To start off: It’s been good! Great even. I had some expectations about how it would be to live here, and most of them were exceeded. ☺️

I think what contributes a lot to this feeling is how good my new job has been. I started my new position in February and I pretty much have no complaints so far. I was a bit concerned about the massive shift from part-time + short commute to full-time + long commute, but surprisingly, that hasn’t been an issue at all. And I’m very grateful for that. The work is fun and interesting, and my colleagues are very nice. I actually like being at the office, and even though they allow me to work from home, I choose to work at the office most days. I think that’s a very good sign.

Another thing that’s been good is climbing. I finally got back into climbing regularly! Through Helmut, I met some people and found new climbing partners. There’s a great climbing gym right on my way home from work, and we got there most weeks. Even though spring has barely started, we’ve gone climbing outside twice already, and that is just fantastic. I missed that, and I’m really looking forward to more climbing soon!

I moved in with my friends Johanna and Helmut, into their spare bedroom. Life with them has been very harmonic. Of course there are always small annoyances and disagreements, but those don’t really matter compared to the joy of spending so much time with two of my closest friends. It really feels like we’re a small family (although without kids yet, fortunately haha). We live on an old farm and there’s always things to do. I’m learning a lot while helping out with various projects around the house and property. Admittedly, it’s a bit much sometimes, often things happen on very short notice, and my personal time gets compromised even more, but it also keeps it very interesting around here and I’m slowly trying to find balance by retreating at times to do my own stuff. It’s often not so easy, though.

As I look out of the window right now, it’s raining heavily at around 5ºC. That’s just about the same weather as we had in January and February, though it’s the beginning of May now. It’s very Norwegian (or maybe it’s just in this part of Norway) to talk about the weather, but it has been pretty shitty indeed. The weather is generally fluctuating a lot here, but this year it has been worse than average. I bought a season pass for the local ski resort (on discount in November), hoping for a nice snowboarding season, but most of the time, the weather really wasn’t inviting at all. I ended up going a few times and had some really good sessions, just way fewer than I was hoping for. Overall, I guess you just need to learn to enjoy and take advantage of those days where the weather is good, and I think we did a pretty good job. 🙂

One thing that I’m enjoying very much is riding my new e-bike to work almost every day. I splurged on a very good e-bike in early April and have been using it a lot since. My commute is about 20 km each way, with lots of hills and a few steep sections, so having a motor makes it so much better. It takes me about 45 minutes, which is roughly the same as taking the bus, so I’m not even losing out on time. It’s also a great start into the day, and even with assistance it’s a decent workout. Very good addition to my life here!

There’s probably a lot more I could talk about, but I’m stopping here. Better to finally have a post out than to procrastinate even longer on it. I hope you are doing well! Let me know if there’s anything in particular I should write (or maybe even make a video) about!

I think I will add a separate post with some photos later. I haven’t been good about sorting through them at all. 🙈

See you soon. 👋

It’s becoming a tradition that we’re going on an additional trip to Denmark with my friends in winter, in addition to the summer trip. This time, we stayed over New Year’s. I’ve been spending that time with friends anyway in the past decade or longer, but being on vacation in a nice little house with a bunch of friends makes it even better. Admittedly, there was some alcohol involved on New Year’s Eve, but I still had a really good start into the new year. Some friends and I went for a dip into the cold ocean on January 1st. We also did a bunch of other fun things on that day, including Mario Kart, sauna and hot tub, Terraforming Mars, and Unfair¹. During the Denmark trip, we also went to a local bouldering gym with a small group, which was a first for us I think.

As an aside, I’ve been writing an almost daily journal for a while, and looking back at my journal entries from the beginning of the year, it seems like at that point, I was still thinking about the possibility of moving to Japan, though I started to doubt that path because of how important all these trips with my friends have become for me. This also shows me how important these journals can be, especially when reflecting on the past. I totally forgot that this was an option I still seriously considered back then, even though it was just a year ago.

In January, I also attended two anti-fascist protests. To be honest, in the past I haven’t been very interested in going to these, but after a conversation with my friends, I’ve come to the conclusion that if it’s something I strongly value, I should be part of these movements. I’m still not the biggest fan, but it’s very much like voting: Even though your single contribution doesn’t do much, it’s still important to do your part.

At the end of January, I actually spent two nights in Copenhagen, for the first time in my life. It’s a pretty cool city!

From there, I continued on to Trondheim to visit Johanna and Helmut again for a couple of weeks. Another winter tradition. I actually helped them finish building their sauna² which was a lot of fun, and we made good use of it.

After a few more weeks back home in Göttingen (including my 33rd birthday, though I didn’t do much for it), it was finally time to go back to Japan! It’s been almost exactly four years since I’ve last been there, and I was craving to go back. I saved up some vacation time and worked ahead a little bit so I could be there for almost six weeks without having to work.

I finally met my dear friend Igor again, and also finally met his wife Yoriko for the first time. I was really happy to spend some time with them during those weeks in Japan.

Some other friends from Germany also came to Japan and we went on a little road trip together. I stayed at a Ryokan for the first time, which was an amazing experience, especially the combination of snowy weather and outdoor onsen. We took trips to Hakone, Fujikawaguchiko, Takayama, and Kanazawa, with Osaka as our final destination.

After the road trip, I went on a short solo trip to Nikko for some nature hiking. I was a bit low on energy during that time, so it was actually just one day of hiking, but that, at least, was beautiful.

I spent some time in Fujisawa, and FINALLY was in Japan for the sakura (cherry blossom) season! 🌸 Though I didn’t get to experience the full hanami experience, I did at least see a whole bunch of blooming sakura trees. Very beautiful.

Igor, Yoriko, another friend of theirs, and I went to the Kanamara “Penis” Festival together. What a strange experience, but fun to go there with friends!

I randomly chose the city of Numazu for another short trip within Japan. I did not know that it was known for being kind of a pilgrimage place for fans of an anime called Love Live Sunshine. The whole city seems obsessed with it, and it’s kind of fun. It’s also a nice place, being close to nature and the ocean. (And yes, I went for an obligatory dip into the ocean, of course!)

At the end of my Japan stay, I spent some more time in Tokyo, though unfortunately I got pretty sick and spent most of my time in my hotel room.

This long trip to Japan taught me two main things:

• Solo trips might not be for me anymore. It was nice to spend so much time in Japan, but it also gets lonely, especially if you’re traveling around where you don’t know anybody. I’m not the kind of person who instantly connects with random people. I did connect with some random people (through bouldering and Meetups), but still spent most of my time there alone. With that in mind, it would have been better to make the trip shorter and prioritize activities with people I know there.
• At this point in my life, I don’t see myself moving to Japan. Moving to Japan has been on my mind for years. But even though I love Japan and like spending time there, it’s just too far from most of my close friends in Europe. Those connections are just too important for me, and I can’t imagine only seeing them once a year.

At this point, I was sure I wanted to have some change in my life, but apparently it was not going to be moving to Japan. I actually had two other options in mind:

• Apple Developer Academy in Naples, Italy.³ I found this earlier in the year and applied for it. I actually spent a whole bunch of time during the Japan trip to prepare for the online exam and the video interview. Competition was tough, though, and I didn’t get in.
• Moving to Norway. You might have noticed that I spend a lot of time in Norway, always visiting my friends Johanna and Helmut. Over the past few years, I’ve grown closer and closer with them, and jokingly saying that I should move in with them turned into a serious option.

Admittedly, I’ve been talking about a bigger life change like this for a while, and didn’t act much on it so far, but this changed in 2024. Spoiler: I’m writing this after just having moved to Norway! More on that later.

It’s now May and with the warmer weather came lots of ice cream and trips to nearby lakes in Göttingen. For the first time in 2024, I spent more than a month at a time at home, though not much because…

At the end of May came another trip to Norway. This was our yearly cabin trip with other friends from Germany. Once again, we had a fantastic time, even though it was a bit colder that we were hoping.

Shortly after, I went to one of two yearly (Nintendo-focused) LAN parties. We had a good time there.

