May 2025

Once again, I'm back bringing another life update in May. I did this last year and will continue this convention for as long as I can remember (or as long as this blog exists). If you're new, this is my annual format for disseminating my life updates on the internet.

Millie ¶

Last August I got a cat! Her name is Millie and she's an adorable two year old tabby.

I've grown up most of my life with pets but I've never been a cat owner. Unlike most pets, they're surprisingly independent and can switch moods on a dime from loving to indifferent. She's surprisingly intelligent, although sometimes I joke about her having only two brain cells. I love her very much and spoil her way too often. If you're thinking about getting a cat, they're one of the easiest pets to care for. Cats are extremely low maintenance and minimal cost.

If you ever get a cat, I strongly recommend using PrettyLitter over conventional litter. It's heavily advertised online but they really put their money where their mouth is. I don't care as much about their color changing technology but the absorption and clumping qualities alone make PrettyLitter well worth the price. It's extremely efficient at absorbing smell and clumping litter is amazing. I initially tried cheaper litters but my rooms began to smell and there was soggy litter tracked all over the floors. It was a nightmare. PrettyLitter is absolutely worth the price.

I also recommend buying a covered litter box. Cats like to dig around in litter which results in litter scattered everywhere. If you get a litter box with walls and roof entry, the cats can't throw litter outside the litter box, and the roof helps remove the litter stuck to their paws. It's a game changer and keeps your living spaces much cleaner overall.

Streaming ¶

I streamed a lot this past year and have been having a blast doing it. I do want to organize my stream setup and make it a bit higher quality and more ergonomical for me, however. I plan on tweaking audio settings to get it perfect.

This year, I want to stream more consistently. I wasn't able to stream on a consistent schedule last year due to intense work projects and other heavy obligations that filled up my calendar with meetings. By the time I was free to stream on most evenings, I would be too fatigued from the previous six hours of meetings to feel social or talkative. In other cases, I had meetings that conflicted with the time I wanted to stream. The result was a jumbled mess of inconsistent streams at arbitrary times.

I plan to begin streaming on a consistent weekly schedule. I'm currently looking at Thursdays Wednesdays from 7 - 9 PM ET. If you're interested in watching, be sure to tune in! I have a ton of games and activities I have been meaning to stream and I'm excited to get started.

Nonprofit Volunteering ¶

As I mentioned last year, I've spent the past two year term volunteering my time and money to a student-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to enriching Asian American students' lives with programming, conferences, and resources. It's been incredibly tough and I'm so relieved my term expires this July.

The work itself was really hard. In the few weeks leading up to one of our conferences, we were each putting in 10-15 hours of volunteer work to book venues, navigate unforeseen obstacles, and balance the budget. All members of the Director's Council live in timezones spread across the US (PT, MT, CT, ET) so coordinating meetings sometimes resulted in early 5 AM meetings or late 11 PM meetings. That being said, the results make the work feel meaningful.

Unfortunately, the main reason I won't be renewing my position for a subsequent term isn't due to the difficulty of the work, but the abundance of drama. Everyone has different leadership styles and different ideas on how to run events and manage a budget. I'm a passive leader in most cases but a lot of strong personalities clashed and made large downstream impacts on our operating model. It led to miscommunication, a lot of hurt feelings, and subtracted from our overall effectiveness as an organization. I applied for this position to help students, not to stress about which board member is right and wrong. I am frankly relieved my term will be over in the next few months.

House ¶

I've slowed down my pace on house projects this past year to make room for other priorities. Otherwise, everything is in good condition! The major project I took on this year was replacing all windows with opening double-pane windows. It was well worth worth my money and time. The new windows are cleaner, wider, and can open on hot summer days or cool summer nights.

I noticed last November that one of my basement closets has begun to mold through the drywall. Terrified of termites and the extent of the damage, I tore down the entire closet only to find that the wall studs and drywall had been placed directly against the concrete foundation (the number one rule of things not to do in a basement).

When planning for rebuilding the closet, I've decided to convert this closet into a cat closet. I've been seeing a lot of cat closets through Pinterest lately and I'm really interested in making one myself to make space for Millie's supplies and give her a new place to play and hide in. It's a fun project for me that I plan on tackling in the next two months.

