Mid-Year Notes 2025

Every year, I wait eagerly to write this post. It gives me the opportunity to look at my life as a bigger picture instead of living day-by-day while also being less pressurising because I don't have to have done a lot, the year is not over yet.

Mid-year notes initially started as a post about hobbies. My past mid-year notes included life stuff a bit but mainly focused on hobbies. This year, I'll still talk about hobbies, but I have a bunch of other things to write about as well. After all, this post chronicles a moment of my youth and I'll probably love reading it 10 years later.

We all know that I'm wordy, so grab your favourite drink and settle down on your couch or comfy chair. We have quite a bit to talk about.

reading

Oh, how my reading has reduced. In 2024, I made a big deal about reducing my reading goal to 100 and not worrying about it. Sure, I read lesser than I had in several years, but I still crossed 100 books with enough time remaining. By 2024 mid-year, I was done with 75 books.

This year, I'm right on track at 50 books read. I was actually behind for a few days but I ended up reading over the weekend and getting back on track. Will I stay on track? Will I get ahead? I don't know. To be fair, 50 books isn't a low number. It's not like I can't call myself a reader anymore if I don't read 100 books this year. I know that I'm focusing on other things instead of reading.

And that's why, I'm okay if I don't make my goal of 100 books this year. I hosted a "mid-year review and planning" session with my friends on Discord the other day and used a few prompts for it. One was to choose only 3 goals as priority to work on for the rest of the year and don't worry about the rest. My reading goal ended up being one of the latter.

I know that I'm still reading and I'm being more picky about what I read. It's a good thing. Since I'm not on social media and I don't get bombarded with books all the time on blogs, I'm able to control my TBR and not fall for hype. My reading is going fairly well.

I wouldn't say that I've loved reading all or most of the books but I'm not unhappy with them. There are bound to be bad reads, it comes with trying new books and going out of comfort zones. There have been quite a few thoughtful books too which I can't clearly label in terms of enjoyment.

My StoryGraph stats say that most of my reading has been romance but it actually doesn't feel like that anymore. It's just that the rest of my reads are so spread out in genres and I tend to reread romance books when I'm not feeling great. I'm actually lowkey avoiding romance as of late because other genres seem more intriguing.

My best books this year so far would probably be...

Yes, I have only 3. I picked only the books that I couldn't stop thinking and talking about for a good while. Even though I read As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow a few months ago, I loved it so much that I keep recommending it to people. I'm currently pestering a friend to read Ann Liang's books, especially A Song to Drown Rivers. The Unmaking of June Farrow blew my mind away and I'm reading other books by the author, hoping one of them will be that good.

There are a few other books that stand out, though. Tuesdays with Morrie is a classic. The Sword of Kaigen was great, falling juust a bit short from the above reads. Bright Young Women and Deep Work would have been on the above list if the writing and execution were better.

Out of the 50 books, 35 were ebooks, 10 were paperbacks, and 5 were audiobooks. Ebooks dominated, as usual. I read a lot of paperbacks in the beginning of the year but it petered down after moving cities, for some reason. I should get back to reading what's on my bookshelf.

4 were non-fiction books which is nice to see. I wasn't aiming to read a certain number and honestly didn't even think about it. I'm glad that I'm including non-fiction regularly anyway. I've come a long way from the girl who stayed far away from the genre.

I'm getting back into reading series with baby steps. I finished The Inheritance Games (only the main trilogy) which I started last year. I reread Fourth Wing's first 2 books before reading the newly released 3rd book. I read The Golden Raven (The Foxhole Court book 5) as soon as I found that it was out. I read the Fable duology by Adrienne Young, will be reading the spin-off too. I read the new Vera Wong book 2 and am excited for book 3.

Speaking of Adrienne Young, my quest to read authors' backlists is going well! I finished all of Ann Liang's books before the newest one came out. I want to read it as well but it isn't available in my country yet, waiting to pounce on it when it is. I'm making my way through Adrienne Young's books too, finished 4 of them so far. I didn't realize the author had so many books before I started so we'll see how far I get.

