First of all, some updates:
-Fallout 4, Starcraft II Legacy of the Void, and Just Cause 3 are amazing games (and Hearthstone league of explorers to a smaller extent). I beat the campaign in all of them.
-PS Vita games Persona 4 Dancing All night and Steins Gate were two of my favorite stories yet! Yeah I know right, how can a rhythm game have a good story? Well Atlus never fails to deliver. Steins Gate is probably my favorite visual novel yet, involving time travel, an old IBM computer, conspiracy theories, and John Titor. Kept me hooked throughout my Eastern Europe trip. I really enjoyed the anime too, it was fantastic!
–Yakuza 5 man, its finally out!! I played Yakuza 4 back in 2012 and it was one of my all time favorite games, so really was anticipating the Western release of Yakuza 5, unfortunately PSN only.
–Undertale, pretty cool retro RPG style game that has a lot of twists in it as well. Its one of the highest rated RPGs of all time.
-Star Wars the Force Awakens was kind of disappointing. I mean, yes it IS better than the first and second prequels, arguably better than the third one (Revenge of the sith) and/or Return of the Jedi. But for me, its not as good as them. Why? Because the plot was wayyy to similar to Episode 4 A New Hope. I mean, you have the secret plans for something being stored in another droid (BB8 instead of R2D2), Han solo playing Ben Kenobi’s role this time, Luke playing Yoda’s role, Kylo Ren playing Darth Vader’s role, Poe/Rey/Finn playing varying aspects of Luke’s role, and a third death star… yes they re-used it yet again. How the First Order managed to build it in 30 years without the New Republic knowing it, and somehow get destroyed in like a minute is really a letdown. I know they were paying homage to the old trilogy and all but – wayyyy to similar for me.
-I recently discovered the fantastic “bad movie” The Room and read The Disaster Artist which was hilarious. Glad to see they are making a movie about this weird human being known as Tommy Wiseau.
–Wilt: Larger than Life. A great biography of the great NBA player Wilt Chamberlain. It leads you to believe just how dominant Wilt was as an athlete, an absolute incredible physical specimen right up to his 50s. After watching Kareem: Minority of One as well, I am still debating over who really was the better player, but one thing is for sure, Wilt had the more outgoing personality. He was definitely the nicer more considerate guy overall, whereas Kareem tends to be more introverted and apathetic towards people. They are both arguably the GOAT, MJ notwithstanding.
-I moved to a new place. Smaller, cheaper, but simpler and cleaner. Its an “officestel” which is an old office converted into a condo type of place near Seoul university. Plus, utilities are all included, and there’s a gym as well! sweet. Heres a pic…
And finally the big one…
I finally found a Korean girlfriend!! Yes, after one year of searching, and literally 2 days before I went back to Canada I found her, and finally my goal for this year has been accomplished (albeit 2 weeks before the year ends). Sweet, gentle, kind, nice, beautiful, loving, caring, I can’t say enough.. I found the perfect woman. Its a shame I had to leave her so soon, as I already booked the ticket back to see my family though :(. But wow… what a relief. I was afraid that I would have to tell my parents I failed. Now I just hope I can maintain this relationship for a while. I’m so tired of meeting people…
Now onto the review…
Highlights
-I found a gf!! yay!! finally…
-My Korean has improved to the point where I can talk to people (like my gf) entirely in Korean only
-I was able to find a new place to move to by myself
-Two of my American friends (both from California) moved to Korea around the same time as me, so I’m grateful to have them to hang out with for most of the year, although one of them moved back now.
-Eastern Europe trip was fantastic!
Lowlights
-Didn’t learn that much at work so far, wish I could’ve learned more ReactJS
-Didn’t establish alot of connection with co-workers due to remote work
-Working at nighttime still kind of sucks even though its Korea because work hours for most businesses is still 9-6ish
-I spent too much money this year on collecting useless gadgets
-going back and forth between the US, Canada and Korea all the time (4 times this year) takes a huge toll on my body and this year my body’s sleeping schedule has definitely not been normal, which affects my health.
-My stocks took a huge beating this year. My losses this year are about $3000~ in the market.
-I met ALOT of new people and Koreans at meetups due to focusing on finding a gf for much of this year, and sadly, didn’t connect with most of them. I scrolled through most of my conversations and realized most of them are pretty useless just a few texts and alot of girls who ignored me.
-I got rejected by 10+ girls this year… which sucks. I thought I would never find a girl who likes me until just a few days ago.
Summary
Didn’t feel like I made alot of progress in my life this year. The majority of it, I spent working, but didn’t learn that much at work. Met alot of new friends and alot of girls, but didn’t talk much to most of them, and most girls rejected me. Only had a lasting connection with a few friends I met this year. Until just a few days ago, I was very depressed and frustrated because I felt like I wasted alot of time this year doing nothing and getting no results.
And the more time moves away from 2012 and 2013, the more I want to go back to those times. Where I met good friends all the time, and traveled a lot, and was with my best friends in SF. Alas, I can’t go back. I realized that at the time 2013 I didn’t appreciate that year as much as I should.
In retrospect, 2013 was a great year. I went to alot of parties, met alot of friends, went to Korea for the first time which was amazing and changed my life, and of course 2012 was the year I will always hold in my heart as my favorite year of my life so far; the people I met that year I still continue to keep in contact with to this day.
I felt like I was cursed for the majority of this year not to find a girlfriend.. I did everything go to meetups, search on online websites, blind dating, use apps like Tinder and OKC, be really considerate, buy gifts, pay for them, etc nothing worked. Even when I felt like I had a really good conversation with them, I never got a second date which really depressed me.
So, now that I met my gf recently, I feel that this curse has finally been lifted, and next year, will be the year which this year should have been. This year was essentially just leading up to this moment. A year of preparation basically. But I can’t say that this year has been as good as 2012, 2013 or 2014 for me. Its more like 2011 in the sense that I moved someplace new and had to adjust. An adjustment year if you will.
Videos
Holiday cheer…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMwtn0j4xNk
I have DJI Phantom 3 drone now. Check out this nice video I took in Seoul at night:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnpvk4eRGCw
Rehashed alot of my old videos for this homage to my old California life (2011-2014). I miss my old house parties.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJIYicakwKM
I still have a bunch of videos waiting to be uploaded but I can’t due to Youtube’s ban on me from my copyright violation back in July. I have to wait until end of Jan to upload videos longer than 15min which sucks.
