Hindsight is 20-22

I’m not sure how well the title works for this post, to be honest, but I like having a theme going on the blog (more on that later) and given that last year’s “Recap” post was titled “Hindsight is always 20-21“, I figured it’d be appropriate here. In 2020, when it would have been the most appropriate, I frankly didn’t write a recap post at all… Sadly. Anyway, I decided to drop the “always” just so that it has more of a ring to it.

Anyway, this post will cover all sorts of topics but I’ll focus mostly on my New Year’s Resolutions and what I managed to accomplish in terms of those. I’ll also go into my resolutions for Life, Health and University later on in the post, feel free to skip to any topics you’d want to read.

There is also a TLDR/Summary at the end and I’ll most likely write a resolutions post tomorrow. :)

1. University in 2022
2. Health in 2022
   1. Chronic Headaches and Loss of Sight
   2. Smoking
   3. Fitness
   4. Weight
3. Content Creation in 2022
   1. Streaming
   2. Blogging
   3. YouTube
4. Summary/TLDR

University in 2022

2021 has been another year plagued by “the sickness” and while University and other places did open up more, it didn’t really feel like I did much progress at all. The overarching theme for this year has been “Stress” for me.

Part of it is the fact that I’ve been at university since late 2018 and I wasted two years on Mathematics, and I didn’t progress much at all during the Covid semesters since we had ISP troubles and most of the university took place online (great combo!).

So, in 2020-ish, I switched from Mathematics and Philosophy to English Studies and Philosophy but in the past two years, I still didn’t manage to make as much progress as I wanted to, mostly because of me not getting into the classes that I need to progress. To be able to take part in the advanced modules, I need to finish up the previous module… I did take most of those exams but I still need to write the exam in EPP… which sadly took place at the exact same time as one of my Philosophy exams that I couldn’t reschedule. I tried talking with my professor but they didn’t respond in time. Next year’s another year. Whatever.

As many of y’all predicted, I wasn’t able to progress much at all this semester even though (or rather especially because) I attempted to cram as many classes as possible into my timetable. I’ve got six exams coming up. If I fail, I’ll simply have to try again next semester but I won’t have to take the class again.

My main issue is motivation and self-discipline. I took part in classes mostly and while class presence isn’t mandatory, you won’t get the credits if you missed out on more than two sessions. Given the health troubles I had with anaemia, the going-blind stuff, and that bad case of a cold with the violent and loud coughs… yeah, I missed out a lot. Maybe four or five sessions already in some classes.

Usually, you’d then try your hardest to catch up and be even more active in the classes and discussions but instead, I ended up staying at home or the library (a lot of the time, at least) to be able to catch up which backfired on me as it only further put me behind. Frankly, I’m lazy. I may not be cut out for university, after all, but I’m working on it.

Health in 2022

Chronic Headaches and Loss of Sight

As I already mentioned previously, this year has been quite rough in terms of health.

I had plenty of appointments with different doctors for all sorts of things, mostly chronic headaches and the “going blind” issue. The verdict ended up being that I’m physically healthy and there’s nothing wrong with me. Either I’m lying or it’s all in my head.

But I guess psychosomatic symptoms may be quite plausible, too, and that… is good to hear… I think. At least, it means that I don’t need to worry at all about the c-word or anything like that.

This year, I tried to quit smoking and I failed but I had lengthy stretches of time where I didn’t smoke at all and I truly hope that I can stick to it this year.

Smoking

Smoking isn’t just bad for my health… it also is bad for my wallet which is thus also bad for my health as it’s either cigarettes or food, effectively.

Thus, I’ll try gums this time. I did try those nicotine pads before but they barely helped at all and cold turkey is incredibly hard for me at the moment. I’ll most likely end up investing in those nicotine gums just to help a little with easing the symptoms of quitting. Then I’ll half the dosage each day and it should be easier to deal with.

At the same, I may just buy gums or hard candy to keep my mouth busy. I also heard that omega-3-rich food is really good to deal with the symptoms of quitting as well as the “Valerian” plant (it’s “Baldrian” in German)… I may grab some drops or a tea or whatever for that.

Whatever I do, it’s gonna be cheaper than cigarettes. I’ve been smoking for four or five years now and it’s gotten pretty bad for me this year with me often smoking a big pack (50 cigs) in only half a week… so that’s 30 bucks a week, essentially… In the past month, I was able to limit myself a bunch, so that I’d only smoke three or four a day but on other days, I’d go over that limit. It’s difficult, after all. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, Smoking = Bad. These last few days, I’ve smoked maybe once or twice per day. But I’ve also been eating lots of chocolates and other sweets… I also am back to drinking coffee again even though I previously tried to quit that.

Trading one vice for another isn’t great but I believe that chocolate is a better vice than nicotine, right? Anyway, I may post updates on the nicotine-quitting journey in the next few months.

Fitness

As part of the increased stress at university and my trying to cut down on my nicotine addiction, I decided to go to the gym over the past few months.

In December, I didn’t manage to do it quite as often, sadly, but apart from that, I had moderate success with keeping up a tight program of ten different exercises, each with 3 sets of 15 repetitions. If I did manage to do 15 in the first set, I’d increase the weight. If I struggled with 15, I’d keep at it until I’d be able to do it with ease.

My general idea has been “more repetitions rather than more weight”. I don’t really plan on bulking up… I rather want to just exercise to deal with stress a bit better and to also get some amount of general fitness going.

So, my whole plan has been 15 minutes of the treadmill to warm up (5 at a normal jogging speed, 7 at a fast pace, and the last 3 as a really fast pace… all of which set to an increased pitch/slope), followed by nine to ten different exercises for essentially every part of my body.