Unfortunately, I took an old friend named COVID back home with me. I didn’t realize it until almost a week later. I actually participated in a 10 km run in Göttingen right after the LAN party, just when the sickness starting to hit. I wondered why it was so much harder than previous years and why my time was a whopping 12 minutes slower. I should have realized earlier that it might have been COVID, but only found out after some other people who attended the event posted their positive tests. Luckily, I recovered from it fairly quickly.

Call me crazy, but not even a month after returning from the previous Norway trip, I went there AGAIN in early July.

While in Norway, we actually did another attempt on walking 100,000 steps in a day. I succeeded this challenge last year, but Helmut had to drop out and really wanted to do it again, so we did that in the Trondheim area. We chose pretty much the best day for it and started at 4 a.m. at their⁴ home. We mostly walked on one of the St. Olav pilgrimage ways into Trondheim, with the Nidaros Cathedral as a destination. There, we turned around and walked mostly along the coast back home. Johanna and I joined Helmut, though more as support without ambitions to get our own step counters to 100k. Helmut almost quit, but managed to turn it around and finally finish the challenge. I ended up around 90k steps I think, but felt really good for some reason. No major soreness afterwards or anything.

Only a day later, I received an alarming phone call: My grandma was dying and if I wanted to see her again, I needed to come back home ASAP. So I did that, taking a flight the next morning and being in my home town of Hildesheim in the early afternoon. At that point, my 90 year old grandma was not fully conscious anymore, though at times we were pretty sure she recognized us, even if she couldn’t really show it. I was able to say goodbye to her, and she died a few days later. It was not unexpected, as her health had been going down in previous months, but it was still a bit of a shock.

I returned to Norway two days later. We still had plans and I knew I wouldn’t be happy staying back home.

With another friend from Germany, we spent a week at a different cabin, one that is very much barebones. No water, no electricity, barely any phone connection. After the death of my grandma, this was just the right thing. We had a great time there.

I spent another week in Norway after that and returned to Göttingen in early August. The first half of August consistent of the funeral for my grandma and Denmark preparation.

Then it was time again for our big summer trip to Denmark, this time with 27 people. It was a nice trip, except for the fact that I dislocated my right big toe and had to spend half a day at the hospital. I had good company though and overall positive memories, even though my toe is still not fully back to health half a year later.

Unfortunately, this year we had a COVID wave in Denmark, and a bunch of the people there got infected toward the end. As Johanna and Helmut were visiting me in Göttingen for the week following Denmark, that was a bit unfortunate. But I think we did the best we could, spending lots of time in a park and playing board games with our fellow infected ones. I did not get COVID again as I just had it, but I still received lots of germs and my body felt weaker than usual.

At this point, I had decided with Johanna and Helmut that I would quit my job in Göttingen and move in with them to Norway in January 2025. September, but particularly the last quarter of the year, consisted of lots of planning and preparation for that. At first, the plan was to first move in with them and then figure out what to do (i.e. find a job, I guess). However, I was already scouting job postings in September and applied for a single job at the end of September. At my previous job, I was a full-stack web developer, using Vue.js for the frontend part, and for that job posting, they were specifically looking for someone with Vue.js experience. I got a call from them a few days after submitting my application online, and an invitiation for an in-person interview in October (when I planned to be in Norway anyway… yes I know). It sounded very promising.

In early October, another incident hit my family. My mom had a ruptured aneurysm in her brain and had to get emergency surgery, and didn’t fully wake back up. I wrote in detail about it in this post. As I said in the beginning of this post, in some ways it was the worst year of my life. The death of my grandma, and even more so this incident with my mom, were the main contributors to that. I received lots of emotional support from my friends, and I was able to deal with the situation fairly well, considering the circumstances. But it was still tough, among the toughest things I remember in my whole life.

In mid October, I went to Norway once again. It was supposed to be a suprise for some other friends who went on a hiking trip there, though the surprise didn’t land well for certain reasons I only realized after the fact. I still think it was the right decision to go to Norway again. Being among friends, especially those who supported me emotionally, helped me immensely in dealing with my family situation. I was also able to interview for the job I mentioned in person and received an offer which I then accepted. And we just had a really good time together.

I returned to Göttingen in early November. November and December consisted of a lot of preparation for moving and lots of social events. I also wanted to do a good job wrapping up work at my previous job, which I think I managed to do.

In the time around Christmas, it got really busy for me. I had to get ready to actually move to Norway, and prepare my apartment for my friend who I sublet it to.

I spent Christmas with friends this year. It was lovely. I’m very grateful for having those friends who invited me to join them for Christmas.

December 27th was my last full day in Göttingen. There was still a lot to do with regards to packing, preparing the apartment, and preparing the Denmark trip, but with the help of my friends, we got it done. We left for Denmark on the 28th and had a lovely week there with a “smaller” group of 15 people.

Some random things that didn’t fit into the chronological timeline above.

I continued my strength training throughout 2024, albeit with long breaks every time I was out of the country (which was, as you have just read, a lot). I made some progress, but not as much as I could have with a more continuous training schedule.

It was somewhat similar with bouldering and yoga. I did it somewhat regularly while in Göttingen, but almost never when on the road.

In December, I finally started making YouTube videos again! I originally hoped to get back into making videos quickly so I could upload some more videos in January, documenting my moving process and getting used to life in Norway, but I underestimated how much time I needed for all the other things and overestimated my energy levels in January (I was sick right after arriving in Norway and it took a while to recover). Thus, I haven’t yet uploaded the video where I actually arrive. However, you can still watch these four videos I made since December:

• I’m Back?!? - Quick introduction video about getting back into it.
• My Exciting News! - Sharing the news that I’m quitting my job and moving to Norway.
• Day in My Life, Saturday Editing - As the title says. I also wanted to make a similar video documenting a usual working day, but somehow I never made that.
• Leaving the City Where I’ve Lived for 13 Years - Vlog showing random things I did before leaving Göttingen.

I’m currently working on the follow-up video, about being in Denmark and then the train journey to Norway.

Thanks for reading all of this! 2024 was a strange year. Despite quite some setbacks, both in my family and in the world out there, I feel good about it. It prepared the way for 2025, which I’m very excited about!

Please let me know how your 2024 went in the comments below! I hope you had a great start into 2025. Thanks for reading, and talk to you soon! 👋

I sent out a few job applications. One of them was for a frontend development job at VZG¹. They welcomed me with open arms. It sounded like they were having trouble finding a developer at all, possibly because in the IT industry, it is usually more attractive to work for a private company than a public institution. For me, it was a great opportunity to finally move on from being a student and earn some money.

I started working on Project coli-conc² in May 2018. The project had already started a few years earlier and they had a good idea of the web application I was going to build, including a prototype. I had a lot of autonomy though and chose Vue.js as the web framework. As I recall, it didn’t take long until I had my own prototype that we then refined over time. My new baby: The Mapping Tool Cocoda³.

While Cocoda was my main focus for the first year or so, we also built our own backend and other complementary services related to the project. Over time, together with my colleagues Uma and Jakob, we built a whole infrastructure for coli-conc.

As you may know, I’m very fond of Japan, and at that time, I was thinking about getting a working holiday visa and spending a year over there. Originally, I thought I’d quit my job to do that, but what actually happened was that I continued to work at VZG for a small number of hours each week in order to maintain the infrastructure and slowly continue development. I would think that very few employers would let their employees do something like this, so I was extremely grateful (although in retrospect, it would have been a better experience to look for jobs in Japan instead of continuing my job in Germany remotely). That trip to Japan was cut short by the COVID pandemic.

With COVID came more flexibility in the workplace and everyone started working remotely. This transitioned into a hybrid model that was still quite flexible. I spent some time in Norway, working remotely while staying with my friends.

I also reduced my working hours, first to 30 hours, then to 24. My thinking was that I wanted to work in order to live, not live in order to work. Maybe 24 is a little low, but it allowed me to take a lot more vacation than normal (by working ahead) and still have plenty of time in my daily life for friends and hobbies. Of course, it helps that I didn’t have any financial responsibilities and my main expenses were rent and travel (no car, mortgage, family to support, etc.).

All of this, plus the nice and supportive team, made it a great place to work.

