Blog Entry: January 14th, 2025

2025 Vision Board And Goals

Another year has gone by. It feels strange. So much has happened in this year but that's how it is every year, isn't it? This year has been pretty crazy. Last January seems like a forever ago. I think I've grown a lot this year but also regressed in some ways. I know what event and behaviors have caused it. This behavior are coping mechanisms and they have their time and place, but it is no longer the time and place for them anymore. Time for a better year.

Spring semester of 2024 was tough but also great at the same time. I was taking some difficult classes but I excelled in them. I did well in swim. I got 27.9 s in the 50 free. I also started diving, was mediocre at it until I started dislocating my arm doing basic moves. Summer was okay. I went to Hawaii, which was really beautiful. I was kind of depressed in the summer as usual but July and August ended up being pretty good before I injured my knee. That's where everything seemed to drop into the abyss even though I didn't know it at the time. Haha, fun times... :') 2024 was difficult yet happy but also sad but also so much growth in a lot of weird places?

Anyways, I'm going to stop trying to recap whatever 2024 was. We moving on. We gon do better. Um, anyways let's move onto my vision board. It's just a little thing I made using images from pinterest and put it onto google slides. It represents some of the goals that I'm hoping to achieve throughout the year, like eating healthier, dressing more intentionally, doing hobbies, spending time with friends, getting stronk and achieving academic domination >:D !

2025 Goals

It seems a lot of my faults start with fear of rejection. Or perhaps its my fear of losing control of other peoples' pereception of myself. I don't want to be rejected from an internship so I don't call. I don't want people to think I'm a bad writer so I don't write even if I want to. I don't want to be rejected so I reject them first. But if I do that, then that means I don't live. I don't get to go out there and meet new people. Travel places. Make new experiences. I don't want to live my life afraid for the bare crime of existing. So, to get over this fear, I must look at opportunities where I will be rejected. I will seek out others' rejection. And who knows... perhaps I won't even get rejected.

These past few months have been tough on me emotionally and physically. I've lost muscle and gained fat. I can't move the way I used to. It makes me sad and somewhat body dysmorphic? Idk the correct word for it but as my knee is technically healed yet it still hurts, I want to build muscle and pick up running consistently again, as well as doing swim semi-consistently. I've sort of started this already but I want to keep doing it. Also, I want to cosplay as Korra in March so for that I need to lock in on my gains.

This is a little bit different from regaining muscle. In this case, I mean mental strength. Or, hm, resilience. I want to be able to faec whatever the year is going to throw at me. I want to be grounded in myself and my abilities. I want to be able to fall into a mental rut like I did this fall, and if I do, recognize it earlier and break out of it. I want to be confident in myself, in the way I treat myself and how I speak. I want to *feel* strong and that I can conquer anything.

This is probably one of my worst habits, is that I don't let myself rest enough. I don't get enough sleep, I don't let myself properly recover from injuries. I don't know why but I seem to have to come to the conclusion that to rest is to be weak, to be undisciplined. Probably because of our capitalistic, "hustle" culture. It's untrue though. Rest is important to do well in anything. When I am properly rested, I can do more things and with better efficiency. Resting makes my mind feel better. Rest is not the enemy, pointless exhaustion is. I'm going to try more this year to intentionally engage in my hobbies and to have a good sleep schedule, trying to go to bed at 10 pm to wake up at 6-7 am.

I'm one of those strange people that needs routine to do well in life. Whenever I am set free from school for break, I flounder. I don't do anything but just bed-rot. I try to make one for myself but it can be difficult to make a new routine for a just a few weeks before being thrown back into another one. One way I try to create a routine is by running at more or less the same time each day but last year that inevitably got thrown off course. For this new year, I'd like to focus on creating/planning routines before they negatively affect my life. Essentially, I'd like to make a routine where I block out time to study, work, exercise and do hobbies all while not burning myself out.

There are a lot of studies that show partaking in being grateful will greatly improve your life. Well, the technically word for it is "practicing gratitude" which sounds better than what I put. Practicing gratitude has shown to help with depression and anxiety, which I have far too much of. Last year, I feel like I wasn't grateful for the things I had in the moment and it just hit me so strongly, these things I had taken for granted. I want to take the time this year to appreciate the things I have, the people around me and the moments I go through.

Sometimes it feels like I don't know what love is. I love people but I don't know how to show that love towards people. I feel like this resolution goes hand in hand with my gratitude resolution. I'm pretty introverted so sometimes I don't want to be around family and friends when they want to spend time. I don't know, maybe I should focus on showing my love for my loved ones, lol?

To be fair, I did pretty well last semester, getting all A's in my classes. I want to continue it into this new year and continue doing well. I'm planning on taking some extra classes as well just to see if I do end wanting to go to med school and don't go down the physical therapy route. I also want to build some contacts with my professors so I can ask for recommendation letters later on. I want to apply for scholarships and just feel smarter overall, I guess.

I'm trying to look for one right now but for some reason the job site that's linked with my university doesn't seem to be working at all. I want to get one job, prefereably with the university so they'll be more flexible with my hours, during the spring semester and then have a job or two over the summer. I'm okay with savings right now but more money is always good.

