2024 It's Been A While
Hopefully I post some more, but again, I hadn’t posted for a while. I suppose my last 2021 post was around the time I started my new job at Quimbee. Things gotten really busy shortly after. I’ve done quite a lot of projects career and development wise as a developer from 2021-2023. That ship has sailed now since July right before my birthday, but I shall speak on that another time. It hit me more now that I’m back home with bills to pay, family to help out, and future promises to fulfill.
I also no longer engage much in the parkour scene now in 2024. Somewhere between 2021 and 2022, I started to shift away. 2023 was also when my heart and mind went fully in on Muay Thai and 2024 I’ve done a lot and got a lot off my bucket list. I traveled quite a bit since then and now and I will say, a lot has happened. Things are slower now as I got bills to pay. I’m trying to start a new chapter in my life with gig works and am attempting to freelance in this current economy, and I am also trying to expand my network. I found networking to be the most useful. Build network of people wherever you meet in all your endeavors. They can be the ones to help you out and lift you up in times of need. It expands your pathways so you aren’t stuck.
To start things off, 2023 wasn’t the best year for me. The nice part was my torn shoulder was healed up after PT, but the downside was I lost my sense of belonging in parkour and chase tag which was a big sense of my identity. I started focusing more on Muay Thai at that time as well which I’ve been doing for some time on and off. I started keeping a journal for that since I’ve kept one during my parkour days, but more detailed for Muay Thai as I’m going to go to the WTBA camp that year. I disconnected myself from Chase Tag (as a player) for good. At the time I was playing one last scrimmage in Pennsylvania and my shoulder failed me once more, but I’ve met someone who helped me see the bigger picture of what I truly wanted to do during my trip so there was some nice moments. I still sometimes involve myself to help a friend who believes in me, but I do so from the analytic side. At that time, I fully committed to Muay Thai since the WTBA camp. I flew to London the week after, learned a lot at The Knowlesy Academy and promised myself to return. I met some UK legends and attended some great seminars and then I was back home. Things slowed down a lot and some things went a bit downhill around there (a few personal family troubles). I had one last seminar to attend when I was back which was nice.
2024 started off quite harshly as December 2023 was bad from some personal family issues and losing touch of someone who helped me realize what I wanted to do, but I later realized they were only in my life for that brief moment to push me to somewhere more. I also had to deal with a mistaken identity case so a lot of things piling up at once. Therapy helped a lot during the time. I have promises to fulfill and bucket lists to check off anyways so back to London I went at the end of April. I still get my job done in any case as I always deliver my deliverables work wise.
Muay Thai been my biggest focus as I landed. I was lucky enough to catch the first of the Amazing Muay Thai festivals in Reading, UK and got to meet Superbon, Nong-O, and Phetjeeja, enjoyed some seminars, got some merch, and enjoyed awesome Thai food. I was back to the Knowlesy Academy as I promised myself. I met some old faces in London and am back to the people I consider as my second family. I learned a lot, had my first Interclub fight, visited Damien Trainor seminar in Birmingham and Jonathan Haggerty’s seminar in Clapham to check off the big 3 of the UK scene for Muay Thai on my bucket list. I jogged around the city, saw some horses, cooked nice food, and still worked and got a lot of deliverables done. Right on my birth week, I lost my job, but I was surrounded by people that cared about me so I feel blessed. I had my second interclub, it was great. Then it was my last week at TKA. I promise I’ll be back again. I need to go to Thailand some day too since this feels like only the beginning for me.
Halfway through 2024, I’m back home. That past 3 months felt like I’ve experienced a whole year as my sense of time was quite slow. I like living in that hyperbolic time chamber moment. I’ve been portfolio setting and getting through some TODO lists. I still had a few other items on my bucketlist I got around to. I got a digital marketing certification from the local community college from online classes now. I done a few side gigs. I had some ear issues to deal with which got resolved. I returned my old System76 and bought myself a used Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon to setup for development (I should do a compare and contrast blog later about what machine I like more). I saw OneFC live in Denver for the first time which got another item off my bucketlist. I won some merch too. I attended the Amazing Muay Thai Festival in Los Angeles. I tried some Classpass free trial to utilize some yoga studio to destress. I did some motion capture things. I helped out my mom with her physical therapy to rehab her knee (and I still am). I’m a bit sad I can’t afford my home Muay Thai gym right now as I have bills to pay and not much of an income so I drop in every now and then when I have a few spare cash from some gigs, but I do miss it. I’m still training with friends outside in the park. I try to focus on my strength and conditioning to maintain and am on the look out for any small business who might need a hand on some software development contracts.
In a way, I got more busy being out of a job than having a job and I felt like I’ve lived multiple timelines. I got new promises to fulfill and a future to work towards so I don’t think 2024 will end in a way as grim as 2023 as I’m aware of what I need to do and am working towards it. I’ve fulfilled the promises I promised myself to do and I set new ones. Life does get busy.
Well, that’s the end of this rambling. It’s a bit disorganized since I hadn’t write up something in a while. I’d like to keep up with a few more posts now that whatever I do now is flexible on my own time, although ironically, I found myself a bit more busy out of the market.