My friends and I have been doing buddy reads and readathons. Instead of participating in things online and having to post, we've kept these lowkey and only among ourselves. Somehow, it's more special because of that. We've buddy read 3 books so far. We pooled in with 3 prompts each to make 12 which all of us are trying to complete this year. (I'm ahead!) There's another 52-prompt readathon that 2 friends are maintaining on an excel sheet which I think I'll join now, apparently I've managed to hit many in that list already, I checked out of curiosity recently 😂 It's been fun to read with friends.

the artist's way

3/6 months were spent doing The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron! It's a 12-week course that guides you to get over the fears holding you back from art and shows the path to living an artistic life. My friends and I decided on a "hack" to make it easier and doable, giving ourselves 2 weeks for every week of the course. Hence, the 3 month journey became 6 months. We're halfway done!

I won't speak more about this because I just wrote a whole post on my experience with The Artist's Way weeks 1-4. Check it out for all the details.

In short: it's been nice. I finished 2+ notebooks with my journalling this year, majorly due to the morning pages. I'm looking forward to doing the remaining weeks.

blogging

My goal is to publish 50 posts this year and I'm right on track with 25 done (when June ended). I had followed the same posting schedule last year and exactly finished 50 posts so I know that as long as I keep going in this pace, I'll be able to do reach my goal.

I won't like, I'm quite proud that I'm still consistently blogging. I hope I'm not jinxing myself when I say this. It's been a year and a half since I got over my major blogging slump and I'm still here. There were a few ups and downs but I got through. Somehow, the lowkey planning + flexible content + not being too structured while having some structure to the posts works.

There are more "personal" posts than usual this year. I don't plan on baring my entire life out on the internet where anyone can read it so it's not like I'm writing my deepest thoughts here. However, the posts that I tag as "personal" are any that don't fit into any one of the other buckets or are majorly about my experience. My wrap-ups are personal, of course, so there's one personal post every month.

I'm writing a lot about my experience with specific things nowadays. It started last year with A Year With An Apple Watch (someone emailed me saying they would never have imagined that they're compliment a book reviewer for a detailed and impressive review of the apple watch 😂) and A Year of Being Active.

In 2025, I've written a bunch more. My favourites are 9 Things I Learnt On My First Job, How I Journal, and 10 Years of Reading. I quite enjoy writing about my experiences and opinions on specific topics, makes it personal but not too personal, you know? I still have to tag them as "personal" posts because they don't really go in any specific category.

My posts are getting longer too. The longest post currently is one of my Margins of the Week posts. I've written about 80k words on the blog so far this year. I expect to write another 80k in the second half, if all goes well 🤪 It's become a lowkey ritual to embark on a new post with excitement and 2 days later complain that "it's not ending" but I'm the one not ending it because I have so much more to say.

Most posts are mini-projects on their own. I'm becoming a writing beast in the evenings after work. The words seem to flow much easier nowadays. It's become much easier to get into the "blogging zone" too. I play one of my saved lofi videos on YouTube and I'm good to go. Often, I write 1k words without realizing the time or count. Recently, I meant to write for only 15 minutes but looked up only after 45 minutes.

All the writing is helping me write even more. Writing is a skill and it gets better the more you do it. It feels like I'm really working my writing muscles this year. My usual limit is still 1-2k words, that's how much I can write in a day without having to push myself, but I'm able to do it on consecutive days now while I needed more breaks earlier. Sometimes, I write 4k words in a day (in the weekend).

My stats are reducing but that's nothing new. There was a jump in January as expected with 13.5 views. February had a dip with 7.8k views. March-May were fairly consistent around 11k views. June had lesser with 10k views. I'm honestly surprised whenever the stats are up and try to find out what caused it. One time, it was a colleague who had found my blog and scrolled through my archive to see how many posts I had, making up a bunch of views 😂

The number of comments has reduced too. Even when I procrastinate on responding to comments for several weeks, I'm able to finish responding fairly quickly. In an hour or so. Most of the comments are from friends. The blogging community is still fairly active (I see it in a few other blogs' comment sections) but my content isn't totally bookish which doesn't work among the book blogging circles. I'm not making a huge effort to socialise either, I'm barely able to keep up with reading blog posts on the blogs I follow.

newsletter

After seeing a lot of talk about it for months, I decided to try out Substack this year. I wrote a long post on my newsletter journey so far and migrated my subscribers to Substack. I wanted to try something new after doing the same thing and using the same platform for years.

Initially, Substack was fun. It felt like there was a lot of positivity on the platform. I saw many thoughtful essays and the amount of posts on the platform was motivating. It kinda felt like the old blogging days. I even downloaded the app on my phone. My initial emails from the platform weren't smooth but it's all a part of the process. I was motivated to make the best of the platform.

