What an eventful year!! Man, looking back a LOT happened (arguably TOO much in some ways lol), so let's hop to it

The year started out strong because me and @matthewlopz decided to move from a small city to a big TOWN (and not a city!!). Now, in colombia, since we're close to the equator, pretty much the temperature you feel is the temperature you'll get all year round. Our old place was perma 64 F/16 C ALL year round in the daytime. And rainy. And cold LOL, so we decided to move here partly because we wanted to move somewhere warmer! That stuff messed with my mental health to be honest LOL

And check it out!! It's SUPER pretty out here! The view is nuts!

I was still working at my online tutoring job but other than that, pretty smooth sailing I'd say! Though I definitely wanted a change job-wise haha

I also grew my hair out for funsies, tho it got annoying and chopped it off again. It was cool to have for a while tho!

Then in July, I unexpectedly got onboarded into a software engineering internship! Keep in mind, I hadn't gone to uni so I'm fully self taught, I genuinely did not think it'd be in the cards for me. It was a great time! It was definitely a lot of stuff to learn at once, but the challenge was welcomed and I think this was just the thing I needed at the time. By the end, I had also decided to quit my tutoring job since it made it hard to focus on the internship. And now I can create whole APIs in 2 seconds hehehe

I ALSO hosted my first mini-event, OCtober! I still have to get around to doing the big group art of all the active participants, I haven't forgotten about that B)

Skipping ahead to November, I thought my internship was going to get extended but they didn't want to sign another contract after the old one expired. I don't wanna say I was let go because the contract did naturally expire, but I'll be honest, it was a huge shock to the system. And yknow what? I'm just glad I HAVE this experience, because it was a great time! But now I was left without a job in the last quarter of the year, which needless to say has been a difficult lesson: nothing in life is guaranteed. I'm still waiting and getting by while I prepare for January to start applying once junior jobs are available again.

I also had experience with a close family member passing which... has ALSO been a rough lesson and I now see death differently. But these are all lessons we have to go through at some point, and I'm glad they happened while I'm young in my 20's when I can bounce back.

And for anyone else who's had a rough year, let's keep trekking on and trying our best to get by! Nothing stays this way forever: Life really is like a rollercoaster. Maybe a bunch of crappy things hit you all at once, but it'll always come back up again and things will be better again at some point. Maybe saying nothing in life is guaranteed is a little untrue, because both good AND bad times are an inevitability. You just have to wait out the bad times to get to the good.

So let's ride this year out and no matter how good or bad your year was, I hope 2025 ends up being a great year for everyone. Thank you for sticking around, and reading till the end!

Happy early New Years!!