Happy new year all. I hope you all had a pleasant holiday. 2025 already seems a bit of a blur, probably owing to a baby-induced lack of sleep (ongoing issue). This post is just a little overview of my year.

Work

I’m finding work stressful. Part time has made it more manageable — no longer a crisis. But I still feel like there’s too much to do, that I’m kind of falling behind in everything, and that I might get “found out” at any time. I’m only comforted that when I speak with colleagues, they’re feeling the same way. But when it’s all just commonly held feelings, it’s hard to judge whose feelings are based on an accurate assessment of the reality.

Reading

The biggest twist to my year of reading was getting into haiku. I spent a lot of time reading English haiku, as well as commentary and theory on haiku — the theory is fascinating, a constant ongoing dialogue on the identity of English haiku with respect to its Japanese ancestor, frequently reinvigorated by new scholarship that changes the Anglophone world’s understanding of Japanese haiku.

I also read short fiction by Chiang and Borges, a handful of non-fiction books (some Plato, Byung Chul Han, Jathan Sadowski’s new book), a couple of memoirs on audiobook (Casey Johnston’s A Physical Education and Shon Faye’s Love In Exile, both highly recommended), and a small number (3?) of novels.

Reading is going to be a focus for me in 2026. We are experiencing a shocking decline in reading and literacy. I am determined to reverse that trend in my own life — become more literate — and thus set a good example for my boys.

Fitness

The first half of 2025 was great for fitness. I was consistent, I made good progress. But then after the summer, things really slid. For one, I wasn’t sure I could keep up with the nutrition due to it upsetting my gut eating so much (I now have my doubts about this, because I still had a dicky gut when I stopped, and then when I resumed in December my gut was fine). But also, my work timetable has made going to the gym more awkward — first half of the year I had free periods at the end of some days… perfect to leave early and lift some weights. But now I’m in until the bitter end every day.

The site

I’m still committed to the site, but finding the time (and solitude) to write and/or work on it is tough. However, I think many bloggers have more and less productive seasons in life, and you have to be kind to yourself, especially when you have young children.

Crosswords

I set two crosswords in 2025 — not a huge quantity, but I’m pleased with the quality. Find them here and here.

Games

My year in games was dominated by three titles. The first is Outer Wilds from 2019, which I now consider to be the greatest game of all time. Often described as a “space archeology” game, you travel from planet to planet in a miniature solar system, trying to piece together the history of what happened here. There is no combat (though there is plenty of danger), no stuff to gather, no character progression. It’s all about what you learn, and the story you uncover is at the very least interesting, and for many players, deeply moving. The game’s linking of theme, plot, and gameplay is, in my opinion, perfect.

Then there’s Sekiro, also 2019, which is still an ongoing project. It’s a hard (very, very hard) swordfighting game. Unlike other games that see you slashing each other over and over again, perhaps occasionally hiding behind your shield, no game I’ve played has captured the feeling of swordfighting better. Here the idea is to perfectly time defensive moves like deflections, sidesteps, and hops (over low sweeps) until the enemy is off-balance and vulnerable to a single finishing blow. I get stuck in this game all the time, but I don’t even mind — even losing is fun, and I always feel if I just played that little bit tighter, next time will be the one.

Finally, there is Hollow Knight: Silksong. Playing Sekiro before and after this game allowed me to look past the difficulty discourse (it’s hard, but not Sekiro hard) and appreciate it on its own terms. Which is to say, this is an immaculately designed game in an immaculately constructed world. Although I wasn’t able to fully comprehend the game’s cryptic narrative on a first playthough, I was satisfied that it was “all there”, and as at-least as interesting as Hollow Knight’s. Other than the Bilewater level, I enjoyed pretty much every part of this game. The bosses are all top-quality, hardly a dud among them (more than can be said for any FromSoftware title), the interplay of level design and Hornet’s movement is a joy, and the characters and side-stories you encounter are so memorable. Not to mention, Hornet herself is a great protagonist.

Computer stuff

Yeah, I’m boring enough to have a Linux section of my end of year review, but I know some of you degenerates are into that kind of thing. Most of my computing is now done on my Pocket Reform with Debian Unstable, which has been a rough ride in some ways, lots of bugs and issues, both hardware and software. But when it’s working well, it’s my favourite device to use. I’m typing this on it now.

My other laptop is now living permanently docked, and today I switched it over to Linux Mint (from Pop!_os) to make it a more familiar experience to use as a “family computer”. This means it no longer has suspend, as for some reason suspend only works on Pop!_os with that laptop. But that’s not such a huge deal since it is now acting as a desktop.