• ps: will have a separate post about books, music and movies.

1. Something new

• first long multi-day (11 days) hiking with 10kg+ backpack in Italy, Dolomites.

  • details and photos on instagram, best travel experience this year and makes me want to do multi-day hiking every year.

• learn “feel it before thinking”

  • this is one of the biggest change in recent years. As person who loves and trusts logic and knowledge, when i was young, logic is more important and higer than body/feeling and have strong preference about words, all the things which could express in a logical way (which means you could reason and summarize patterns).
  • For example, if i’m interested in running, i will buy several books about running and read it first. If i’m interested in some hiking trails, i will read articles and books about the history behind it first. There is nothing wrong, but a very limited perspective. Hiking and into natures teaches me how to let my body feel it rather than thinking about the history and society first. (Do I really care about the civilization history of Lycian way? A bit, but not that much. I just want to be between moutains and oceans.)

• learn how to ask for help and communicte effectively

  • As written in Being Connected, I asked help from professional therapist. When i feel down in April, I tell my friends that i need their emotional support and company. When I want to hang out with friends but don’t have energy to prepare something, I will directly say to Damon “Could we hang out at your place and you prepare the food, i could bring some meals and drinks?” haha😂

• learn how to construct my life without moving to new city.

  • After 15 yrs old, the longest time i’ve lived in one city is 4 yrs for university, then keeping moving cities every year or every two year. because of citizenship requirement of staying in dublin for 5 yrs, i have the worries and uncomfort. Moving will definitely give you new experience and excitement. After around half a year in Dublin, I feel bored and have the impulse to leave. Then i start to learn how to contrust my life and experience new things without moving.
  1. experience new activities with old friends and tell myself old and familar friends are important even though they are not as interesting as new friends sometimes 😂
  2. learn new interests and make friends based on that. Last year, it’s more about electronic music.
  3. travel abroad every month to get freshed. I could say I had a quite amazing year based in Dublin and don’t afriad to live here for 4 more years with new ways of learning and improving in other ways.

• emotional health and relationship

  • details in Being Connected, spend so much time and energy on this project in the last 2 yrs… (friend: please don’t treat it as a project)

• dinner party

  • start to learn cooking after moving to Dublin and hosted first dinner party with Josh, Diane, Damon in last December.
  • after cooking for a while, it’s a bit easy to cook single meal, then designing a menu, time management of cooking more than 6 meals, sharing food with friends interests me.
  • this year hosted 14 times, guests grow from 3 to 8 people and the nubmer never goes down. 😂 because some become permanent residents and there are always new friends to join us.
  • so much fun and memory from this series, hope could keep doing it next year.

• electronic music

  • didn’t listen to lots of eletronic music before and never been to gig, the first one is March this year and bought a mixer in June, make some new friends and been to around 20 gigs, the most intense period is once a week… now is once a month
  • play music for people twice and uploaded a mix https://soundcloud.com/jarrywan9/be-water
  • didn’t played it for months but such an interesting genre, had fun, maybe will pick up again some day (hope so)

• giving

  • the best review from Hanyang and Diane “Thx Jarry for adopting me in Dublin”. realized now i could give people lots of good stuff, sometimes as a good friend, sometimes as a random person with information people need.
  • when getting older, start to meet younger generation… still not clear about this part, but definitly start to give more than before.

• some random stuff

  1. start to use makeup, nail polish and wear dresses more frequently. become used to feel comfortable to dress like a female… it could be a long paragraph about how to accept my gender but i’m lazy…
  2. know what’s great x feel like. terrific x doesn’t mean everything, okay x doesn’t worth efforts, next one is always better XD
  3. start to do orthodontics since July

2. Something old

• keep traveling: 60 days

  • April: Turkey - Izmir, Dalaman, Antalya, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Midyat (14 days)
  • July: UK - London (4 days)
  • August: UK - London, Portmouth (3 days); Spain - Barcelona (6 days)
  • September: Italy - Milan, Venice, Bressanone, Feltre, Dolomites Alta Via 2 (16 days)
  • October: Spain - Madrid (3 days)
  • November: UK - Cambridge, Manchester, Lake District (4 days)
  • December: Portugal - Lisbon (6 days), Faro (2 days); France - Paris (4 days)

