Well, 2025 has certainly gone differently than I originally expected on January 1st.
Much and more has been written about the state of the world in general and the United States of America in particular. I won't go into those topics here.
In March of this year, I was accepted into the Master of Applied Science in Software Engineering program at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. I confirmed the acceptance and began the process of applying for a study permit and related logistics. Today I will be giving notice at my current job at Apiture. By the end of this month, I will be temporarily retiring from industry to become a full-time student again. That will feel strange. Good, I imagine, but strange.
I really fell off the fitness wagon for several months. Most of the year, really. I've only just gotten back on in the last few days. Now, though, I'm finally going for a daily morning jog again. It feels good, even if I am clearly in much worse shape than I was last year. Well, have to start somewhere. I still have a gym membership until the end of the month and I intend to use it.
Recently, I've felt that my alcohol consumption has been increasingly deleterious to my health, so I'm easing way off. I did not make quarters 1 and 3 alcohol-free as planned, but I'll make up for it in the latter half of the year.
In terms of my creative hobby plans, I did continue guitar until the end of May. My guitar will go into storage until I finish my studies, but I do plan to pick it up again. Painting was starting to become a more regular thing for me up until we started needing to pack up. I will definitely be picking that back up too, and maybe sooner than guitar. We'll see.
My finances have been doing really well. Paying cash for a master's program will put a significant dent in my savings, though.
Finally... I discovered that I'm allergic to dogs, so I will not be getting a dog. We tried, though. For about a week we fostered a feisty little rescue named Clover. She was some kind of pit mix, and only five months old. Besides being allergic, I couldn't really handle her energy at the time. That made me very sad.