I still began thinking about changing jobs. There were definitely times when work wasn’t going so well for me, and I really noticed how being unproductive at work drains your energy, even for the life outside of work. I also realized that even after working there for a few years, I never really developed an interest for knowledge organization systems used in libraries, and I longed for a change. Not that I think that this is a requirement for having a fulfilling job, but it certainly helps.

However, having such a comfortable position made it difficult for me to actually initiate change. I never really applied for other jobs, and it was not until 2024 that I finally started to take action.

First, I applied to the Apple Developer Academy in Naples, Italy. I intended to write a separate post about this, but never got around to it. It was something that I really wanted to get into, but unfortunately, the competition was tough and I didn’t score enough points in the online exams.

At the same time, I had been talking to my friends Johanna and Helmut, who I’ve been visiting a lot in Norway for the past few years, about the possibility of actually moving in with them. Not getting into the Apple Developer Academy made me take this option more seriously, and around July or August of 2024, we had decided that this would happen in 2025!

As I got closer to my last day at work, I realized that I’m actually really proud of what I have accomplished at work over the last six and a half years. It’s not perfect. There are still bugs. Some things that should have been done were never prioritized. The code could be cleaner. But at the end of the day, I have built a whole infrastructure of tools and services that actually work and get used (though not by many, unfortunately). And it’s all open source as well!⁴

All this to say: Thank you, everyone at VZG, and especially the coli-conc team. I had a great time! But it’s time to move on. On to the next thing!

10:52 - It’s my mom’s birthday. She and my dad are taking a longer weekend to relax a bit. We speak on the phone for 13 minutes. She’s been having strong pain in her head and neck in the past few days, but today it was a bit better.

16:25 - My dad calls. I instantly had a bad feeling about this. We don’t talk often, and as I had talked to my mom earlier that same day, there would be no reason for him to call unless something’s up. He tells me that mom collapsed out of nowhere and they were flying her to the hospital in Göttingen (where I lived). It doesn’t sound good. He sounds emotional. The only time I’ve ever seen him emotional like that was at his mother’s funeral.

17:01 - Dad calls again. Mom arrived at the hospital. I leave the house quickly, even though it was obvious that it would take some hours before we would know anything.

17:20 - I arrive at the hospital and they tell me to wait in the emergency room waiting area. There are very few people there, though it fills up a bit throughout the evening. A guy broke his arm while skateboarding. A kid hurt his hand. A girl has a broken foot and her phone is out of battery, so she has to ask the front desk to us their phone (I almost offer her the portable battery that I brought). I’m waiting.

19:08 - Still no news, but my dad arrives at the hospital, and they tell us a doctor would meet us soon.

19:30 - The doctor talks to us. They are doing an emergency brain surgery. She has major bleeding in her brain. She tells us that the chances are low, but they are doing everything they can.

19:48 - I call my brother and he’s on his way. I’m not sure why I’ve waited this long. I guess I wanted to have more information on the situation before calling.

21:57 - I’m thinking that it’s time to wake up from this nightmare.

22:10 - We are led to the intensive care unit. It sounds like mom survived the surgery, but they don’t tell us anything yet.

22:40 - The doctor who operated on her talks to us. Mom had a ruptured aneurysm in her brain which caused bleedings, which then slowly increased the pressure on her brain, which then caused her to lose consciousness. It’s extremely likely that the rupture caused the strong pain in her head and neck that started a few days earlier. They were able to control the bleeding and she is, for now, stable. They can’t tell us anything about the impact of this on her cognition until she wakes up, which won’t happen for a while.

We go see her. They had to remove part of her skull to do the surgery and remove the pressure. She’s attached to a lot of devices. But at least she’s alive.

Midnight - I return home. I walk, even though I have my bicycle with me. I talk to Johanna and Helmut on the phone. They are my main emotional support. I’m extremely grateful to have them in my life.

There’s a lot of uncertainty in the days following the surgery. Different people tell us different things. It’s an emotional rollercoaster.

I lean a lot on my friends throughout the next few days, weeks, and months. I don’t know what I would have done without them. Every single conversation, every single hug, helped a little bit.

About a week after surgery, we finally talk to a doctor who has been seeing and caring for my mom for most of the week. She tells us that mom’s stable, but things will take time, potentially weeks and months. But she also tells us to be hopeful and optimistic. Mom is still young - she only turned 55 on the day of the incident. No pre-existing conditions.

The situation doesn’t change much over the next few weeks. At some point, she “wakes up”, though she’s not responding to input and just stares into space. Occasionally, it feels like she’s looking at us. But that’s the extend of it. They move her to a rehab clinic further away, making it harder for us to visit.

It’s now Saturday, 21 December 2024, and I’m on my way home from visiting her, currently at a hospital in Erfurt for another surgery. I won’t see her again for a while. Possibly for half a year or so. I’m moving to Norway soon. More on that another time.

2024 has been a tough year for my family. In additional to this incident, my beloved grandma died at the proud age of 90 in the summer. I guess I’ve been lucky for the past 15 years, where there hasn’t been any major loss in my life.

6 October 2024 was likely the worst day of my life. However, I’ve also had some of the best days of my life in 2024. They were things that hurt a lot. But there are also lots of things to be grateful for. And there are lots of things to look forward to in 2025.

I hope you are all doing well.

The year started with a trip to Denmark. Originally, our Denmark friend group vacation was only in the summer, but in recent years, we have added a winter trip too, and it seems like it’s here to stay.¹ This time, we were 16 people in a pretty small house, and as we obviously spent more time inside (compared to the summer trip), it was a bit much at times. However, it was still a pretty epic trip, with lots of board games, nice walks, and of course some cold water swimming.

In mid February, I went to visit my friends in Norway again. Another winter tradition! I was there for three and a half weeks, though my friends both got pretty sick right at the start and we spent lots of time doing jigsaw puzzles instead of nice outdoor activities. However, I did end up doing lots of cold water ocean plunges (most of them alone), we did spend a few days at the cabin going cross-country skiing, and Helmut and I went snowboarding a few times too. So in the end, it was another fantastic Norway trip!

2023 was also my first full year of doing strength training at the gym, and I supplemented that with yoga and bouldering/climbing. There were times when I exercised every single day, and I think I was able to really solidify this more active way of living. Now, even if I take a few weeks off (during traveling or when I’m sick), I always get back into it right away as soon as I can. Pretty proud about that, especially watching my body transform over time.

In May, I went on a work trip to Innsbruck, Austria. I was only there for two nights, but ended up regretting not staying longer! What a nice city!

May also had lots of nice weather², and with that comes ICE CREAM! Göttingen has some great ice cream places, but my favorite by far is a small one called Smiles. My friends and I like it so much that we went there pretty much every day (when the weather was good), and I can’t remember a month where I’ve spent THIS much money on ice cream.

In June, there was yet another Norway trip! This cabin trip with a smaller group of friends (usually around eight people) is another staple event in my year, and it’s hard to describe how great it was. We had the best luck possible with the weather³ (though after a few days of around 23ºC, we kinda attracted lots of mosquitoes which sucked, literally), and to point out one specific thing, which is possibly the most epic thing I’ve done in my life: We found a field of snow going downhill ending in a small snow water lake, and we took our “ass sliders”⁴ and sled down the snow into the water. It was simply epic! Just amazing.

In July, I spent six days in Vienna visiting a friend. Originally, our other friend was supposed to join as well, but she got sick right before and couldn’t come. 😢 We made the best of it though and enjoyed our time!

On Sunday, 30 July 2023, we did a thing. My friends Helmut, Nick, and I did another attempt at walking 100,000 steps in a day. You might remember that Helmut and I tried this already in 2021 and failed, and this was going to be our redemption. While Helmut unfortunately didn’t make it (it was a pretty sunny day and he probably got a sunstroke or something like that), Nick and I finished it at 11:29 p.m., with only half an hour to spare until midnight. 🥳 I couldn’t have done it without Nick who is such a bundle of energy, I don’t know how he does it. And we definitely couldn’t have done it without Johanna (Helmut’s fiancée), who supported us by preparing meals all day and accompanying us for part of the way (she ended up walking well over 50,000 steps herself).

