2025
Happy new year!
I guess I’m taking a slightly more laid-back approach to goals this year. Health issues have unfortunately progressed; whatever pain relief I was getting from the duloxetine (or otherwise), either that effect has worn off or the pain levels have risen to break through.
I’ve also encountered a new arrhythmia, so “sudden cardiac death” is back on the menu of dread. Holter monitor next week where I’ll try to reproduce that without dying. Rheumatologist follow-up appointment where I expect to be diagnosed with hEDS in … 12 weeks. So it goes.
Goals, then.
Keep up Duolingo.
866 days now; the streak isn’t the important thing, but it has been a really good lesson in proving to myself I can stay consistent with things given the right motivation. (In this case, being able to speak my partner’s native language.)
Duolingo isn’t for everyone, and the course quality varies wildly, but the Spanish course for English speakers is incredible, and if you spend 15-20 minutes a day on it, and let it be your fallback activity when bored, you will steadily but surely gain an extremely real facility with the language.
(This much time is also enough to reliably sit around Obsidian/Diamond league, and sometimes it can be a nice dopamine hit to make an effort to finish at #1.)
I have the benefit of being around a native speaker all the time, but the first year or so my level wasn’t anywhere near being able to use it casually without it getting annoying for both of us. By now, we can switch in and out pretty comfortably around the topics I’ve covered lexicon for.
I’ve also added Portuguese on the side, spending roughly half my time each day on each, and it works pretty well! I wouldn’t start two at once (especially closely related languages like these; too confusing), but being a few years in with one makes it an easy way to bootstrap another habit. Português é estranho, mas eu gosto :) It’s a much shorter and less developed course than the Spanish one, so I expect I’ll finish it this year and start another in its stead.
Daily meditation.
Planning to slot this in with my Duolingo practice. I’ve been an on-and-off meditator for 20 years or so now. I need the equanimity now more than ever.
Home-cooked meals.
This has been a real struggle over the last year or two, with energy levels so low (and no microwave in the Tallinn apartment!), but since moving into my new place back in Melbourne it’s been a key focus. Just need to keep it up.
Deliver the Ava MVP.
Charlotte’s been working non-stop on Ava BASIC (previously) since July, and hopefully we can get that into a complete MVP this year.
Secondary project.
Having an “off” project would be nice. This is a vaguer goal, but I get the feeling technical writing would be a good fit for us.
Keep learning.
So far I have an unsorted list of things I’d like to learn or improve at:
- Formal methods in digital design. We’ve played around with this a bit (e.g. with Robert Baruch’s Amaranth exercises; solving Sudoku with HDL and formal was a cool and unexpected twist), but not enough to usefully use it in actual designs.
- Likewise, something like Lean and perhaps Quint.
- Stenography with Open Steno.
- Training on the Africa Twin; I’ve been rebuilding confidence since a fall after a tyre replacement early last year, but I’d like some controlled conditions to push the envelope a bit.