Dera's Diary

So, with the new year coming around, I’m starting to see a lot of ‘resolution based’ and advice based content online. You see, personally, I don’t think resolutions are bad. Obviously, thinking that you need a new year to come around to make a resolution is flawed thinking that I definitely fall prey to. The idea that we need a significant change of time to make key decisions and changes can quickly become an obstacle to actually changing when you realise you need to. Having said that, there is something special about a new year. A new academic year or new semester is a clean slate. But a new year is different. It’s like getting a reboot. A whole 365, or 366, days to do better. The thing is, if you’re gonna think like that (which isn’t necessarily a bad way to think), then you need to recognise that progress won’t be linear. I’ve struggled with that a lot. I like feedback. I like to be able to see if I’m getting better or not and how I’m improving. Am I doing better than I was yesterd...

It was weird to see people skateboarding for the first time. It’s not like skateboarding as a concept was something that I was unfamiliar with. But the practice, the use of a skateboard to actually transport yourself from point A to point B was something that I only ever fully observed when I started University in the US. I couldn’t help but smile whenever I saw guys gathered in a little nook practicing their flips and trees. My world of movies was becoming my world period. I found myself saying ‘you’re good’ a lot. Someone hits you accidentally when passing by and they apologise, I say ‘you’re good’. It became both my ‘don’t worry about it’ and my ‘you’re welcome’. No one I know from home uses this phrase in this way, but somehow, once I landed in the US, it became a part of my vocabulary that I called on daily. It was really interesting to see the way people experienced weather. See, I grew up and went to school in a pretty hot country. We complained a lot about it, but the heat...