Not even a week later, we went on our yearly summer Denmark trip. It was the biggest group we’ve ever had, with 33 adults and 3 children. Absolutely insane! There were some issues, like miscalculated meal sizes and stuff like that, but all in all everything worked out really well, and I was very happy about that!

The rest of the year after that was fairly calm. There were some LAN parties⁵, some Berlin trips, and a trip to Konstanz visiting friends.

The year ended as it started - in Denmark again! This time, we stayed there over New Year’s, and it was a lovely little trip (with 20 people!).

It’s hard to express how grateful I am, one for having all these amazing friends to enjoy my time with, and two for being able to afford (both in time and money) to go on this many trips every year. I feel like not many people can do that, though I also think that I have other priorities compared to most people. At least at this point, I don’t have a family to provide for, I have neither a car nor a house, and no intention to buy either. That makes a big difference. It might change at some point, though I can already say that this particular part of my life hasn’t changed much in 2024 yet. 😉

We’re already almost halfway through 2024, so I’m quite late with this, but I think it would be a nice thing to have for every year. Please hold me to it and feel free to bother me when I haven’t posted a 2024 post in mid 2025. 😅

I hope all of you are doing well! Feel free to leave a comment below⁶ and tell me how you are doing. ☺️ You can also say Hello via other means. ❤️ Thanks for reading!

Let’s start with a look back on 2022.

2022

I don’t think there’s any argument against 2022 being a shitty year for the world as a whole. I really hope that 2023 will be better.

But for me personally, it’s been pretty good. The year started off with a week in Denmark with my friends. In addition to Denmark in the summer, we’re now doing another trip in the winter. This was the first one though and it was a much smaller group - only eight people. It was a fantastic start to the year though.

Right after that I got sick, as I often do after these trips. Not COVID though (yet - spoiler alert). At the end of February, just before my birthday, I went to Norway again. This is becoming something of a tradition and I love it. We went snowboarding, cross-country skiing at the cabin, ass-sliding, and more. Basically the only videos of any substance I’ve made this year are about that trip: Part 1 (6:33 - just my trip there) and Part 2 (16:43 - the actual video, please watch it!).

April was a pretty quiet month, but it was also the start of something that shaped the rest of the year: I signed up for a gym membership and started going to the gym regularly. I started with two to three times a week, but as the year went on I went more and more, sometimes five times a week. I also got back into bouldering and climbing, and especially towards the end of the year I had weeks where I was either at the gym or bouldering every single day. I think I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s not perfect though - I’ve been neglecting cardio, so that’s a big weakness right now. But it’s still a big accomplishment for me, especially the fact that I’ve been able to pick it up easily after every single trip. I guess I’ve been able to build up a very strong habit where it’s much harder NOT to do it. 💪

In May, I went on a solo trip to Lisbon, Portugal. The first week was great. I explored a lot of the city, went surfing for the first time in my life, met some nice people at the Airbnb, and even went to a board game night. Then I got COVID and had to spend the rest of the trip in isolation. Oops. I was sick for about two days, then mostly just bored and a little depressed and anxious.

My mood and mental state improved a lot after I got back from Portugal and jumped on a flight to Norway less than two days later. Yes, Norway is now also twice a year. We have a small group of friends (nine this time) who try to make it happen every summer. It was amazing again and we had a great time!

In July I spent a week in Vienna, Austria. I happened to choose the hottest days of the year, with temperatures up to 38ºC, so I took it a little easier there. I stayed with a friend and we had a great time together. (I was really glad about that because we didn’t know each other that well before and I asked her on a whim if I could visit her). I also met two other friends there, which was really nice. Great trip!

In August, something really big happened for me: I moved out. I had lived in that apartment for over ten years, ever since I started studying here in Göttingen. It wasn’t that I didn’t like living with my roommate and the cats (I miss them a lot), but I felt a bit stuck in my life and needed a change. Also, I was getting more and more socially active and living out of town was pretty inconvenient. I was able to find a nice apartment in the center of Göttingen. Everything went pretty fast and I officially moved in the middle of August. It took a while to get used to living alone, but I like it a lot. I’ll be making a (late) apartment tour video soon, so stay tuned for that!

Also in August, I finally went to a LAN party again! For those who don’t know, I’ve been going to these small Nintendo-focused LAN parties here in Germany every year since 2006. That’s crazy. 2020 was the first year I didn’t go (because they were all canceled), so I was glad that they made it happen again in 2022. A lot of the people I know there are people I only meet there, so I haven’t seen some of them in three years. I am really grateful that I was able to finally meet them again.

At the end of August, my friends Helmut and Johanna from Norway came to visit me in my new apartment and it was amazing! One of the great things about living in the center of Göttingen is that you have access to a ton of great ice cream places, and we certainly took advantage of that. I was only able to do that at the end of the summer, so I’m really looking forward to this summer.

This visit continued with our summer trip to Denmark with the large group in September. For the first time in many years, we chose a different vacation home than usual - one that was much more modern and also closer to Germany. As always, we had a great time. Lots of swimming in the ocean, board games, Mario Kart, sauna, and so on. I’m so grateful that we can do this every year and that I have such a great group of friends that there are usually no (serious) conflicts, even though there are sometimes up to 30 people in one house.

October had another LAN party, another visit from a friend, and some really nice surprise summer days at the end of the month.

November was a quiet month. My friend Josefine came to visit, which was really nice, but otherwise nothing much happened. I started taking yoga classes to balance out the weight training a bit, and I think I will keep doing that, at least once a week.

December was also very quiet for the most part. After Christmas, Johanna and Helmut came to visit again and stayed until the new year. We also had a pretty big New Year’s party at a friend’s place, the biggest one since COVID started. It was a really nice way to end the year 2022.

Verdict: Personally, it was a great year for me!

2023

As I mentioned before, the winter trip to Denmark is becoming a regular thing for us, so that’s how the year started. The house was meh, but the trip itself was great again. Lots of board games, daily walks, I even went into the ocean twice!

Nothing else of note happened for the rest of January, so the question is: What’s next?

Very soon I’ll be back in Norway to visit Johanna and Helmut again. I’m looking forward to a fun time with lots of board games, snowboarding, a cabin trip and more. I even bought my own snowboard! It’s pretty old and far from perfect, but I think it will be fine. If we go three to four times while I’m there, I’ll have already saved money compared to renting.

My summer will be pretty busy. There’s another trip to Norway planned for June with the larger group. Some other friends have invited me on a trip that will probably be around July. August will be the big summer trip to Denmark again, as well as a LAN party. And then in September, I’m currently planning to go back to Japan for an extended vacation! Can’t wait for that. 🙂

I’m thinking of doing a separate post (or video) about yearly themes, looking back at last year’s theme and talking about this year’s theme, but I think this year will be the Year of Learning for me. To be honest, I haven’t given it much thought yet, so there’s not much to say for now.

That’s all from me. How was your 2022? What are your plans for 2023? I hope you are doing well!

Feel free to hit me up on Mastodon (and consider joining a Mastodon server if you’re not on there yet) and please subscribe to my YouTube channel! No promises yet, but I definitely want to upload more this year than last (which shouldn’t be too hard lol).

Have a great weekend and see you soon! 👋

¹

As of December 2021, Nodoka Meditation Timer is not available on the App Store anymore.

In 2017, I was still a master’s student at university, but making no progress at all. I knew I would quit and get a job instead. Since I’ve also been interested in making an app for my iPhone, I decided to learn how to do it and do it right, meaning I wanted to publish the end result to the iPhone App Store. Since it’s good to start small, especially if the goal is to put it out into the world, I decided to make a meditation timer app. I already had a little bit of background knowledge, so it didn’t take long to make the first prototype. I got a few friends to help me improve it and find bugs, and after a few weeks and one rejection from Apple’s app review², I was able to release Nodoka 1.0 on 17 December 2017.

This was Nodoka’s entry in the App Store:

At that point, I was still motivated in terms of making apps. I released some minor updates for Nodoka, and started developing a new app that, admittedly, never got very far. I also started applying for jobs and put my experience of making the app on my CV which actually made a good impression, as far as I can tell. They were able to see that I was not just some computer science student that never really did any software development. I found a job, quit university, and started working there in May 2018.