However, the golden period didn't last long. I soon started disliking Substack. Notes was social media all over again and I wasn't able to find articles anymore, let alone good ones. Some of the content felt too similar that I wondered whether people are really thinking the same things but I'm pretty sure it was the algorithm. Unfortunately, half the content felt pretentious too, trying to be "intellectual" and thoughtful but simply sharing the information without much curation. Some gave the air of being "new" and "right" but were perpetuating the same things we've been talking about for years on other platforms.

Is it the sudden increase in people on Substack that caused it to become a mess like any other platform? Was it not ready to handle so much content? Or is it simply a new name and UI for the same thing? There are probably a bunch of articles on "the downfall of Substack" on Substack (ironic) but I'm not around to read them.

I still keep up with the Substacks I follow but I'm not spending time more time on the website/app than necessary. I'm not looking at or posting on Notes. I'm not subscribing to any more Substacks either. I should change the settings so that I receive emails again (it switched me to app notifications when I installed the app) but I'm procrastinating.

My friend who always loves my newsletters has told a couple of times that she preferred my older newsletters (when I was on Kit) and I'm also not liking how my newsletters look. In fact, my newsletters don't look/feel like how I want them to. The lack of visual control in Substack is annoying. I dislike how unfriendly it is to email-only subscribers. The vibe just isn't the same. It's not like a personal email from me anymore, it feels like a post. I have my blog for regular posts anyway, what does Substack give me? I've lost more subscribers than I've gained anyway.

I'm considering moving back to Kit from Substack. It will be hard and I'll lose subscribers on the way but it looks like the best move forward, despite moving "back". I'm disappointed that I spent a lot of effort to dismantle all connections with Kit—opening my resource library, removing Kit's subscription links from my posts, etc.—only to dislike Substack so quickly.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, let me know what you think! Have you been seeing/reading my newsletters lately? Did they get through the email filters? Do you like how they look now vs last year? Do tell me in the comments, it'll make my decision-making easier!

new job, new(?!) city

The biggest change has been the job and city switch. It changes everything, including who I am and what I do. Even the smallest things, like the fact that I used to be a die-hard morning shower person but I shower at night now.

I've already spoken about my last days at my previous job, starting the new job and house-hunting and the move in my monthly wrap-ups so I won't rehash that. There is quite a lot to be said about the overall, though. Specifically, how it's changed me and my perception of myself.

It's been 3 months of living in this city so far and it feels like a new world but also not. I'm fairly familiar with the other side of the city because I've visited my relatives here a bunch when I was younger. However, where I am staying and working now feels like a totally different place from the city I know. The names, the areas, the roads, and the social life are all different. To be fair, I've not visited in the 10 years before I moved so changes are to be expected. I never came this side, though.

I was expecting to speak the local language more but I'm not. I'm actually familiar with the language. I can understand it well and can speak with difficulty and delay. I thought that my grasp on the language would improve by staying here and was kinda looking forward to it.

Well, it's not happening. Everyone at office speaks Hindi because 90% of the employees are from North India. Since I can speak Hindi well, I fit in with them too. For the last few years my Hindi wasn't smooth because I was mostly around Kannadigas and my Kannada became better. Now, my Hindi is improving instead of the local language 🙃

My grasp on the local language is improving very very slowly, mostly through speaking to auto drivers. For the initial 2 months here, I kept mixing up all the languages I know while trying to frame sentences. It's getting easier, though. Recently I was able to say a sentence (albeit easy one) without struggling or mixing things up and my mom was surprised.

Another surprising fact: I miss hearing Kannada. A lot of people in my old company spoke Kannada and it's prominent enough in Bengaluru that even with friends from across the country, I heard/spoke Kannada every day. I did not expect to miss the language here. It's not even what I speak at home. I guess I didn't realize how much it was a part of my vocabulary since I'd been there all my life.

There's a specific Bengaluru English which gives away any person as a Bangalorean. The slang kind of butchers the English language but it's also more on-point than traditional English many times. My spoken English is mostly with the Bengaluru slang unless I'm in super professional settings where I'm conscious about what I say. Here, people don't speak that English so I am more careful about what I say as well.

Speaking regular English all day (when I speak English, of course, most of my conversation is in Hindi) and texting Bangalorean English with my friends at the end of the day is a disconnect that I didn't expect. The Bangalorean English feels more pronounced after moving here while it used to be normal for me. It comes naturally to me but when I text after I talk to someone in regular English, I feel the difference.

