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Hello everybody, every year I write goals to recap that year and look forward to the new year. This post contains my yearly goals from 2019 - present year. Check it out! 2019: A Year of Prep2019 has been full of many blessings and growth. I switched my major in January of last year which began a new journey for me and I started this blog officially in February. I participated in my first hackathon that was not game development based--even though my team did do a video game-based project but more on that later. Soon, I plan on sharing my experience at the hackathon, I promise. I had two final projects for the end of the semester. One of them is called Learn Bot. The other is called Your Majesty which is a website I made talking about relationships and general health targeted towards middle school/high school girls. There's also the murder mystery that came out on Halloween--which there will be a post mortem coming soon. This year, the blog went from having 0 mailing subscribers to ~40 to--at the time of writing this-- 312 mailing subscribers. I can't believe it. Thank you, I'm thankful for each and every one of you. Blog Goals:
2020: A Year For GrowthSo 2020 happened. I don't know about you, but around March my goals for 2020 went out the window. One goal I didn't mention in last year's goal set was to get an internship and that...didn't happen. However, I think like most people, we made the best that we could of 2020, all the while looking forward to whatever 2021 would bring (and hoping it would be good). I find it helpful to focus on the positive. ChickenStarRocket 2020 successes 2020 was pretty awesome, all things considered. Heinous to say, I know, but making content for y'all makes me happy and this year saw some new kinds of content that I genuinely enjoyed making. Please understand, I'm not trying to negate the well, negative of 2020 but I would like to take a minute and reflect on the positives and the "almosts". Content Wins For example, I wrote my first finished work, "The Adventures of Will & Kat" a story about a princess and her faithful (albeit dramatic) companion. I mention this is in the dedication & author's note but this is the first story I have finished that wasn't too dark/gritty. (Shoutout to my grandma who likes to ask me if I'm ever going to finish a story I started in ~early high school and wrote ~30 pages for but was kind of sad. Also to my sister who found a thumb drive filled with my old junior high works and wants to show them at my wedding). I made MurderMystery2020. Although its initial launch date wasn't all that successful, (thank you to those who did purchase MurderMystery2020!) I was satisfied with how it turned out. I started making it at about the right time to allow for playtesting and I was able to try some new stuff that turned out great. There are things I probably will try not to do again but no project is truly perfect. Halloween costumes of 2020 were awesome. I had my mom photograph me and then I took those photos and photoshopped backgrounds so I would be "in" the environment the character was from. You can find those photos on the 'Gram. Bloggy Backside Wins Speaking of, I officially have a Gumroad store and it is awesome. Not going to lie, when I couldn't find an internship for the summer, it made me concerned for my life after college. I do graduate this year (or at least, I'm supposed to), after all. The switch from student to adult is exciting but a little daunting, not going to lie. That being said, having the ability to make money, making things y'all would enjoy, makes me feel better about it. I also have a Linktree which lets me bypass Instagram's annoying one link in the bio rule. That, and I have a consistent avatar for social media that I made in Photoshop. I love Sunny, my old mascot but I like my new one too. Bloggy Backside wins...? I switched to a different mailing list website this year and learned the software and it was great for a while. Then I had issue after issue and I feel bad that I was at some point in 2020 paying for a service that didn't allow me to deliver emails because my stats didn't meet their expectations. So I'm not sure if I will switch to a different one yet but I would be lying if it didn't cause some serious grief for me as a small blogger, doing her best. So I'm sorry if you are subscribed and haven't been able to receive the content promised. Personal 2020 Wins Last year, I wanted to read 5 books, learn how to make 3 new recipes to add to my rotation, wake up with my first alarm instead of my third, and have better posture. Book Wins? This year, was bleak in terms of reading books. I started off the year reading "A Heart Like His" by Beth Moore then took a break from it for a bit. Then I finished it and started reading "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis. Both of which are amazing reads even if you aren't of Christian faith. I wasn't sure if y'all would want to read my thoughts on these books or not (let me know below). That, and this year, I found myself not having a lot of time to read. Especially when school was in session for the fall semester. I did notice that I