Unfortunately, working full-time pretty much stopped me from doing any further development on either Nodoka or the other app. At the same time, you quickly forget all the things you’ve learned, especially if you’ve only used those skills for a few months. So since 2018, there haven’t been any updates to Nodoka.

The whole time, I was still thinking about making another app, or maybe updating Nodoka with more features like an Apple Watch app. But I didn’t do it. I kept my Apple Developer Account, so you were still able to download the app (which was completely free), but there was zero progress on my side.

So in 2021, I finally decided to cancel my developer account and save the €99 per year that it costs. If I want to really make another app, I can just sign up again. However, this meant that Nodoka had to be removed from the App Store.

I have to admit that I haven’t been using the app for a while. The main reason was that you had to keep the screen on during meditations, and I was concerned about battery degradation. I eventually switched to an app called Insight Timer which in particular has the Apple Watch app I had always imagined for Nodoka. I don’t particularly care for the phone app since it seems very bloated with stuff that I will never use, but the Apple Watch app is fantastic. Since I completely moved to this app, there was, for me personally, not much reason to keep Nodoka around.

As far as I know, there were a few people that downloaded Nodoka, but I never added analytics to it, so I didn’t have any data apart from what the App Store was showing me. I got the occasional feature request, but that was maybe once a year or so.

Long story short, Nodoka Meditation Timer is dead. Probably forever. But it was a great little project and I still remember how great it felt when I was able to finally publish it. I was super proud and told all my friends (at least those with iPhones) to download it. And now, thinking about it, I should really make another thing and put it out into the world.

Thanks to anyone who has ever tried the app! I hope you’re not sad about this. If the app is still on your phone, you can keep using it.

Talk to you soon!

Currently, this is my strategy: For every anime, I have one Markdown file where I write down the notes. It has the anime’s name as a heading, then some interesting links or general notes about the anime, followed by a structured list of seasons and episodes. Among the links at the top is one that leads to Reddit’s search and shows me the episode discussion threads for a particular anime.

What has changed now is that I do not take any notes during the episode. Rather, I try to find time shortly after watching it to take notes from memory. This allows me to focus better on the episode while watching it, and also forces me to remember the content of the episode afterwards (which taking notes during the episodes does not). After writing my notes, I go to the respective episode discussion thread and read through that. This further strengthens my memory since I get other people’s perspective on that episode, including little things that I might have missed. I also copy some of the things people write there into my notes as quotes.

Let’s look at an example. Just a few days ago, my roommate and I started watching Mushoku Tensei which was highly rated in this year’s winter anime season and which my friend also recommended to me. This is how my document looks like (omitting the actual notes):

# Mushoku Tensei

https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/search?q=flair%3Aepisode+mushoku+tensei&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all

## Season 1

### Episode 1
- My
- notes
- about
- the
- epsiode...

> The Production values in this episodes is insane and it is not just the animation that is strong, character design, background, compositing...etc, are all great

> Cult of Roxy-sensei rise up!!

Good summary of episode 1 including screenshots: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/kuj1bm/mushoku_tensei_isekai_ittara_honki_dasu_episode_1/gis4z3u

### Episode 2
- [...]

> That house needs urgent soundproofing.
> Roxy disagrees.

[...]

What do you think? Is this completely overkill? I personally think it allows me to get more long-term value and entertainment out of this hobby. At least that’s what I’m hoping for. I do enjoy rewatching shows that I REALLY liked, but for some shows, I would like to be able to watch season 2 without having to rewatch season 1 just because my memory is so bad. 😅

We were on an island in Norway called Smøla. The route we chose was a 10 km long road along the sea connecting two towns. That was pretty much the only plan we had. We had only decided to do it a few days earlier, and apart from buying a few snacks, there was no preparation. We thought we’d be fine since we could stock up on supplies on either end of the route.

What I have learned on that day is that the two most important things for such an undertaking are:

1. Ensuring Hydration and Food
2. Mental Strength

Hydration and Food

Apart from choosing a good route, I think it is of utmost importance to plan your hydration and food intake for the day. Not drinking enough might have been our biggest mistake that day. I’m pretty sure I drank less during our walk than what I’d usually drink working at my desk. One reason, I think, was that I was cold and the water was cold as well. I just didn’t feel like drinking because I didn’t want to get even colder. It would have been better to have some warm water or tea which wasn’t available to buy at the stores we could go to.³

We also didn’t eat enough. I’m not sure if I even got to 2000 calories worth of food despite walking for so. many. hours. But I didn’t really feel hungry either, so I’m not sure what the plan would be for the next attempt. Maybe it would be good to plan out the calories ahead of time and schedule the food so that there’s no decision-making involved.

Mental Strength

I had expected this, but I only found out what this really meant after reaching my limits. I would speculate that any reasonably fit person is physically able to walk 100,000 steps in a day. However, having the mental strength to actually push through the challenge is a different thing. I would say that the first 50,000 steps are pretty easy. After that, it gets progressively harder, although I could imagine that once you’ve reached about 90,000 steps, it might become easier to actually finish the challenge.

Why I Think We Actually Failed

I believe that, under normal circumstances, we would have succeeded the challenge. However, it wasn’t a good time of the year, and it wasn’t a good day either. While it wasn’t raining that day, temperatures in Norway are still pretty low in March (I think it was between 0 °C and 5 °C). On top of that, there were strong winds for a significant part of the day which both required more energy to move and made it even colder (which, in turn, required even more energy). Combine that with the lack of hydration and calories, and you have the recipe for failure.

Yes, my legs felt really bad after walking roughly 60 km, but if it hadn’t been as cold and windy, and if I had been properly fed and hydrated, I’m pretty sure I could have pushed through it to the end. Helmut felt similarly, but I do think that he could have made it even under these circumstances, and that my decision to quit affected his mentality.

So, How Many Steps Did You Actually Do?

We started our walk at 4:15 a.m. while it was still dark outside. We only took short breaks until around 1 p.m. where we had a slightly longer lunch break. I made my decision to quit around 5:30 p.m., but still walked back home.⁴ We got back around 6:45 p.m. At the end of the day (so including all steps I’ve taken after being back home, which weren’t many to be honest), I was at 86,292 steps. You would think, “wow, that’s so close to the finish line, why did you stop?”, but finishing it would have been another two hours of walking at least (our pace was super slow in the end), and I was freezing, dehydrated, dizzy, and felt a bit sick. I’m glad I tried, and I think it was the right decision to quit at that point. I don’t regret it.

Will You Try Again?

If you’d have asked me on the evening that day, I would have said No. But after reflecting on the experience (and after noticing that I felt pretty good the next day except for the dehydration), I think I might actually try it again. It sounds crazy, but failing once and trying it again sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Have you ever done anything like this? Would you try walking 100,000 steps in one day? Please let me know in the comments below!

PS: Expect more Norway videos on my YouTube channel soon!

I’ve made some videos here in Norway that are up on my YouTube channel. Check out the Norway Playlist!

In one of the videos, I have listed some reasons why I made the decision to come to Norway. One thing that I haven’t specifically mentioned (and that I only realized after arriving) is that coming here, especially to the north of Norway, is a way of escaping the pandemic for a little bit. Here, the case numbers are so low that life is going on like normal. It’s not even mandatory to wear a mask (some, including us, do it though). Compared to Germany where public life has pretty much stopped, this is a completely different world.

Since life is pretty much normal here, it allowed me to keep most things COVID out of my life for the past few weeks. While I’ve been trying to stay positive and not obsess about the news, I think being in lockdown and constantly having to think about it has likely affected my mental health (despite being one of the lucky ones that don’t have to worry about losing their job). Not having this background process running at all times in the past few weeks has been so refreshing. I pretty much haven’t checked any numbers or news about COVID since arriving in Norway.

This is definitely not an option for most people (I don’t recommend traveling during times like these), but it made me realize that if even I’m feeling mentally drained by the pandemic, it must be so much worse for other people, and it makes me hope even more that things will improve soon.

