Year of the Snake: can’t complain. The year of me breaking not one, but two bones. My right humerus, catastrophically (see earlier post), my fight metatarsal (pinky toe), minorly. The humerus is healing well, the metatarsal ended up being a non-union, because I kept walking on my foot and doing stuff (there was so much stuff to do!) — which brings us to our number one new years resolution:

1. No breaking bones in 2026.

Lots of great things happened this year, apart from the useful experience of breaking bones. I became gradually much more comfortable in China. My school finally started paying me what they said they would. I figured out the incredibly convoluted system of reimbursements (no country is more bureaucratic than China). Some highlights: I took an incredible trip to Indonesia where I saw everything from the sinking city of Jakarta, the massive plastic dump of Bantar Gebang, and motorcycled from Labuan Bajo to Yogyakarta, where I was ultimately too injured (infected knee scrape) to see Borobudor and Prambanam—but that’s ok because it’s an excellent excuse to return, and Indonesia is a wonderful country (see earlier posts). I learned to scuba dive in Bali with my friend Autumn, which was so much fun and a remarkable challenge: there’s some serious psychological hurtles to getting over the feeling of claustrophobia when you are 15 meters below your element. I then went on to the Philippines where I got my advanced scuba training, broken foot and all, in Coron while wreck diving among a selection of their 10ish WW2 wrecks. I must return to the Philippines for more diving, food, and San Miguel. I ended this year with my Dad in Aliso Viejo dissecting his old scuba gear so I can Frankenstein together my own scuba kit for future travel in Asia (I am so excited about this). Whcih brings us to our second new years resolution:

2. Lots more scuba diving in 2026. Okinawa seems like a good bet.

Other good things.. my buddy Patrick Ford got married. Stephanie Burt zoomed in to CUHK-SZ to talk with my CUHK-Szwifties. I went to conferences in Kathmandu (Plant Humanities), Connecticut (Melville) where I slept on a boat, and UCSB (ISSRNC) where I climbed their iconic clock tower. I got to attend my 15-year Vassar Reunion (the brick—and the entire tree—are gone!), and see my nieces in New York. I visited Crystal Bridges in Arkansas with the worlds cutest date and made my first trip to Japan (Sapporo and Hakodate) where I was stranded briefly due to an earthquake/tsunami shutdown. I limped around Taiwan and got a gold card (if I should want to live and work in Taiwan, I can). I visited Macau for Lusophonia Fest, and Hong Kong again and again (most notably to dress up as Protest Frogs for Halloween). I met dozens of deadlines and applications and on and on.

3. Keep traveling as much as possible. More Vietnam. Japan. Chiang Mai.

And of course my little tower in Muse College has been a lot of fun. We had dog (狗狗) day and high table and tutor training events (on a yacht) and thanksgiving and christmas caroling and it was all quite a bit of fun. Which brings me to:

4. Keep making my job at CUHK-SZ easier, despite the many forces working against that.

5. More writing / publishing (only one thing published last year). I aim for two by March.

6. Figure out a way to exercise that isn’t awful.

Happy new year!