The other day, I was talking with my high school friends and the conversation was totally in Bangalorean English, peppered with "simply", "still", "one", "off", "only", "even" etc. It's how we normally talk but I felt... way more comfortable and spoke faster. The comfort level from my day-to-day English now was different enough to be felt.

To be fair, I write often enough online to be comfortable with regular English. My writing has the Bengaluru slang quite a bit, despite carefully writing and immediately editing sentences to make them be regular English, but most of it is normal. Thinking about that made me realize how much I think before I write. Because if I didn't, my brain whatever is there only I'd write, simply editing and all full time waste, I can chumma finish in one hour and go off 🙂 One day, I should write a post in complete Bengaluru slang. It'll be hard to write it because I'll have to unlearn all the polishing I do in my mind but would be fun for y'all.

In the meantime, please enjoy these Bangalore slang memes/videos that I my friends sent me recently: very identifying Bengaluru sentence, corporate girlie reel, ZNMD movie scene in Bangalore English (last one is my FAV 🤣)

Until May, I was badly missing my home and my friends. Things turned around in June. Sure, I was actively trying to settle down and become familiar with things but I'm still surprised that it happened. Recently, I was on my way somewhere alone and realized that I was walking confidently. That's a small thing but means so much. When you're new to a place, everything needs more thinking and figuring out. I have figured out a lot by now.

I know where to go for a run. I know a good cafe and a good bookstore. I know where and with whom to play badminton. I know which signals near me take long and which routes are better. I know how long it'll take to get an auto or cab if I want to go anywhere. I've driven my scooty around a few times and don't feel super apprehensive about driving here anymore. I know how people dress here in different areas—where people dress posh and where casual goes with everything.

The new home is fairly settled. I have a place for most things. I know which areas of my house get sunlight the most. I know which room to stay in at different hours. I know the switches for everything. I bought a TV and it's become a regular thing to watch TV a few times a week. I've set up cozy lighting in every room so that I don't get headaches. I know when things get noisy in my area and when it'll be quiet enough for focus time.

I still miss my old life and routines but I'm more settled here. I don't have the urge to get up and run away to my old home anymore. I still want to visit but I'm okay with it being a month or a few months away. I've not made friends to hang out with over the weekends yet but it'll happen. Meanwhile, I'll check out places on my own or with mom.

lowkey goal: emails every quarter

Going into 2025, I knew that I'd be moving away from my friends. Since I wouldn't be able to meet friends in person almost every weekend like I used to, I had to come up with ways to have long chats with my closest friends. I came up with a lowkey goal to write emails to a few friends every quarter.

Why emails? Although I'm still texting and talking to friends often, there isn't much scope for drawn-out thoughts or rants in them. I'm used to texting essays only with my best friend but the topics keep jumping around with others. Not everyone's free long enough to have big conversations at once. Text messages are a great invention but they aren't designed for long conversations.

I used to write emails to one friend when I was in high school. In college, I wrote big emails to my best friend whenever there was a lot on my mind. The practice fell away in the past 5 or so years but I remember how nice it feels to write long emails. It's also easier to write long emails than write long letters, I'm a faster typer than writer. Emails have the right balance of expectation as well. They deliver instantly but one doesn't expect an immediate response like text messages. Making the goal for emails felt like the right option considering all of that.

The quarterly cadence is a good enough duration to not make email-writing seem like a chore while also being often enough. I didn't settle on the people or the number of people I'd email, instead deciding it on the go. So I could email a few people this quarter and email others the next time. This way, there's scope to keep in touch with multiple friends without pushing myself to write a dozen emails every quarter.

Small caveat to the goal: letters count if I'm able to write them! Emails have a certain charm and handwritten letters have a certain charm. Both facilitate long conversations, though. Emails are definitely easier, that's why my main goal is on them. However, if I'm able to write letters and give them to friends, that counts too.

I'm more comfortable writing to friends with whom I've exchanged emails or letters before, or friends who I know will appreciate it. It'll take a bit of pushing myself to write emails to other friends who don't necessarily seem like they like emails. I actually haven't written to anyone from the latter group so far, sticking to my close friends.

My first letter was to a dear friend from my previous job who actually wrote a letter to me first! I was so surprised and touched by her letter, I shed a few tears too. After writing back to her in February, I didn't write to anyone until late March when the quarter was coming to a close. I spent a couple of weeks writing many emails to my closest friends—6 people in total. So, I wrote to 7 people in the first quarter!

