Year 2025 in Review

The year 2025 has been a good year and also marked the start of a long-term challenge for me. I started the year by passing the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) N1, managed to read 10 books, renewed my Japan work visa for another five years, and finally, last but not least, got admitted to the University of Tokyo to continue my study at the graduate level.

Passed JLPT N1

Early in the year, I got the news that I passed JLPT N1. It is the highest level of the Japanese language test, but it only measures reading and listening abilities. Despite that, I think that I still must improve my Japanese. Probably, the next level would be to be able to talk more fluently?

10 books read!

I wanted to read more books and hence, I read as many as I could (and thanks to my wife for pushing me to read more books). However, I noticed that I didn’t read much during summer. Another thing to improve in 2026.

I read 10 books in total:

1. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
2. Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
3. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
4. How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner
5. “Sherlock Holmes The Sign of Four” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
6. The Body Keep the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
7. Marine Biology - A Very Short Introduction by Philip V. Mladenov
8. Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
9. The Pig that Wants to Be Eaten by Julian Baggini
10. Inspired - How to Create Tech Product Customer Love by Marty Cagan

Also, there was a dilemma of using Kindle or paper books. Using Kindle is more convenient, but I don’t feel it is worth buying only the “license” to read a book. Now I’m leaning more toward paper books because I want to own tangible things, despite the inconvenience.

Continuing study to the University of Tokyo

This is perhaps the biggest achievement this year. I was planning to apply directly to the PhD, but I thought I should humble myself because I must fortify my basic knowledge. In these three months since starting the study, I think that was the correct choice because I managed to re-learn the fundamental knowledge that I thought I knew well.

Some smaller wins

• Renewed work visa. I will post the experience later.
• Rearranged my home; now the piano is activated, and I have my own place where I can read (it is just the dining table moved into a brighter space).
• Played good video games: God of War Ragnar?k, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Death Stranding 1 and 2, and more. (thanks to Astro Bot that revived my love for video games)
• Started painting (not sure if this can be sustained, but let’s see)

One thing to improve in 2026

Definitely time management. I wasted too much time doom-scrolling on Instagram and LinkedIn. A lot of time to be productive just went poof. I even think that the time could be better spent playing video games (this means doom-scrolling is way worse than playing games). If I can improve on this aspect and not let my time (time is my scarcest resource now) get stolen by doom-scrolling, it will be the biggest and easiest win next year.

I hope for another good year, or perhaps an even better one, in 2026.

Edited on 2026-01-15 to add links to the book review.