How are you doing? Have you noticed the pandemic affecting your mental health? What do you think could help people to calm down a bit?

Stay well everybody, and talk to you soon!

Of course, such a challenge is very specific to the individual, and I’m not going 100% on all the things. In this post, I will outline the rules I’m setting for myself.

Instagram

No Instagram for the whole month.¹

YouTube

No watching YouTube for the whole month, except for videos that my friends made and sent to me, or when I want to learn a specific thing and find a video for that.

Reddit

No browsing Reddit for the whole month. However, I am adding an exception for episode discussion threads of anime that I’m currently watching.²

Twitter

No Twitter, except for posting about new blog posts via the website.

Facebook

I’m only adding Facebook because people will think “What about Facebook?” While I still have an account³, I don’t use it at all, so no change necessary.

Other Blogs/News (e.g. RSS)

Over the last few months, I started to slowly integrate RSS feeds into my life, especially for some technology blogs. While I will also not look at these, I’m planning to use RSS feeds in the future to get away from using some services directly so that I don’t fall into a rabbit hole (like on YouTube).

Podcasts

I talked about this with a friend yesterday. I have a small number of podcasts that I absolutely love, and I will continue to listen to those shows. I can literally count them on one hand: Connected, ATP, F**kface, Cortex, Hello Internet. The last two are on a very irregular schedule, so it’s three and a bit episodes per week.

Anime and Other Media

You may have read my post about watching too much anime. Well, I have realized that it is a little bit too much, but since we are approaching the end of the season, I will finish the anime that I’m currently watching. I will also start watching Attack on Titan since I am very excited about it (I think the first episode is coming out on Sunday). Also, I am watching some shows with my roommate which I will continue to do. Basically no change here.

Messaging

I kept the hardest part for last. While I don’t strictly consider messaging as social media, I often catch myself obsessively opening my messaging apps when I’m on my phone. So I will implement two measures to deal with this:

1. I will keep my two most used messengers, Signal and Telegram, on my phone, but I will disable all notifications and restrict usage of these to a certain time in the day. I enjoy our group chats and still want to participate in them, but I want to make sure not to check too often and to restrict the time I spend in those apps. Right now I’m thinking about 15 minutes in the late afternoon.
2. I will move all other messengers (I have too many) to my old phone and check it only once a week.

I am hoping that this will be enough to not be out of touch, but at the same time keep me more focused in the moment. It’s hard for me to estimate how much time I spend in messaging apps since I used them on three different platforms, but restricting it to one platform (my phone) and to a certain time of day will definitely reduce that amount of time.

For me, this challenge is about unintentional use of my devices. If I plan to check my messages at a certain time, that’s completely fine. But since it feels like a lot of my phone usage is unintentional, I will completely cut off certain apps and heavily restrict others.

Anyone wants to join? ;)

In the beginning, I was hyped. Finding topics and writing the posts felt easy and it was a lot of fun. I even wrote some longer posts without planning it; I simply started writing and the post ended up around 1500 to 2000 words. Some of my friends became avid readers and after adding comments to the blog, we had some fun interactions there.

Learning #1: Blogging is fun for me!

However, at about the halfway point, I started struggling to find new topics every day. For the sake of the challenge, I continued to write and publish every single day, but the initial honeymoon period was over. Thinking of a new topic every day became more of a chore, and I started looking forward to the end of the month.

Learning #2: Consistently finding new topics to write about isn’t easy.

It was not like I didn’t have any more ideas what to write about. But those things I wanted to get into, at least those that were left, were all things that would take time to research and write. It wouldn’t have been able for me to write such a post in a day without sacrificing all the rest of the things I like to do (as well as work).

I believe a better strategy is to set out to write every day, but not publish every day. Then I could work on those longer posts, but take my time to make them good. Of course, that was not the goal of this challenge.

Learning #3: Writing every day is good, but having to publish every day is a lot of pressure.

The goal of this challenge was to get back into writing. And I definitely achieved that. Not only did I write a post every day, I feel like I wrote more and better outside of those posts as well (e.g. in my daily journal). I also improved a lot throughout this month.²

In the end, I’m very happy that I challenged myself to do this. I am grateful that I am flexible enough in my life to devote a chunk of each day to such a challenge, and I’m also grateful for you, the readers. Without anyone reading, I would still have done it, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun. Apart from the public comments, I also received some private feedback and thoughts about certain posts, especially about those thought-provoking ones.

Thank you for reading my blog! I really appreciate it. While I will take a break from blogging for a while³, I certainly don’t plan to abandon this blog. Since I’m planning to do more weekly or monthly challenges, expect posts about that fairly soon. I also want to get back into a bunch of other things (like app development and YouTube), so I’m going to use this blog to keep you up-to-date with what I’m doing.

This week, I had some trouble coming up with good topics. On Monday and Tuesday, I had long days at work, so I started the week with two short posts about cold showers and climbing. On Wednesday, I posted about some iPhone and iPad apps that I use which was way more work than I had anticipated. On Tuesday, I wrote a follow-up post for last week’s The Voice Inside Your Head, titled Who Are You? It is definitely a very deep topic. On Friday, I made a list of potential travel destinations for 2021, in case it is possible to travel again, and yesterday I finally wrote somewhat of a review of the iPhone 12 mini, including some photos I have taken with it (someone asked for cat pics in the comments before, there you go).

Here are some recommendations for this week:

• On Monday, I learned that Taiwan has a Digital Minister called Audrey Tang, and they are such an interesting person. You can read up on them on Wikipedia.
• A short 2:14 review of the M1 MacBook Air: Quick & Dirty Review of the MacBook Air with M1
• Yes Theory published a new video where Thomas went to Afghanistan for 96 hours. Highly recommended watch: 96 Hours Inside Afghanistan in 2020
• A funny and pretty interesting article about “comma ellipses”: Why Do Young People Use Commas So Weirdly?
• A new Better Ideas video about gratitude: Why it’s so hard to be happy
• My friend Igor posted a new video as well (as always in German): Mt. Fuji & das japanische Nachtleben
• In Wednesday’s post, I mentioned that I’m interested in a new app called “Craft”. It is a native iOS and macOS application that works somewhat like Notion. Today I found that MacStories reviewed it: Craft Review: A Powerful, Native Notes and Collaboration App
• Meanwhile in Finland

As always, enjoy your Sunday! One last post tomorrow. Of course, I hopefully won’t stop posting completely, but I definitely need a break as the second half of this month of daily blogging has worn me out a bit. 😅

However, both the camera and the battery life didn’t hold up as well as you would hope, and even after replacing the battery in 2018, I was especially eager to have a better camera in my phone. So I bought the XS. I didn’t love its size, but I was more than happy with the performance, battery life, and camera quality. I took so many photos and videos with that phone.

I was still hopeful for a smaller flagship iPhone though. Earlier this year, Apple released the new iPhone SE which had the 11 internals with a 6/7/8 body. I think it’s a great phone, but it only has one camera and those very large bezels around the display. Fortunately, there were rumors and leaks about a 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini. And I was so convinced that it would be the phone for me that I already sold my XS in August in anticipation for the new phones. While I didn’t expect having to wait until November to get it, when it was finally revealed, I knew it was the phone I’ve been waiting for all along.

The iPhone 12 mini is a 5.42-inch phone with an all-screen, HDR, True Tone, P3, OLED display (1080 x 2340 pixels, 476 ppi). It has the exact same internals as its bigger sibling, the 6.1-inch iPhone 12, except for a smaller battery. It rocks Apple’s newest A14 which is crazy fast for a smartphone chip. In addition to the front camera, it has two back cameras: A 26mm-equivalent wide lens and a 13mm-equivalent ultra-wide lens. For more detailed specs, refer to this site. The iPhone 12 mini only weighs 135 grams.

Holding it in my hand, I think it is a true iPhone SE successor. Newest internals, no disadvantages compared to its bigger sibling (except for battery life), easy to hold and use with one hand, lightweight. It is truly the phone I’ve been waiting for.