In the second quarter of the year, I wrote one birthday letter to a close friend. I wrote emails to mostly the same group of friends. This quarter was easier because a lot of friends responded to my emails with long and heartfelt words of their own. I am really glad that every person whom I sent emails to appreciated it (I didn't tell them beforehand). So I wrote replies throughout the quarter, whenever I had time. Although I wrote to 7 people in total, the number of emails is much more.

I hope I'm able to keep it up in the coming months too. I also have a few people in mind to whom I haven't written anything yet. It may feel like I don't have much to say but when I sit down to write, I end up writing really long emails. I'm surprised by how much I say and I'm pleasantly surprised by the length of the emails I receive.

This is my favourite thing this year, hands down. I'm so glad that I made this goal and that I'm doing it. It's a "lowkey" goal but it's so rewarding. I love the deeper connection I'm having with my friends I can see myself continuing even after the year ends.

If you're looking for a way to be well in touch with friends, reconnect with old friends, or get closer to new ones, I highly recommend writing emails!

travel

Not much to update on this front, mostly because I've been occupied with the move and new job. A couple of friends groups went on really cool trips that I had to decline, it was the right choice but I'm still a bit sad that I didn't go 🥲

I travelled only twice this year. One was a quick weekend trip in January to attend a friend's engagement ceremony. Another was in May, almost a week long, for a wedding (I spoke about the wedding trip in detail here.)

I have a few more weddings to attend in the second half of the year so there isn't much scope for travel. Going to Bangalore is also considered travelling now because I've fully moved. There's one vacation trip planned in a few months that I'm SUPER excited about. I'll tell you all about it after it happens!

physical activity

Wrapping things up in Bangalore and moving took up most of my time and energy in the first few months. I've gotten used to regularly being physically active in the past couple of years so not having any exercise or play for a few months was sad. I couldn't wait to get back to it.

I first thing I tried out in the new city was Pickleball through the office. There are pickleball games every day that a certain number of people can sign up for. I played a few times but it didn't feel very.. welcoming. Apparently the pickleball players from work are very competitive in the game. So I stopped going.

There's a badminton group as well so I joined that. It's going much better than pickleball! I've signed up for weekend games quite a few times and had fun playing. There's about 10-15 minutes of uncertainty in the beginning on most days because I have to get the courage to approach people I don't know who are a part of that day's players. Once I do, it's fine because everyone's friendly and welcoming. It helps that I know the game and play well enough, so I don't feel like a burden to my teammates 😅

My teammates were going for a Zumba class one day, the classes happen in the evenings at the office, so I went along and enjoyed it. I had to take a break after the first class because dancing barefoot gave me big blood blisters. I was more prepared after that and enjoy going. Dancing is fun. I also like freestyle jumping when the chance comes, haha. It is playful and fun while being a gruelling workout.

For a while, the badminton and Zumba timings weren't working out for me so I started working out at home. I've tried doing yoga or other exercises at home before—mainly during the pandemic—but they never stuck. Probably because of the length of the workouts. I found quick workouts on Pinterest this time which can be done in 20 minutes and aren't too elaborate, so the routine feels more friendly even on my low-motivation days. I don't workout at home all the time though, I prefer doing something outdoor or playful.

After months of wanting to go for runs, I finally did at the end of June! It turns out the park near me is huge and welcomes walkers and runners. I went only for a few runs before it started raining but it felt great. There's nothing else like the head-empty-no-thoughts feeling while running. I'm not at my old best 5km time (from a whole year ago) but it's fine, I'm sure I can work up to it again slowly.

The only problem with the running is that I have to wake up at 5:30 am in order to run before it gets too hot and make it to the office in time. It's worth it, though. I'll have to get used to it. I hope I'm able to run more in the coming months.

I want to keep being active, preferably with a mix of activities so that it doesn't become boring. I don't like the idea of gyms so I don't go for that, even though there's a gym at the office. I want to keep it fun because that's the easiest way to not drop it. On a side note, I want to try push ups as well. So far my attempts have been pretty pathetic but I'll keep trying, that's the only way to get better.

In short, not much physical activity for a few months but I'm picking it up again.

what about you?

How has your 2025 been so far? Do you have any goals—big or small? How are they going? What are you looking forward to in the coming months?