2024 vision board review

09 Jan, 2025

One January afternoon in 2024, I sat down at my desk and finally made a vision board. I knew then that 2024 would be and mean a lot for me. It held the most opportunities to acquire certain milestones of graduating and landing my first job.

As I review the happenings of my year, I just want to start off by saying that I owe it to that collection of pixels and the people in Pinterest who uploaded the pictures and quotes, for letting me imagine the girl I want to be and the world she wants to be in. The vision board kept me tethered to what truly mattered to me. I’m very glad and thankful for my past self that I did it.

A summary of the board with thoughts on what I did this year, converted to words and emojis:

School

This took up a lot of my energy beginning the year. I needed to find an internship to graduate. I managed! It was in the business district, which in particular was something I wanted because of my love for cityscapes. I learned a lot from my seniors and the office had an in-house barista (!!).

This was concurrent with the development of our capstone project. I remember stitching up the days of the week just for it to be longer. By day, I had 6-8 hour shifts at the internship, then come dusk I will ride the bus with the usual traffic, have dinner, wash up, just to sit some 5 hours more in front of my computer to do dev work for the project. There was a lot of anxiety and we had bumps along the way. But I made it! I am now officially a college graduate.

I didn’t burn out, thankfully. If there's anything I learned it's that I liked what I did, and that is because first of all, I liked the people I worked with at the company and on the project. I think we saved ourselves a lot of unnecessary drama and stress because we vibed with each other and that gave way to productivity.

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Work

I approached job hunting by gathering up a lot of resources on the topic, but it was by some stroke of luck that I found a job posting and got a callback. I did the interviews and the exam and passed - I think this was where the non-luck stuff applied and because of the internship hunt earlier, I had practice - then things moved pretty fast from there. I barely got to process my being a student to an employed person, after being a student for most of my life. This was it: adulthood!

I have been fortunate again that I get to work with good and kind people. With everything I’ve experienced so far, I can confirm the company is not run by a bunch of assholes. I really needed this job for a whole lot of reasons and it has been one of my greatest achievements this year <3

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Learning (dev)

Aside from the project needed for school which was done with my friends, I really wanted to have an individual dev project. Early in the year I did stuff with Flutter and Firebase but I stopped and didn't get back to it since. Near the end of 2024, I got an opportunity to start a full-stack web development course for free and I’m going through it right now for the certification and more importantly to have more confidence in coding.

By December, I uploaded a project that I worked on for a few days. Barely finished, or really, barely anything, because I was trying to overcompensate just to achieve a goal of having my own project. I’ve been passive and inconsistent through it all. Was rest warranted after the capstone? I don’t know, but I didn’t take this goal very seriously and did not outline what I actually wanted from this. It didn’t matter that I thought about it every week and that I still wrote code for challenges and activities because I still chose to do other things and I still don’t have anything that I can truly call mine...

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Writing

I entered 2024 riding the high of filling up an entire notebook with my journal entries. Okay, I skipped days and even the length of several months, but it was a notebook with every page dated; every page a day in my life. This made me so happy. Not only because it was the first time it ever happened that I actually used up all the pages, but it was an entire book of experiences I would’ve only remembered through memories or pictures.

With that, I decided to challenge myself and make it an everyday thing.

Write in my journal everyday.

Long story short, it felt like a chore and I did not meet my goal. I don't know if it's because of the physicality of it, but this did not work for me and I totally understand myself here. Even though I really wanted it, I now find it unrealistic. I also resented the time I had to lug the 365 Notebook¹ around - along with an overnight bag or extra laundry - wherever I would sleep for the night just to get to write on it (I travel a lot across cities on most weekends). Maybe I will attempt on doing this again in the future, but that was that.

I still love to write about my day by hand from time to time. If you’re reading this, then you must know: the fulfillment that I thought I’d have with daily private journaling is sufficed by this very blog, which also makes me feel proud about how I did with writing this year :)

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Running

Still referencing stuff from 2023: me and my girlfriend went to our first ever marathon. We just signed up for the 3K on a random week when she saw it on her feed. A few months passed and we had 0 preparation or training, but we had a lot of fun!

The experience urged us to take running a bit more seriously in 2024 and aimed to run once every week. I enjoyed this a lot and even got into the habit of taking at least one picture every time. I didn’t obsess or beat myself up for metrics like my pace or distance. I just felt confident not running out of breath as I went on and that kept me going! Imagining I’m preparing for a zombie apocalypse also helped.

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Meditation

I just gave up on this early on. I am reconsidering if meditating for x number of minutes was actually something I wanted. I did it for one or two weeks and just stopped trying entirely after that. Maybe I worried too much if I'm doing it right, but I don’t even feel guilty at all. I don’t know what else to say for myself...

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Reading

This year, I read a lot of sapphic books. Other books not under that were suggested to me and I still liked them all. It totaled to 45 books! I didn’t actually plan to read a lot of sapphic stuff but I am happy I did because I really got into reading again! I already got started on a list and will post it here soon~

However, one of the pictures in my vision board is a Kindle because I experienced the magic of e-readers a few times through my friends’. I really want a Kindle. I still do now. I back out every time, citing financial incapabilities, when truthfully, I can afford it. I don’t know why I hate myself. I just want to feel like I deserve this little gadget. I don’t feel that way right now. So, I remain Kindle-less and read with an app on my phone.

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Skincare

I had an unwritten goal for this year to do daily skincare routines. I feel great about what me and my gf did about it this year. This deserves a separate post, actually. I know I have a long way to go with caring for myself better but aside from the healthier-looking skin I’ve managed to build myself these habits and be more confident with how I look in general. I’m definitely getting there!!!

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Home and other stuff

Lastly, our apartment in the city has been one of my sources of stability throughout the year. I guess my housing situation in 2024 has been all about listening to what my heart was telling me, and I followed it. Some stuff happened with my family in 2023, so I’m just happy things fell into place. I feel safe, content and just right where I'm meant to be - which just reminds me everyday that I made the right choice.

On a lighter and less dramatic note: I got into cooking and meal planning. I’m at a point in my life where chores aren't annoying to me anymore. I still suck at online shopping, but I'm working on building my wardrobe after getting rid of clothes that don't bring joy². Then, there was also a time my gf’s cat had to live with us. There was furniture ruined but we ignore it and we miss him just the same.

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And that's a wrap for my 2024!

It was a year of things paying off. A harvest year, if you will, and definitely one where I surprised and forgave myself many times. I had my fun doing my vision board and this recap. It is my first time letting the world in on my goals and aspirations.

Thank you for coming this far and for being here :)

On to 2025!

#2025 #life