1 January 2025 - Happy New Year, and a year-in-review.
Well, it's already New Year's Eve as I type this up, I can't believe another year has gone by. This one's been full of ups and downs, I've had some of the best experiences of my life, and some of the worst. I experienced victories and losses, made new friends, and lost some good ones too.
Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one, and a somewhat heavy one.
2024 was the year I finally got back into streaming, after a multi-year long hiatus. On top of a beefy tax return this year, I had saved up enough money to buy a PC off of a good friend of mine out in Montana. Did you know that this friend very likely lives north of me, despite many Americans referring to Canada as "the North"? It's even in our NBA basketball team, the Toronto Raptors' slogan, "We the North". That aside, I was purchased the PC, and it was well on it's way towards me. Unfortunately, there were some hiccups, the first GPU sent was a dud with artifacting across the monitor. Fortunately, take two was successful, unfortunately, due to an unfortunate combination between the DisplayPort cables I bought, and the case this PC was built in, I couldn't properly plug the monitors into the GPU. Fortunately, I eventually had a brainwave, and cut smalls parts of plastic off of the ends that would go into the PC, and it worked! I finally had a decent gaming computer in my hands!
Not that I could enjoy it for very long, though. Because days after the PC had even arrived, I was due to head to New York City to meet Yumi, one of my closest friends. It was a short stay, only 6 days, but we made sure to make the most of it, while still being as frugal as possible. And I like to think I was successful in both, only having spent around $500 USD on the whole trip. This was mostly thanks to being able to stay in her parents' apartment in the city, and eating at home when we could. Her father was very kind to us, making sure I was comfortable as can be, providing food, and even treating us to some Dim Sum in Flushing Main St. Chinatown (objectively the best Chinatown in NYC). Those 6 days went by at lightspeed, and before I knew it, I was on the bus ride from New York City back home to Toronto. Sidenote, the bus was a surprisingly pleasant experience, both ways. The last time I had taken the same bus trip, with family wasn't the greatest experience. Being crammed into a narrow seat with nearly no legroom, being woken up in random parts of upstate NY, the smell, etc. This one was actually quite pleasant. I had a full row to myself both ways, and got decent sleep too. Unfortunately, on the return leg, I was to change busses in Buffalo. That's when disaster struck. I had lost my very expensive Sony WH-1000XM4s, and they were never seen again...
Not that I had much time to mourn anyways, not a week after I returned was going to be the full solar eclipse occuring over North America. I just had to see it. Unfortunately, my city, Toronto was just barely out of the full eclipse zone, only catching something around 95% of it, which meant I'd be making the journey south to Hamilton, an industrial city on the Southeastern tip of Lake Ontario. That's about 60km as the crow flies! Now if I had a car, that'd be nothing. Under an hours drive, maybe an hour and a half tops with traffic. I don't have a car, or a license. What I do have, though is a Leaperkim-Veteran Sherman Electric Unicycle (EUC for short). While it's would be a fair bit slower than a car, it's much faster than cycling or taking transit, and it's only as wide as I am, meaning I can split traffic where needed! I'd need to charge somewhere in between, but if I leave on time, I should be able to make it to see the eclipse. So that's what I did! On the morning of April 8th, I set off from my home in Toronto to the City of Hamilton to see the eclipse, all on my lonesome. I made my way through dozens of towns down country backroads and town centre streets. But as I got closer, I noticed traffic increasing. This is where my lane splitting ability paid off. Where necessary, I carefully squeezed between stopped cars as I made my way to my destination, and it paid off! I arrived in time to grab food and a spot to see the eclipse. By pure coincidence, I managed to spot a few other EUC riders, and decided to join them and set up camp there.
At first, everyone was in doubt of if we'll actually be able to see it. There was heavy cloud cover for much of the day, to the point where I heard a few murmurs of people considering giving up and leaving. But it wasn't completely hopeless. Every now and then, we'd be teased with a break in the clouds, enough to see the sun hiding away before it'd be blocked off by the clouds once again. I really wasn't sure if we'd see it. But then the moment came. As if fate itself willed it, the clouds parted in the final moments of light, just as the moon was positioning itself to block the sun. Then, as if out of a movie, the sky went dark, animals let out confused cries as their sense of time was thrown off, and for a moment that felt like an eternity, all eyes were glued to the sky. It was a truly beautiful moment, standing there, staring at the sky through my eclipse-safe glasses. But the moment soon ended, and the sun was returned to it's normal state, as if nothing had ever happened. After a while of milling about the other riders invited me to join them in their ride back East, to which I obliged, and I made my way back home.
Unfortunately, this is where my year took a turn for the worse. About a month later, I had a fairly bad argument with Yumi, which was building up since after the NYC trip. I should have seen it coming, but it still caught me off guard. Then, like some divine middle finger, I was hit by a car while riding my EUC. It was probably the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, and an xray later that night proved that despite my Halo-Master Chief level body armour, I had indeed broken a bone, my right tibial plateau. I was left stuck at home for what was practically the whole summer, save for trips to the doctor or later the pysiotherapist. Being a very outdoorsy person, this pretty much took a sledgehammer to whatever remaining mental stability I had and ground it to a fine dust. I spiralled, but thankfully, with the help of some of my closest friends, the knowledge that the pain was only temporary, and the support of my viewers, those darker thoughts were kept at bay.
Eventually my leg did heal, and I reentered college. I attended lectures, did assignments, and socialized, the regular-ish college life, I guess. I was still poor as hell, since I lost my job after the accident, and didn't get it back yet, but I managed. Unfortunately, my relationship with Yumi never really recovered, and with her recent treatment of me, I decided to just cut her out of my life. I think that was the final piece I needed to move on from the absolute disasterful few months I had. It felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. I don't really wanna get into any more detail aside from this, but if anyone was ever worried, just know that I'm fine now! But also I'm physically incapable of holding a grudge. Maybe one day the relationship will be repaired, but it's not something that I need to put my energy into right now.
All in all, I feel my life is on the up and up. I'm getting good grades, I started going to the gym, I have some good friends both in real life and online, and I'm starting to really feel good about myself. 2025 is gonna be a good year.
So what now for this year? I'm planning on working on this website, doing arts, and continuing to stream, among other things. While my EUC is completely unridable, it's theoretically repairable, so I'm gonna try to attempt that. If anything it'll stay on my fleet as a backup ride/loaner. But I think to close this out, I want to codify my New Year's resolutions. So here they are:
- Create more - Draw, write, code, maybe even compose music. I want to do more with my abilities, and in some cases, not just for myself too. I already am working on someone else's Live2D model, and I wanna open commissions up sometime in the future
- Be more active - I lost a lot of fitness recovering from the accident. I'm gonna continue to hit the gym, commute on my bike where possible, go on walks/runs, etc.
- Improved financial skills - losing my job over the summer showed me how awful I am at managing my own money. This year I'm gonna go hard, recording every cent in and out of my bank account.
- Connect more - I want to try and expand my social circles. Not just as a VTuber but in the real world as well. For the record, those two realms have never connected, and I intend to keep it that way
And that's pretty much it. Happy New Year's, everyone! I hope you all have a great year! Don't worry, future ramblings won't be nearly as long as this, not even year-in-reviews. Or at least I'll try to keep them short and sweet!