Apart from the performance, the most important factor in a phone for me is camera quality. Down below, you can find a bunch of photos I’ve taken with the iPhone 12 mini over the past two weeks. All of these are straight out of the camera (which in this case means that they contain Apple’s processing, but I did not touch the photos at all). You can click on a photo to get a bigger version.¹

This one is a night mode photo with very bad indoor lighting:

This last photo is taken with the ultra-wide camera:

I am planning to make a video for YouTube that shows the mini’s video capabilities. However, there are still lots of features I have yet to take advantage of, like slow motion, Dolby Vision HDR, and night timelapse.

A few more notes about certain aspects of this phone:

• Performance: As expected, it is incredibly fast. I don’t know what I could do to it to make it struggle.
• Battery life: For me, it has been fine so far. It is probably the mini’s biggest disadvantage, and it might struggle to get through a full day of travel if you take a lot of photos and videos.
• Screen: I’m glad that the OLED screen finally made it to the non-pro iPhones. It is beautiful and I have nothing to complain.
• FaceID: Using my old SE for the months between selling the XS and getting the 12 mini, I realized how great fingerprint sensors are, especially in these times of wearing a mask. I don’t go out a lot, so I barely have to unlock my phone when wearing a mask, but I’m still a little bit sad that they couldn’t add an additional fingerprint sensor under the screen or in the side button.
• Cellular: With the 12 line, Apple has added 5G capability to all their phones. One, I don’t care about 5G because I don’t want to upgrade my plan. Two, it introduced a small issue for me: So where I live, the LTE connection is not good. I only get one or two bars of LTE when I’m in the house. Since I don’t need LTE at home, I usually disabled it to force it to use 2G so that I can still receive phone calls, but have a much better connection. With these new 5G phones, I can’t disable LTE anymore. This means that inside the house I have a constant battery drain from a bad LTE connection. Unfortunate, but what can I do. 🤷
• Size: I think it could be slightly smaller, maybe 5.2 inches, but I don’t want to complain and 5.4 inch is still a great size for this phone. (Also, battery life would become worse.)

All in all, I am incredibly happy with this phone. It would be great if the battery life could be a bit better, but it’s totally fine. Also, I wouldn’t complain about a telephoto lens on the back since without one, it’s hard to take photos of objects further away. I’m not very optimistic about that though. I do hope, however, that Apple is committed to continue to make phones of this size. The original SE was a one-off phone and people who loved it for its size were left waiting for a long time. It would be nice if this didn’t happen with the 12 mini.

Norway

I’ve been to Norway once with my friends last year. It was one of the best trips ever. We stayed in a small hut with seven people, no electricity, no running water, nothing. For some, this might sound horrible, but we enjoyed it so much that we were hyped to repeat it the next year. Of course it didn’t happen in 2020, but I’m optimistic that a trip like this will be possible in 2021.

I’m also planning, separately from the above, to go to Norway and stay with my friends who live there, for a month or two. My work currently allows us to work from anywhere, so this would be the perfect opportunity to do this without convincing my employer to allow it.²

Denmark

Every year since 2010, my group of friends has organized a trip to a large vacation home in Denmark. In the beginning, we were around 15 people, but throughout the years this grew to as much as 32 people! Of course, this trip also had to be canceled³, but I’m hoping that we can do it next year. The dates are already fixed because we could only move our reservation, not get a refund.

Japan

When I booked my return flight in March 2020, I noticed that it was cheaper to book a two-way flight than to book a one-way flight. So what I did was that I booked a flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt for March 2020, together with a “return” flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo for January 2021. While I’m 99% sure that Japan won’t allow tourists to come in January (at least not without quarantine), I’m hoping that I can move the flight to later in the year and still take advantage of the fact that I already have a flight. Needless to say, I won’t get out of this cycle until I book a single return flight or skip a flight someday. 😅

Greece

A while ago, I randomly got into a conversation with someone on Reddit who’s from Greece. What I didn’t expect was that we would become friends over time, and we’re still in somewhat regular contact now. If it’s possible and if she’s even in Greece at that time, I’d like to go visit her there for a week or so. (Hi if you’re reading! 🥰) Also, one of my good friends here in Germany has family in Greece and we’ve been thinking of going on a trip together, so maybe I can combine those two things!

Estonia

I don’t know why, but for a while now I’ve had this urge to visit Estonia someday. I basically know nothing about the country (except roughly where it is and that the capital city is Tallinn⁴), but somehow I still want to go there. This is definitely a lower priority, but someday I would like to go.

France

Believe it or not, I have never been to France before! It’s a neighboring country and I know a few people who live there, but I never ended up going. So maybe in 2021 or 2022, I can finally fill this gap as a European and go to France. I also promised some Mexican friends I met in Japan last year that I’m going to join them for their Paris trip, so maybe that’s going to happen at some point.

Portugal

Another country where I haven’t been to. I’ve heard that it’s very beautiful there. I recently watched one of Nathanial Drew’s videos where they were in Portugal and it looked amazing.

Germany

Last but not least, I want to mention that I definitely want to go to different places inside of Germany. I’m not particularly interested in the cities, but I do want to visit friends and they live all over the country. Even if international travel is not possible yet in 2021, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to travel a little bit inside of Germany, at least.⁵

As you can see, except for Japan all of these destinations are in Europe. I am aware that traveling by airplane is bad for the environment, so I’d like to travel to more places that are close to me. And the flights I do take, I always offset the carbon emissions (yes, it’s always better to not fly at all…).

I also don’t think that I’ll be able to go to all these places even if travel is possible again in 2021. At the very least, I’ll run out of money since I’m only working part-time. But it would be nice to go on at least a few trips.

Are you excited to travel again? What are your next destinations?

So if I ask you “Who Are You?”, how would you answer? Most people would simply say, “I’m Stefan.” But are those letters, S-t-e-f-a-n, who you are? No, that’s merely a label. People actually change their names, but that doesn’t change who they are. So you could answer, “I go by the label Stefan, I’m 29 years old, I live in Germany. My parents are X and Y. I am a software developer and apparently a blogger now.” But is that really who you are? I didn’t ask about your age, your parents, where you live, or what you’re doing. Those things change over time, but you are still you. Well, you could go on and reply, “Okay fine, I am this body that you are seeing in front of you, and who is talking with you right now.” But your body changes all the time as well. Even as an adult, our cells constantly die and are born. In a few years, not a single cell of your current body will remain. But you’re still you, right? Eventually, you’ll probably give up an say, “I’m me! Me, that’s who I am! I’m in here experiencing the world!”

Now we’re getting closer. A very important thing for this is the subject-object relationship. If you are the subject, the one who is feeling, thinking, experiencing, you can’t be the object. You can’t be your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings; those are only things you are experiencing. But at the same time, you still have an intuitive sense of existence that you can’t attribute to any of the objects you are perceiving. That intuitive sense of existence is your consciousness.

Even if you take away all your objects of consciousness, you can still be aware of experiencing nothing. From page 28 of “The Untethered Soul”:

It doesn’t matter how many things are in front of you; if you turn off the consciousness, there is nothing. If you are conscious, however, there can be nothing in front of you but you are fully aware that there is nothing.

Throughout the book, the author also takes apart what we usually consider our Self. It is simply a construct of our mind, a castle built over many years, with our past experiences and memories as the foundation. Even if we were not consciously doing it, it is something we have built ourselves. The things we like or don’t like, our values, our opinions, our fears, those are just parts of the castle we consider to be the Self. But it is not who we are. Even if you consider yourself someone who doesn’t do a certain thing, in the heat of the moment, you could still ignore that and do it anyway. It doesn’t change who you are.

I’m not saying that it’s bad to have likes or dislikes, or to have values you live by. But you can have those things and still realize that they are not you.

To be honest, writing about this specific part of the book makes me realize that, by itself, this viewpoint might not have much of a benefit, at least it might be hard to recognize. But personally, I found it very helpful in the context of the whole book. And to be clear, while I am writing about these things, it doesn’t mean that I have fully internalized them. But I still feel that they help me deal with certain situations in daily life better than I did before. I am slowly able to disconnect from the things that happen to me and recognize that they do not have to affect me. And this not only includes external things, but also internal things like thoughts and emotions. I am merely the one who experiences these thoughts and emotions, but it is still my choice how to react to them.¹

What do you think? Did this make the last post, The Voice Inside Your Head, a bit clearer?

