Out of every year that I’ve been alive, 2022 was certainly one of them. We saw the end of covid in our collective capability to simply stop caring about it. The queen died, that’s pretty big. Not our queen, she’s still doing fine as far as I’m aware. I went back to teaching this year and I only had two big panic attacks this year. That is up from the year before that, but only because I didn’t really leave the house much in 2021 due to, well, everything. I posted an entire volume worth of one of my stories online at a pretty consistent rate and wrote a rough script for a second volume. I started my journey towards learning Japanese this year and last but not least I ended up writing a total of 373.553 words over the span of an entire year. That’s 100.000 words up from the year before that and a little bit higher than my goal of 1000 words a day. With 2022 now done and dusted, let’s have a look ahead at 2023 and some good old fashioned New Years’ Resolutions. I don’t want to have a long list here, because I rarely keep to a majority for the goals, but there are a few things I do want to do:
Write more. This one’s a given and will likely be my goal for many years. Either in the form of more words, more time spent, or more productive. This time around, it’ll hopefully be a combination of all of those. I’ve set a lofty goal of 500.000 words over the span of this year. That comes down to about 1400 words a day on average. Looking back at how draining November was, I think that’s a high bar to reach, but I’m also counting a bunch of different posts and stories for this goal as opposed to one continuous story. I think it’s an attainable goal, but if I fall just short I wouldn’t be too annoyed.
Relax more. It’s kind of telling of my state of mind that this is a resolution I need to consciously make. I get caught up in competitive games a lot and end up spending too much time on them. Now, I don’t think I’m all that competitive per se, but I fall for things like battle passes and ladder grinds a lot and end up prioritizing completing a challenge over actually having fun. I have a ton of books, manga and single player games lined up that I really should give some attention, and this year I hope to do so. I’ve set a goal of at least 20 books read in the span of a year, which is a lot, but there’s a couple thinner books on my list that’ll help with that.
Learn a language. I talked a little bit earlier about starting to learn Japanese. I’ve been wanting to learn a new language for a while now, and as someone who watches a ton of anime and would love to visit the many sights that Japan has to offer, the language just makes sense to learn. I also love the idea of learning a completely new alphabet so for 2023 I want to become fairly proficient in both Hiragana and Katakana. That’s a pretty lofty goal, especially doing this on top of the final stages of my teaching degree, but if I set aside enough time I think it can be done.
And that’s what I’d like to do this year. Hopefully I get to come back to this blog in a year from now and proudly proclaim I’ve completed all three of the above things. Or maybe it’ll only be one or two. Or maybe I’ll have another mental breakdown midway through the year and give up on everything. Let’s hope not. But that’s all from me for today, I’m going back to reading some manga. Thanks for reading and if you like my blog please leave a like and comment what resolutions you’ve set for yourself for 2023 down below!
Opal Kaharis 