mid 2026 update
Hey Bear Blog, vix here. Just thought I'd give a quick update since I haven't been posting here much nowadays.
Work
Got a new job! Just started last month, managed to land after around 3 months of serious job searching starting from December. Seems to be going well so far, but there have been a few red flags like small layoffs and return to office mandates, so I've been keeping up interview practice just in case.
Car
Bought myself a 2023 Subaru BRZ! Sold my previous car as well to partially fund this purchase. So much fun to drive, especially since its a manual. Was anxious about committing to buying a manual car so I rented a shitbox 2007 Hyundai Getz for a week just to shake the rust off and get my old muscle memory back. It was a horrible ride but I told myself if I could drive this I could drive any manual car lol.
Took the BRZ out on some long drives down to Mornington Peninsula and the Dandenong Ranges, it's been a blast to have the feeling of being more connected to the car unlike my previous car.
Hobbies
Japanese
Massively burned out on Japanese after making myself take 25 new cards a day for a few months near the end of 2025, slowed way way down to only reviewing my core2.3k deck and taking 5 new cards a day from my mining deck which I don't even do a lot of the time.
Also immersing in Japanese media way less, feels like I'm at the point where I'm getting diminishing returns from mining and learning new words. Been able to comprehend about 80 - 85% of Japanese content I come across without lookups. Next step would probably be to improve speaking and reading.
Exercise
Still trying to keep up gym, but frequency has been going down. Picked up running last month, really tough but very rewarding after finishing a run. Kind of like it because it's the epitome of you vs you, also gives me time to just think about things.
Writing
I've been journaling daily in my Hobonichi diary even though I've not been writing long form too much. Small steps but at least I'm keeping some small writing habit alive, feels good to be able to write about the day and record things that I want to remember in the future.
Gaming
Still playing games every now and then, only play with my friends on Fridays and weekends. Main game is Marvel Rivals, but we'd play Counterstrike and League of Legends occasionally.