• don’t have any goals about traveling because it just takes time. it’s a habit not a goal. but still have some plans and find something new this year

  1. realized i need to stay for a city/ region for at least 4+ days, otherwise didn’t get the sense of being there, or just being there physically. that’s my feelings about Milan & Madrid trip.
  2. lots of travel time is spent with friends, especially city trips, have unforgettable memories with old friends, will keep doing that
  3. start to make friends during traveling. in the last 10 yrs of traveling, it’s very rare for me to make friends, exchange contact numbers, keep touch after separating. even though staying in hostel, just stay away from people. this year, i make several friends which we could meet again if we have chance in the same city, or at least exchange social media to keep updated. i think the reason is that i could make connections with people now even though it’s weak connection.

• physical health

  • This year i’ve exercised for 190~ days compared to 175~ last year.
  • have really good sleep quality, almost no dreams
  • don’t have big difference about the frequency, but still have some changes
    1. start to do more weight exercise and target to specific muscles. because i did more workout like yoga, running, hiking etc before, i have very strong leg muscles while the upper body is quite weak. start to use resistence bands, go bloudering to exercise muscles of butt, back and chest. not very impressive progress, but will keep doing this year.
    2. hiking a lot. i start to do hiking in 2018 living in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. and i didn’t hike that much. in 2020, hiked 17 times with around 204 km. in 2021, hiked 10 times with 81 km, 3529m. this year, hiked 21 times with 315 km, 15997m.
    3. already know next year will do lots of cycling, hope won’t have any accidents 🤞🏼
  • thx for having a good health to do so many things in 1 yr 😂

• friends

  • after leaving china for around 3 yrs, currently, my friend circle is like that
    • close friends in Dublin, normally hang out every 2 weeks
    • close friends not in Dublin which still talk every 2-3 months
    • old friends which don’t talk but could meet if we are in the same city
    • new friends in Dublin, hang out if there are some activites
    • new acquaintances around the world…
  • i have similar opinons abuot friendship and romantic relationship, at least people need to respect mutally, could have good time together, try to understand and support each other.
  • no matter how long we separated, you could still feel understood, seen and supported by some friends. will finally meet some friends in China in 2023!

• some random stuff

  1. still organize an event to let some presenters sharing experience and information about migrating and working in ireland
  2. spend some time on consultion of cv, mock interviews etc

3. Something borrowed

• thx a million to my dear younger brother - Tiantian. one night in December, he texted me he and dad were in hospital emergency room because dad felt uncomfortable about this heart and turns out he has blood vessel blockage. Tiantian signed the documents for operations while my mom was in another city.

4. Something blue

• can’t remember anything could put in this part. only break my heart in April but already moved on the whole things.
• it doesn’t mean there is nothing difficult happened the whole year, but my mental resilience has been improved, also with safety net based on friends' emotional support, healthy physical body and stable life state. so didn’t fall into any mental breakdown and emotional abyss.
• in general, have a good mental health this year and smiled a lot. Donglai said “Your face don’t have the misery of East Asians now” one night, walking back from a dance party or dinner at friends', met one passenger on the street, asked me “why you’re so happy"😂

5. a silver sixpence

• last year, in this seesion, i wish i could hang out with people less and give more time to myself. from records, last year there are 130+ days hanging out with people compared to 180+ days this year.

  • There are several reasons 1. i’ve traveled for 60 days these years compared to 10 days last year. 2. i start to do sports with friends and dance with friends, I do hang out with people a lot but it also contributes to my interest about hiking, bloudering and eletronic music.

• my ideal state now is: people will feel relaxed and happy with me (realized could make people feel relaxed is a rare and precious character), and my complexity and depth based on the experience, knowledge and mindset. just chill is so boring. think i already achieve this state in some degrees : )

  • quote from this article:

    a psychologically rich life is one with “interesting experiences in which novelty and/or complexity are accompanied by profound changes in perspective.””

• when i was early 20s, i’m afriad of being 30s because seeing lots of 30s people trapped in their boring life and keep unchanged for so many years. I’m so close to 30s now, i don’t fear it at all. The age doesn’t limit myself to make changes and have new improvements and adventure. i’m so proud of myself about this year and see u next year : )