Like last year, I spent the morning of January 1st working on this little animation. But other than that, 2022 and 2023 were really different.

If 2022 for me was not bad, not great, 2023 was… well, let’s start with the good. Several posters and papers in GECCO and ALIFE was good. Being active in the Artificial Life Newsletter was good. I started taking more care of my health, with visible results.

Somewhere around August, though, I feel like I lost control. Too many things happened at once, and I started feeling like I was falling behind and playing catch-up on everything, personal and work-wise; choosing what I could afford to leave by the wayside.

My naturalization process didn’t progress at all this year. I did very little programming. Besides the papers (which were submitted in March), research feels in a rut. RPG too. Journaling or blogging are distant dreams. In short, the later half of 2023 feels like a wasted blur.

So the overall feeling is this need to center myself and turn these things around. Be more active and less reactive in the work and personal arenas. Even as I say that, I still feel reluctant to set clear goals for this year.

But maybe I can start by building a proper emergency kit this weekend, given the huge earthquake we had today the west coast.