This resolution goes hand in hand with my "fear of being rejected". Like I know I need to go ahead and just start cold-calling places and ask if they do internships. They don't know who I am! They're not going to care! And yet I'm still scared... Maybe I should try writing a script for what to say to people to help prepare myself. This is probably one of the biggest things I need to tackle this year.

I think its safe to say that most people with phones nowadays have at least a bit of a phone addiction and spend too much time on it, myself not excluded. The more social media I consume (mainly Instagram), the worse I tend to feel about myself. I read to much fanfiction, like way way too much. I want to cut down on the time I spend on my phone and laptop for leisure and try to spend it more time writing or studying or cleaning.

At the deepest core of myself, I think I'm a storyteller; I am someone who has a story to tell even if I'm bad it. Sometimes I get so swept up in how the people reading it will like it, that I forget to ask myself if I like it and that stops me from writing altogether. This year, I want to focus on that and just write and tell those stories inside of me, even if it doesn't come across perfectly. I want to change my mindset of "not being a good enough writer to tell this story" but a mindset of "becoming a better writer once I tell this story". After all, the only way to get better at writing is by writing. I am going to aim for writing and publishing at least 10k of words per month. In fact, I want to challenge myself and write a long fic, starting today and finishing it by February 10th. I would also like to indulge some other creative hobbies such as crochet and art.

Not something that has been mentioned on this site before, but I am a Christian and while sometimes I feel like other Christians can push me away from the faith, I still want to grow closer to God and I hope to accomplish this by reading through the whole bible this year.

I have a California State Pass and I intend to use it! >:3 I want to get back into hiking, because there's so many beautiful trails are within driving distance of my home. California is a beautiful place and my home is in a pretty good location where I can do daytrips to lots of different places. I also want to go onto more trips with more friends, which I actually have planned out for February currently!

I have a bad habit of withdrawing into myself whenever things gert bad. I can't seem to share with people when I'm having a hard time. I stop responding, showing up, speaking up. I become a shell of myself and hate it. This year, whenever I notice this behavior I want to do my best to stop it in its tracks, to tackle head on what is making me feel this way.

I cannot say that I have a particular style nor do I really want to find one but I want to dress myself in more thought this year. I've been feeling pretty body dysmorphic but I'm working on that. I want to dress in a way that it doesn't look like I've just thrown a pair of jeans and a sweater on, but something that looks cohesive and like an actual outfit. I'm not planning on really buying any pieces for myself though, other than a pair of dark jeans.

I think I already fairly healthy but this year, I'd like to get more vegetables and fiber in my diet. I'd like to also cook more this year, both recipes from my native cuisine as well as other different cuisines. Recently I tried a pasta recipe, which haha, lowkey sucked. Next up, I have the ingredients for chili which I love, so I'll be trying that next!

I would consider myself a pretty athletic person, even though I'm not particularly skilled at sports of any kind. Now, that I'm no longer a collegiate athlete, I don't want to stop exercising and learning new skills but keep it going throughout my entire life. I want to get stronger in running and swimming again. I want to try weightlifting, volleyball, dance, tennis, etc, just to see if I like it. I did a lot of it last year and I'd like to keep it going into this year.

Sometimes it feels like everything I do is for the attention and praise of other people even if it's wrong. It drives a lot of my academic and creative pursuits, knowing what people would say of me. I want to stop seeking the validation of other people and do things just because I want to do them. I want to write something just myself. I want to pursue my own career without succumbing to the pressure of my parents. I want to go on a trip all alone, just because. I want to be a person who's confident and fulfilled just by being herself.

I have a bunch of ugly little cement pots that I acquired for free from my parent's last tenant in the old house who just left them behind. I want to paint these little pots, maybe some of them in like the Ukrainian style and maybe some scenes from Sky: The Children of Light. They're pretty small pots so I want to try growing tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, zucchini, onions and garlic. Considering the zone on in, I better start on that sooner rather than later.

I'm not a very messy person but I definitely could be cleaner. I hate having to clean the bathroom I share with my brother. I want to clean my house more consistently in 2025. So far, I've set repeating tasks on google calendar, assigning one or two tasks a day so I can consistently clean up. I know its good for your depression if you live in a clean environment so maybe that'll help me in that way as well.

I learned piano for two years back when I was 11-13. Eventually, I stopped attending lessons and slowly I forgot how to play piano. I can still read notes and I still have a piano so I'd like to actually pick this skill back up. I don't want to be perfect, but it'd nice if I could learn to play a few songs just for fun.

As a Ukrainian American, I find that I haven't been speaking Ukrainian as frequently nor as fluently as I want to. I don't speak it as well as I used to and I want to speak better, so I can communicate with family and my community. I'm planning on improving this by reading a book of folk tales written at middle-school level along with an Ukrainian to English dictionary.

My 2025 Bingo Card

The artwork above is Valley of the Sédelle at Pont Charraud: White Frost c.1903–1911 Armand Guillaumin (French, 1841–1927), gotten from The Cleveland Museum of Art at Unsplash.