The Mouvement
December 21, 2023
Welcome! If you’re here from Art of Problem Solving (AoPS), you’ve come to the right place for my posts! If you’re not, I originally had my blog on AoPS, but have migrated here because I wanted to try branching out to my own website. This isn’t technically my own site (as in my own domain), but this site feels a lot more customized than on the AoPS interface. I still have a few things I would like to work on:
- This might be picky of me, but the muffin logo on the index page… it is not as centered as I would like it to be. I don’t know why it won’t move up, but honestly, the muffin is probably the least urgent of what I want to work on. It would be nicer if it was bigger and moved up a bit.
- The subscribe form is currently an embedded Google form, but I would like to have a subscribe form built into the site.
- Interactives! I really want to code games and other bits into the site just so things are a bit more interesting. Maybe like a randomized Mad Libs, etc.
plus more things as they come up.
On the topic of what I’ll probably be learning in 2024, I learned a lot this year and a lot has changed. Namely, apparently I’m not as much of an introvert that I used to be? I used to get 97% or higher percentages on the introverted end unironically, but now I’m a bit more even. I definitely do enjoy being around people a lot more than I used to and feel more fulfilled from talking to people. I still kinda self-deprecate myself over the smallest of interactions or the smallest of anything, which I’m still working on not doing as much.
On a related note, I’ve also learned that no one is obligated to do anything for you, nor are you obligated to do anything for anyone. I find that the former is much more important to realize than the latter, because it made me a lot less dependent on external validation. I used to overthink over a lot more interactions just because someone didn’t react in the exact way I expected them to. And apparently–somehow I only just realized this–people didn’t react at all to what I was saying because I simply don’t speak loudly or enunciate my words clearly enough. I can hear myself just fine, but obviously, the outsider perspective is very different. I’ve been told by a lot of people that I have a softer, whispery voice, which used to not be true. So perhaps I shall tune into a loudspeaker. The latter (that I’m not obligated to do anything for others) is important too, but I didn’t find the need to exercise that belief very much.
I also have been more accepting of letting go of whatever is out of my control. There have been so many instances in which something didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to, but later, it was good that the particular event didn’t work out. If it had worked out, in the long term, it would’ve fallen apart because it was 1. Not the right timing, as in I wasn’t prepared for it and 2. It’s not the last time I get that opportunity anyway, so why be upset. I should actually be comforted about how life works out even if it doesn’t align with the plan that I have. After all, life would be super boring if I knew the entire plot.
So for 2024, we’ll all have a mind map of what we want to do! But let us not be too surprised if we stray off our path, for that was meant to happen. Whatever is meant for you will come to you. Isn’t the thought of that comforting?
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
That is all, consider subscribing or