I also plan to replace most of my backyard fence. Many of the posts have completely rotted through and the fence is leaning heavily into the neighbor's yard. It's going to be a really physically strenuous task but I plan to take it on this in June once the weather is good and it stops raining.

One other ambitious project I have is to repaint my living room. I have patches all over the room from removed outlets and patched paint chips and have recently introduced gaping holes when I moved a wall mounted TV. The hardest part about painting this room is that it is located in the middle of the house. It will be a challenge to move everything around, paint, and hope Millie doesn't track paint around the house.

Sickness ¶

For lack of specificity, I've had various persistent physical health problems throughout this year mostly due to genetics. There have been numerous occasions where I've had to cancel plans or sit out on events because I was "sick". I generally take good care of my physical health and it frustrates me to suddenly have arising health problems affecting my lifestyle. I'm actively working with my primary care physician to diagnose all the issues I've been having but in the meantime, I must deal with existing symptoms and take life in stride.

The good news is that I got a CAT scan for the first time this year. I now have a 3D scan of all the organs in my body and it looks really cool if I'm being completely honest.

Back in the Funk ¶

I've fallen back in the funk again. (Once you catch it, it never really leaves you...)

This year was pretty hard for me mentally. My physical health problems have negatively affected my mental state. I still have recurring nightmares about aging, dying in gruesome ways, lost friendships, and regrets. I tend to always look backwards in life rather than forwards, worrying about my past and feeling immense guilt and regret of my actions rather than moving on.

It got bad enough to the point that I finally tried therapy late last year. All my friends insist on the effectiveness of therapy, but my experience after a few sessions was unfulfilling and I stopped attending. I'm not sure if I was paired with an incompatible therapist or if I should have continued to attend sessions until I began looking forward to it.

With all that said: if you're considering therapy and can afford the sessions, you should definitely attend! Your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Therapy needs to be normalized in society.

Living with someone with severe mental illness is also extremely draining. I had a really tough time spending most of my emotional and physical energy caring for someone this year when I can barely care for myself. I'm not a licensed therapist and can only do so much before I begin to break down.

Let's hope this next year is better.

The Wrong Career ¶

Many times this year, I felt like I was in the wrong career (or sub-profession). More and more often, I see the flaws of corporate work and fail to find the meaning of my work. Most of my work projects tend to not be about making the world better, but instead making my company more money. It feels wrong and does not align with my interests.

I also disagree with the direction of the frontend technology industry. As a frontend engineer it pains me to see so much of the industry standard becoming enshittified. We each continually make the internet more and more hostile and wonder why it's getting worse over time. I feel like changing sub-professions to something lower-level like firmware or embedded systems.

I'd like to work more in the nonprofit realm and work on more open source software. The problem is that both nonprofit work and open source work generally do not produce reliable incomes. That being said, I will gladly take pay cuts if it means working on more open source.

This year I want to continue growing my technical skills. I plan on investing more time in Rust, Go, SQL, and Tailscale. I also want to practice more algorithms. Finally, I want to give more presentations to grow my speaking confidence.

I will also shamelessly plug that I'm getting back into frontend freelance work. If you have a website or web service you'd like me to create and/or manage, please email me to set up a consultation!

Content Consumption ¶

Every time someone recommends a show, movie, or book to me, I record it in an endless list of recommendations. The list is so long at this point that I feel overwhelmed looking at it.

This year I plan to change that. There's so many amazing shows I want to watch and books I want to read. My goal for next year is to finish consuming the entire list of content. Considering the length, this is very ambitious, but I think I can complete the list or get really close before the year ends. You'll start seeing more frequent ratings popping up in my recs as this year progresses.

Conclusion ¶

I thought I was an adult who knew everything about life at age 18. I even felt the same way at age 22. Even now at age 26 I feel like I'm a real adult, but I know there's so much more to experience and learn. I hope to continually learn and grow and love myself a little bit more every day of my life.

Thank you for following me on my journey through life! If you're reading this, I appreciate you. I'm grateful to continually grow year after year and I'm grateful for all the opportunities I've been given. Until next time!