Better late than never . . . five months (almost half a year!!) have passed since my last recap and a ton of things have happened since then. 🤯
📅 2023 Wrapped
Inspired by the yearly Spotify Wrapped, I created my own Wrapped for 2023, highlighting some of the things I did that year. Head to my Instagram profile's 2023 Recap highlight to see it!
📚 Books
No recap is complete without a section on books! 😈 I was able to read quite a bit over the past few months, feasting my mind on delicious stories . . .
I read three books in November and four in December, all of which were mildly disappointing save for The Luxe by Anna Godbersen. I have yet to finish that series though — to be honest, I completely forgot about it till I started writing this recap. I'll have to go back and finish it up.
I didn't read anything in January, but February and March brought about a few awesome reads. The Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy by Stephanie Garber is one of my favorites of this year (so far), topped only by The Empyrean series (of course!) by Rebecca Yarros. I've probably read Fourth Wing at least four times by now. 🐉
The Aurelian Cycle trilogy I found to be quite sad overall, but with hopeful undertones and a hopeful ending. The Scholomance trilogy I started reading in 2021 and finally got my hands on the last two books this year. They did not disappoint, though the whole situation with Orion (one of the main characters) confused me slightly.
Last but not least, I finally managed to get my hands on Ruling Destiny, the second book in the Stolen Beauty trilogy by Alyson Noel that I've been wanting to read for a year and a half now.
I am looking forward to April bringing more books to read — I have a week off for Pesach, and I cannot imagine the books I will probably crunch through then. 😉
🏫 Learning
So usually I have a section on classes I'm taking for my recaps, but this one is going to be a bit different from the ones before.
I finished out Fall 2023 strong, but decided not to take any classes in Spring 2024. There are development projects I want to focus on, and with my family being in Israel as well, I didn't think I would have enough time to spare.
But I'm still, and always, learning. Right now I'm taking Modern Hebrew with a private teacher in Jerusalem. We just finished the first textbook from Hebrew University's series; it was mostly review for me, so we were able to go through it quickly. I'll be starting the second book this week, the same one my sister Grace is using for her class this semester.
🗃️ Projects
I was able to work on quite a few things these past months!
- Personal Calendar App — this is the second edition. I think I used very similar tools and libraries as I did in my previous app. But instead of a Clickup integration, I coded my own task management system.
- Personal Website — this one you're on right now! I redid the structure and UI of cathzchen.com, moving it from a Wordpress installation to an Astro/Strapi/MySQL stack. All the parts are hosted using Coolify.
- [Unnamed] — this one's a website in progress. I'm still figuring out my niche, but it'll be a blog on fiction books and probably some small products I'm designing for booklovers. I did a quick UI design using Pixso, and I'll be coding it out over the next few weeks. I'm so excited for the final result!
- Createful Purpose — this one's in brainstorming phase, but I hope to start working on the website in May. It will be a hub of educational theories/practice, information, and curriculum for homeschoolers that is mostly based on the way my siblings and I were raised. There'll be a strong focus on self-directed education.
📃 A Few More Things
- Joined Generation Lights Create's leadership, a group started by Hannah K and Anna N, for supporting girls interested in digital creative work
- Was promoted to mid-level web developer at HIVE Strategy in January. 🥳
- Started volunteering at Netivyah's Hamotzi (food distribution) and Makor HaTikvah.
Alas, that is all for now. It has been a wonderful few months, and I hope for more wonderfulness in the weeks to come.
Adios!
Catherine