read more Line Webtoons (not sponsored but could be) because they are short episodes that I can either binge-read or read through quickly. Plus the art on a lot of them is *stunning*. I did a post about it in November. Recipe wins for 2020: I did learn new recipes to add to my rotation. I learned how to make hard-boiled eggs in my instant pot which means egg salad in ~10 minutes. Drunken noodles are so much easier to make than you think and it's so yummy. Ratatouille, chili, Pazookie, and chia pudding probably tie for third. That or egg casserole. One new fact I have learned about myself is that I hate waking up and making breakfast. I'm already not awake and I have to make myself breakfast too? Coffee is an effort, breakfast is pushing it. That's why I like chia pudding, egg salad, and egg casserole. You can make them the night before (or enough for the week) and it's so much easier. Alarms/posture wins for 2020 As for waking up with my first, not third alarm, I did get better at that even though this past fall semester has been (I think) the most exhausting semester of my college career. I just drank more coffee and didn't really sleep. Lastly, my posture has been the same, if not worse this year than in other past years. I would like to blame the 18+ hours spent at my desk. I have an ergonomic chair/desk setup, but I am terrible at taking breaks because I would rather push to get something done. Hopes for 2021 As I said, this year has been *interesting*, but I have hope for the future and that no matter what happens, it'll ultimately be ok. Bloggy goals/things to look forward to in 2021:
2021: A Year of ExpansionWins for CSR in 2021
2022: A Year of Bittersweet Glow-upI started the year praying this year would be my glow-up year where God would take a sad, lonely college grad with no job and do radical things in her life. Within the span of four short weeks, I got a job, a cat, and a boyfriend (in that order).
My Job: I work as a software developer building AR / VR / HoloLens applications. Every week is something different. One week I'm working on stuff like SSO, the next I'm working on designing training modules all of which is the equivalent of corporate game design. I discovered I have a knack for note taking and can type the words you speak and that has been useful for documentation and meetings. One of my projects got featured in an article you can read here. I was also lucky to be sent to AZ Construction Career Days on November 3rd to inform high school students about the field and show off some of the tech I made. My team gained a couple of members and I helped with interviews, their training, and their onboarding process. My Cat: I adopted a cat on March 07, 2022. Her name is Bea, I call her Miss Bea. She's a Siamese Domestic Shorthair. Miss Bea used to be feral and was so afraid when I first got her. I didn't know if she'd ever warm up to me. In the time I've had her, she's grown to letting me hold her for several minutes at a time, coming to sleep with me every night, waking me up with morning snuggles, and having nightly conversations everyday. We're still working on getting her used to other people, she's better some days than others but I have full confidence she'll grow to at least tolerate other people's presence. The secret is time, patience, and petting her a lot. My Boyfriend: I met my boyfriend at our church's singles ministry. We had one conversation and it seemed like we hit it off so we followed each other on Instagram. Then one day, out of the blue, he posted on his Instagram his office setup with 4-5 monitors. I swiped up, we talked more about hobbies--we both love video games. I *casually* invited myself over, showed up with Pei Wei, met his puppy, Marley, and we played "It Takes Two". From there, our relationship grew. We became boyfriend and girlfriend on April 16. Guys, when I say he is everything I have ever prayed for in a man, I mean it. Even things I forgot I asked for. I am so lucky and thankful God let me have him in my life. He is one of the biggest blessings in my life and my best friend. Later this year, my sister got engaged and I helped with wedding planning. I'm trying to start two businesses at the time of writing this. I read the Chronological Bible and this was my favorite way to read it so far. I've also completed a couple of plans from the bible app. I attended my first EDM concert, went to Mexico, and hosted my first girls' night since college. I guess you could say I achieved my two goals from 2021...so why is it bittersweet? I don't feel like I'm where I want to be yet. Adult life post-college isn't what I expected (in good ways and bad). The past few years made me realize careers are great, family is forever, I want to invest in things that matter. But I have to wait. My coping mechanism in times like this is to "focus on what you can do, not on what you can't". It makes me a great worker who is able to get things done like crazy but sometimes I take on too much and I use my work as an excuse to not focus on how bad I feel. That's not healthy. Goals for 2023:
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March 2023
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