2025 year-in-review

I was inspired to write this after reading Riley Walz's Year in Review posts. This year was pretty eventful, in no particular order:

• Visited 7 different countries, which is more in one year than I've visited ever before. 6 of those I've visited for the first time. I will write in brackets what I remember the most about each of them: Ireland (Guinness), Italy (architecture), Norway (best coffee), Spain (art - Reina Sofia), Finland (hackathon) and China (too much to mention... parks in Dongguan?)
• Saw 2 of my favourite London bands break up: Tapir! and Famous. I got to see Famous' last gig at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, it was such a bittersweet ending (love will find a way...) I never got to see Tapir! live which will remain as a big regret, but I got to see their lead singer Evelyn perform at the Windmill and she played my favourite Tapir! song, Gymnopédie.
• Started Bootleg.fm in March because I wanted a place where I can browse live bootlegs of a few Windmill-scene bands that I like (Black Midi, Black Country, New Road and Squid). Many fans of different bands joined since then, and the archive went from 30 bootlegs (all added by me) to 2000+ bootlegs added by 100+ people. From 3 pages for bands mentioned above to 30+ pages, as requested by fans, which introduced me to many new bands.
• Through Bootleg.fm I learned of Godspeed You!, Black Emperor (often abbreviated as GYBE), and after interacting with their fans for most of the year while making their bootleg catalogue, I got to see them live in Hong Kong at the end of the year (and on my birthday). Obviously, I had to tape the show. It was my first time taping a gig, and it turned out pretty good.

• Ran the Windsor Half Marathon, which marked the second time I ran one. My time was around 2 hours 4 minutes, which was around 5 minutes faster than my first one. I was aiming for sub-2 hours this time, but the route was pretty hilly and I didn't prepare that much, so I'm happy with my time.

• Worked full-time for the entire year for the first time. Previously I've worked full-time in 3-month chunks, since they were internships.
• Connected with a few paintings. Went to Madrid with two artist friends, and visited two galleries: Reina Sofia and Museo del Prado. Last time I've been to a gallery was ages ago on trips with family, and I never actually appreciated any painting like I did with music or film. David helped me analyse and 'digest' paintings better when in Madrid, and I made a list of paintings that spoke to me. El Descanso by Ponce de Leòn was my favourite.

• Read 4 more books by Kurt Vonnegut, who remains as my favourite author. I first read Slaughterhouse-Five a few years ago, then Cat's Cradle, and have been going through his bibliography since. I've been taking my time reading them since each one is so enjoyable, and I don't want to finish all of his books so quickly. This year I read God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater for the second time (and it became my favourite). I read Jailbird, Galapagos, Bluebeard and Hocus Pocus for the first time. Only Timequake left now...
• Got into David Lynch's work, after reading online about him after he passed away earlier this year. I watched Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, The Lost Highway, Eraserhead and Twin Peaks Season One. I'm watching Twin Peaks Season Two now. I've enjoyed everything I've seen by him so far, but Mulholland Drive has been my favourite. So many iconic scenes in that one.
• I (along with Divy, Noah and Na) won first place for the Snap Inc challenge, in HackJunction in Finland. It was a 48-hour hackathon, and it took us a while to get used to the Snap AR glasses (named Spectacles) and decide what we wanted to build. Around 12-14 hours before submission deadline, we locked in and built a demo application, which we then used to record a presentation video at 4am in the freezing Finland weather.

• Went to China for the first time, visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dongguan. I got a cold in Beijing (should have worn thicker) and while I was resting for a few days, I started reading Journey to the West. It was a very entertaining read and reignited my interest in Eastern religions and meditation.

• Started interviewing people for the Bootleg.fm blog, and enjoyed the interviewing process a lot. Got to know many people from the London scene better (like roustghoti and Lou Smith, who are legends in the scene), also got to interview Gordon Raphael, who produced my favourite album of all time. Despite producing some of the best albums of all time, Gordon is incredibly humble and it was a great pleasure chatting with him about music and The Strokes.