the year. it'll be tricky because it'll be my first time substituting yarn (DK for aran weight), but i want to eventually be able to make whatever adjustments i'd like to other patterns seamlessly/write some of my own so this seems like a good way to ease into that!
knit my own design/freehand — i'm going to start out easy with a scarf (no need to worry about shaping, just with designing my own chart) but i'm pretty excited for this! i already have something in mind.
learn embroidery — i want to finish the kit! i'll be happy with that.
learn to sew — i just want to take one (1) class... ideally i'll be able to do even more than that but sewing is such an expensive hobby. i've kept my promise that i won't even entertain the idea until i get a full time job, so now i need to figure out the new benchmark lol.

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