Year-End Survey 2025 in Trichotomy

1. What did you do in 2025 that you’d never done before?
Construct cardboard box tunnels. Make a bunny burrito. Eat Kelp.
2. Did you achieve your goals for the year, and will you make more for next year?
Did not make resolutions
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not terribly close, but a Soprano at the amateur musicians group who was just a few years older than me passed away.
5. What countries did you visit?
Thanks to the Jones Act, we did spend one day in Victoria BC.
6. Where did you go on vacation?
Alaska. And Puerto Rico.
7. What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025?
Clean bill of health
8. What date from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The day when we sailed through a huge pod of whales. That was memorable.
9. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
A smooth rollout of our data migration project.
10. What was your biggest regret?
Not writing up my project earlier to submit to a conference.
11. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I caught COVID again.
12. What was the best thing you bought?
Kindle e-reader.
13. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
La Professeure. She handles her father’s health problems with grace and determination.
14. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Putin
15. Where did most of your money go?
Tax, I think.
16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Alaska trip.
17. What song will always remind you of 2025?
Ludwig Waltz No. 1.
18. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder
ii. thinner or fatter? About the same - I gained some weight after the cruise but have stabilized.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer.
19. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercise.
20. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Watching TV
21. How did/will you spend Christmas?
At the rehab center with La Profeseure’s dad.
22. Did you fall in love in 2025?
With the right person, you fall in love every day.
23. How many one-night stands?
0
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Andor
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Idiots.
26. Who is someone you will probably never see again after this year?
Reliability Engineer who left the team to move to California.
27. What was the best book(s) you read?
碧血劍 Vol 1. Technically I started it 20+ years ago before I moved to New York, but didn’t get beyond the 2nd chapter. Finally finishing it this year.
28. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Alma Deutscher
29. What did you want and get?
Score of Ludwig Waltz no. 1. Had to transcribe it off of youtube myself, but I did get it.
30. What did you want and not get?
My friends’ health
31. What was your favourite film of this year?
Sinners
32. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Worked, I think. I turned 30, in hexadecimal.
33. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Clean bill of health
34. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025?
Bum
35. What kept you sane?
La Professeure.
36. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Amna Nawaz
37. Who did you miss?
Little boo-boo, now that he is going to university in Scotland.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
I met quite a few new nice people at the amateur musicians group.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2025:
Life is short.
40. Tell us something you’ve learned about yourself:
I can sprain my shoulder by sleeping.
41. If you could relive any day from 2025, which would it be and why?
Probably the day we visited Juneau? Kayaking with wild sea lions was fun and a little scary.
42. Did any of your predictions for the future come true in 2025?
Did not make predictions.
43. What was the funniest thing that happened to you (or the funniest thing you did) this year?
Getting mistaken for a cruise line crew member by 5 different groups of people.
44. What was the worst thing that happened to you this year?
Seeing my father-in-law’s health deteriorate.
45. What was the best thing that happened to you this year?
Submitting to a journal again.
46. What was the hardest thing you did this year?
Announcing to my amateur musicians group that one of us passed away.
47. A new food that you were introduced to:
Taro milk tea made with real taros. They sell it at the food hall of the Asian market in the basement of my office building.
48. What traditions were started?
Walking to the Asian Market near my house every few months to get Asian groceries.
49. What traditions were broken?
Christmas at the in-laws. :(
50. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Ah…
51. Did you save any Chinese fortune cookie fortunes from this year, what do they say?
Did not have fortune cookies.
52. What is something you have vowed to never do again?
Sleep with my thermal layer on top
53. Headlines in the news from this year that you’ll remember most:
“Liberation day”
54. In 2025, what did you realize you had previously taken for granted?
My friends’ clean bills of health
55. Are there any memorable slogans/sayings that describe and/or are from this year?
“If you do nothing else today, be nice to each other.” The cruise director on our trip always signs off with this.
56. What will you be doing this New Years’ Eve?
Probably helping out with my father-in-law.
57. Where were you last New Years’ Day (2024)?
At home with the Treasurer, who was visiting.