The yearly reflection: 2014-style!

While the end of 2014 isn't quite what I'd hoped for, the year itself has been quite a doozy! On a large scale, this year had a few themes, from police brutality to large-scale hack attacks. In my smaller realm, there was a little traveling, more investing, and a ton of gaming.

The summer weather report in Japan

TRAVEL: Spring Break 2014 was off the hook! I went to Italy and took a surprise venture to Munich, Germany.

 On the Japan side of things, I survived the summer without completely dying, thanks to my schedule of taking a shower at work before the day started. Classes have been excellent: ONLY teenage girl students, who are easily impressed and generally enjoy taking my lessons. I watched Death Note, a hugely popular anime,
Attack on Titan (進撃の巨人), and some of Bleach. I also took levels 2 and 3 of the
Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

During the summer, I traveled to the East Coast to see my friend Will, my mother and 4 cities! You could pretty much call that trip a scout mission because now I know I want to spend more time in NYC, DC, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

INVESTMENT: I got rocked by last overconfidence in 3D stocks. Last year, my initial investments almost doubled, and this year they...well...fell back to earth, and into Hell. Other investments, however, like GoPro, Apple and real estate have put me way ahead of the game, so it's all good. Also, this year my spending habits have become that much tighter, so I have that going for me.

BT...probably doesn't have any problem getting ladies.

The beginning of this video will make you jump, apologies ahead, but the track is sick. Korean singer Bada does the lyrics.

MUSIC: (trance DJ) BT's 2014 album Song Across Wires came out, and now I'm hot on Armin van Buren, another trance DJ. I also discovered Hall and Oates (30 years isn't too late, stop hatin'), which works perfectly for karaoke!

GAMES: For single-player experiences, Okami was probably the best quest I did this year. In terms of multiplayer madness, Mario Kart 8 with my dearest buddies in Seattle and in Japan; Titanfall, Destiny and Halo with my buddy Zack. One Destiny moment was joining a raid - a large mission with a team of 6 - with a bunch of teenagers and exchanging antics. Zack and I probably have 15 years on these kids...we still laughed at the same shit.

Lastly, this year has been very productive for my website, Grammar Pimps which is designed for ESL teachers in mind. It's been especially fun creating the site through Wordpress.