In this post, I want to list some of the apps that I’m using on my devices (in this case iPhone and iPad). There will be four parts: 1. iPhone 2. iPad 3. iPhone + iPad 4. Looking Into. If an app is in the “iPhone” or “iPad” section, it does not mean that I’m using it exclusively on that device, but that I use it mostly on that device.

Note: I didn’t include the prices because they differ depending on the region and which plan you are using. However, I added whether it is free (which usually include a paid premium option or subscription), paid (= one-time payment), or subscription (= monthly/yearly payment).

iPhone

Overcast (iOS, free with premium option)

Overcast has been my favorite podcast player for a long time now. But to be honest, I haven’t really tried any other player because switching podcast players seems like a PITA.

LookUp (iOS, paid)

LookUp is an excellent English dictionary for iOS. Every time there’s an English word I don’t know or don’t fully understand, I look up its definitions in LookUp.

Pushover (iOS, Android, Website, paid)

Pushover is a push notification service. I use it to send myself notifications via scripting, for example on my server or from Shortcuts. If you don’t know why you would need this, you don’t need this. ;)

FiLMiC Pro (iOS, paid)

The default camera in iOS lacks a lot of features, especially when it comes to control. FiLMiC Pro is not perfect, but it offers some more controls when taking videos on the iPhone. The feature I use the most is manual focus and then going very close to a subject (like flowers or animals).

Halide (iOS, subscription)

Halide is an advanced camera app for taking photos. The reasoning is pretty much the same as for FiLMiC Pro. Unfortunately, they recently switched to a subscription model. Because I purchased the app before that, I can use it without the subscription, but if you want to try it now, you need the subscription.

iPad

iA Writer (iOS, macOS, Android, Website, paid/subscription)

A few months ago, I switched to iA Writer for all my note taking and writing. It is a Markdown-based editor that fully operates on the file system, so in the end you just have a folder structure of plain text files. That’s the main reason I’m using this. However, it is not optimal for note taking and I might try something else for that.

Working Copy (iOS, paid)

Working Copy is an excellent Git client for iOS. Currently I use it mostly for committing and pushing my blog posts from my iPad. The pricing model of the app is interesting in that you pay for all the features the app has at the moment of payment, and you’ll keep those features forever. You’ll also get every new feature for 12 months. After that, you’ll still get bug fixes and some new features, but you’ll need to pay again for all new features. I think it is probably the best compromise payment model out there.

Scriptable (iOS, free with premium option)

Scriptable is a tool in which you can use JavaScript to interact with the system. It has lots of hooks into system features and it is great for automating workflows. I use it supplemental to Shortcuts.

Data Jar (iOS, free with premium option)

Data Jar is basically a iCloud-based key-value store accessible via Shortcuts. If you don’t understand this, you don’t need it. ;)

iPhone + iPad

Things (iOS, iPad, macOS, Website, paid)

I’ve been using Things as my task and project management app for a while now. I like that it’s native and has a great interface. However, it does lack some advanced features, the iPad app is a separate purchase, and the Mac app is really expensive.

News Explorer (iOS, macOS, Website, paid)

News Explorer is a great RSS client that I started using a few months ago. I will probably write a separate post about RSS and how I use it sometime in the future.

Anki (iOS, Android, Website, paid on iOS, free on other platforms)

Anki is the flashcard app of my choice for studying Japanese.

Shirabe Jisho (iOS, free)

A great and simple Japanese dictionary.

Apollo (iOS, free with premium option)

The best Reddit client for iOS.

YNAB (iOS, Android, Website, subscription)

YNAB stands for “You Need A Budget”. It is the budgeting app that I’ve been using for the past few years and every cent I earn and spend goes through it. It is fairly expensive, but definitely worth it in my opinion. (Possibly a separate post on budgeting in the future!)

AdGuard Pro (Website, free with premium option)

The content blocker of my choice. I don’t love it, but it does its job well.

1Password (iOS, Android, Website, subscription)

The password manager of my choice. I’m still looking into switching to Bitwarden, but as with so many things, it takes so much work switching password managers, so right now I’m staying with them.

Looking Into

Craft (iOS, macOS, free with premium subscription)

Craft is a native iOS and macOS Notion alternative. Not sure whether it started as that, but that’s how I discovered it. I have only just begun looking into it, but it looks pretty good!

Nobody asked for this, but I thought it might be interesting to some people. What are your favorite apps? Let me know in the comments below!

I discovered climbing as an adult. It started with bouldering (climbing fairly low walls without a rope), then transitioned to sport climbing in the gym. In Göttingen, the university sports center has a climbing gym where, as a student, you can get a membership for very cheap. In early 2016, after a friend and I completed the lead climbing course, we went to the climbing gym three to four times a week, sometimes more. We were obsessed about climbing and we quickly progressed. We weren’t able to climb the super hard routes, but we were pretty good.

However, in fall 2016, I went to Japan for a student exchange. I was so hyped about climbing that I actually took my gear (shoes, belt, belaying device, chalk) with me to Japan. Unfortunately, I was so occupied with life there that I only went bouldering a few times.

After I got back, I started climbing again, but not as obsessedly as before. In 2018, we really got into rock climbing (rock as in actual rocks in nature). We are lucky that the city we live in is surrounded by woods with several climbing spots that are even accessible by bicycle. For a while, we went almost every week, sometimes even on weekdays after work.

For some reason, this hype also subsided and in 2019, we only went for a few times. I haven’t really been at the climbing gym much since then, either.

This year, I only went twice in total, I think. Of course it is more difficult now during the pandemic. But I’m hoping that I will not stop completely. I might never get back to climbing multiple times a week, but it is still my favorite sport, and I would like to keep doing it.

How about you? What is your favorite sport or type of exercise? Do you have any experience with climbing?

PS: I’m hoping to write longer posts again starting tomorrow or the day after since I’ll have a bit more time.

Taking cold showers is a habit like any other. It’s hard to get started, easy once you get used to it, and often hard to pick up again after you’ve failed. I once took only cold showers for about four months, I think. It was great! I started in the summer when it was super warm, so the start wasn’t a big deal, and I always felt great after taking a nice cold shower. However, at some point I got sick and thought that cold showers probably aren’t beneficial for recovering from sickness, so I stopped.¹ At that point, it was already late fall, and with the colder temperatures outside, I wasn’t able to pick it back up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t start this habit again this summer. Now it’s cold again and I’m thinking of conquering this habit, even though I know it’s going to be so much harder. One way to make it slightly easier is to start the shower hot, but turn it all the way down to end your shower. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, but haven’t attempted the “full” cold shower yet.

So to get this going, I’m going to start right now. After I publish this article, I will take a cold shower immediately. I’m sure it’ll feel great, and I’m going to try to remember that feeling the next time I struggle with it (which is probably tomorrow 😂).

How about you? Are you interested in cold showers or do you think it’s stupid?

I started the week with a post about my Japanese studies. I’m sure there will be updates about this in the future. On Tuesday, I went back to the past and wrote about my abandoned YouTube channel that I started in 2006. On Wednesday, I talked about my plans for my meditation time app Nodoka. On Thursday, I dove back into the hot topic in the Apple world right now, M1 Macs. I promise there won’t be another post about it this month. 🙈 On Friday, I talked about having too much input and being overwhelmed, and yesterday I wrote about the voice inside your head. I hoped that this last post would stir up some discussions, but maybe y’all are to busy right now. 😅

If you have any ideas for topics I can write about that don’t require a ton of time (remember, I’m writing one of these a day), please let me know! Of course I have more things that I’d like to talk about, but all of those are longer posts that I won’t be able to write during these daily blogs.

Not too many recommendations for this week:

• Related to my Too Much Input post, Nathanial Drew posted a video about quitting social media for 30 days.
• For those who watched Tenet, you should watch this Tenet inspired video.
• I randomly stumbled upon this fascinating FPV drone video of the Matternhorn.
• Dumbledore asked calmly
• Peter McKinnon made a really cool video.

Have a nice Sunday, everyone!