I’m mostly focusing on exercises for my stomach and shoulders as I want to improve my posture and I was told to exercise those muscles. Apart from that, I’m also working on my legs (mostly for “dat ass”) and also my arms, I guess… I do have exercises in there that do actively train your arms but at the same time, the arm muscles are also trained with all the other exercises for my shoulder and back muscles… So, I’m doubling down essentially and when I feel “done”, I often don’t even do exercises dedicated to arm muscles just because of how weak my arm muscles are.

In terms of strength, my left arm is still stronger than my right arm, particularly because of my Kendo training but in terms of size, my dominant arm (aka the right one) is still bigger… so I ant to even that out, essentially.

On top of that, I also do have a few sets of exercises I do at home in the mornings and evenings, mostly for my lower back muscles. Again, posture.

I may write about my progress here in the future as well once I’ve got a “Swole Magi” drawing to present to y’all.

Weight

This one’s a short one… I gained five kilos but I’m still way off from my dream weight.

Currently, I’m sitting at roughly 87 kg which is already an improvement… but I’m still underweight. I would like to be back at 95 if possible. Sitting at 6’4/6’5 and being underweight is a bit odd. in terms of looks. At least “my ass do be thicc” or something idk.

Part of the Fitness goals was also to gain muscles that would then translate into more weight. I don’t want to have that Brad Pitt body… but it’d be pretty darn cool to have at least some muscles.

My Self-Esteem has been mostly great these past few years, especially because of my partner, but I’d like to go a little extra for those days where I feel shit, y’know?

Content Creation in 2022

In terms of content creation, this year has been amazing.

Streaming

On Twitch, I celebrated my three-year-anniversary by creating a VTuber Model on stream for 24 hours which went really well – still, need to write a post on that, to be honest. Apart from that, our community has grown a lot without chat being too overcrowded or anything like that, which is great.

One of my goals for Streaming was to educate myself further on Mental Health topics as well as LGBTQIA+-related issues and things… and we had plenty of talks over the course of 2022 where we were able to spread awareness and discuss matters, which I believe has been rather beneficial to anyone involved. Among my highlights were a few times when people in my community told me that my stream is their safe space.

I also wanted to do more with OBS and scenes, work on my emotes, be more consistent, and other stuff… and I believe I did a good job in terms of those goals.

In terms of accessibility, there are still many things I need to work out, particularly Closed Captions (as those still don’t quite work with my current setup).

I’ve been able to add a little of my drama experience into the stream but I’m still not incredibly satisfied yet… more on that later.

Blogging

This year, I didn’t have too many blogging goals. I really wanted to hit 3k views in a month and managed to do so multiple times, often exceeding that number by a lot, actually, which I’m really grateful for. Thanks for reading the blog. It makes me happy.

I also wanted to try out the classic editor but honestly, I’m not a fan. Lately, I’ve seen people complain about the Gutenberg editor a lot but all the issues they had with it worked perfectly fine on my end, which is odd. I’d say that WordPress may need to do some tweaking to keep things consistent or patch bugs like that? Idk.

Either way, the Classic Editor isn’t really for me – and in the same vein, the Gutenberg Editor isn’t for everyone.

I tried experimenting with different layouts for the blog posts but frankly, every time, I’d just revert the changes and go with what I usually do. It just looks better.

Going out of my comfort zone with some more elaborate posts, particularly on Qatar and other issues has been rather successful. I was able to spread awareness on issues and talk about a topic that interests me without ruffling too many feathers and without angering too many people, I hope.

On top of that, I’ve also been able to keep the habit of starting a new paragraph when I’m starting a new thought. The other Blaugustans have been incredibly helpful with their feedback and insights on the topic which I’m really grateful for. I hope that I was able to improve sufficiently to make their/your reading experience as accessible and enjoyable as possible.

YouTube

Honestly,… I’m not sure if YouTube is for me, really. I’ve been trying to upload some videos but it’s honestly a bit of a drag to do and not seeing results like with the blog really tampers with my motivation levels.

I also had this idea for a blogging-related YouTube series but it never came to fruition due to a lack of interest and a lack of time. I didn’t have enough time to plan it out and never took the initiative to approach people and ask them if they’d be interested in participating. My own interest in the project faded pretty soon and then when I started writing this post, I noticed that that idea existed. I frankly forgot.

Summary/TLDR

This post has been super long, so it’s only natural that you skipped to this section. I don’t blame you. That’s why there is a Summary at the end of this post in the first place, after all.

If you didn’t skip ahead and read everything, thanks a lot!

Uh, 2022 has been good.

• I slept better.
• I ate better.
• I gained weight (good!).
• Uni hasn’t gone too well but I’m getting there.
• Streaming has been amazing.
• Blogging has been amazing, too.
• YouTube is maybe not for me.

There were a few mishaps here and there and interactions I had with people that I’m not proud of at all. There are situations in life where you only later know that you did something wrong or what you did wrong. I also know, though, that there are individuals that respected who I don’t respect as much anymore, particularly because of the way they treat others and especially me.

I parted ways with some people IRL. I stopped interacting with a bunch of online people because of the way they treat others and because of the way they hurt a friend of mine.

2022 has been a good year overall, though. I believe I’ve grown as a person. I learned a lot from the feedback that people gave me and mistakes that I did make and I will strive to do better in the years to come, as always.

But I also made many mistakes… a shit load of mistakes… and I still need to learn how to deal with that and how to make amends… but sometimes you just can’t and I’ll probably just end up feeling bad about it for way too long when the other party probably forgot about it already.

The point I’m trying to make is that I hope that I’ll be better at picking up on these things in 2023. I struggle a lot with this sort of stuff and apparently I can’t rely on people just telling me when they have a problem with me.

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!