Week 9 Reflections on the May Diary Challenge

This is week 9 after being laid off.

Wow, it's already June. And that means I've completed the May Diary Challenge for 2025. For those of you who might be new, this challenge involves posting an Instagram story with a super short diary format every day in May. And this is my third year doing this challenge. This means I have data to reflect upon and decided to go through the stuff I've posted in May 2024 versus May 2025. It's fascinating to see how these small glimpses into daily life compare.

Let's start with a look back at last year. The broader topic for my May 2024 challenge was language learning. I was studying Japanese, which is still the language that I'm studying right now. Despite the layoff and the changes around, the commitment to language learning remains a constant. Last year, I watched My Happy Marriage (我的幸福婚約). It turns out that I'm still watching it this year. With the second season out, I decided to rewatch the first as well.

Also last year, around this time, I started running while watching Run With The Wind (強風吹拂), since my cardio training class came to a halt as the trainer shifted priorities to start his own business. And now after a year, I'm watching YouTube videos and restarting my exercise routine since my annual health checkup report suggests I need to get back to regular exercise.

And lastly, last year was when I started building my side project, Bleh!. A platform for English speaking. My goal this year was to release it during May, but unexpected freelancing projects have put it on hold for a bit.

So I'd like to talk about the benefits for this challenge. Engaging in a daily reflection through stories, Instagram stories, allowed me to capture the evolution of my journeys and recognizing the patterns in my life. To be honest, after the layoff, the only significant change is that I don't talk about work anymore. The rest of the things I'm doing now, I was doing a version of them last year.

And I'd encourage you to also try this challenge out for a month each year. I decided to do it only for the month of May to make it feel more like a special event of the year, and hence, more valuable that I wanted to talk more about it right now.

So that's it for my May Diary Challenge Reflections, and this is me, week 9 after the layoff, signing off.