2023: A Review Of A Year In The Life Of A Stick-In-The-Mud

Megane Bashi (Spectacles Bridge), Nagasaki

A quiet New Year’s Eve is a good moment to put on my spectacles and look back over the year. I will save my comments about my progress with my online business and crypto accumulation until my next post. Instead, I will talk about some of the other stuff I got up to in 2023.

The topics are:

• New Year Resolution?
• Spring Dead-Hang Challenge
• Tolstoy and Dostoevsky Reading Project
• Language and Translation Projects
• Chess Progress and Parties
• Out and About in Japan

New Year’s Resolution 2023: The Alastair Method

The year began with an experiment in “bullet journaling” with an adapted version of the “Alastair Method” which I blogged about here:

https://hive.blog/hive-119826/@hirohurl/have-you-tried-the-alastair-method-of-bullet-journaling-and-task-planning

I made two bullet journals, one for daily routines during the month, and the other for weekly tasks. I commented that,

“So far, I have found it immensely satisfying to work with, and a real motivator. It certainly feels as if I have got a lot more done this holiday season, thanks to the Alastair method…”

I kept it up until the middle of March, by which time the novelty seems to have worn off and a sense of futility seems to have overtaken me. So I gave up.

Cold Showers!

Looking at my records now, I was curious to see how many times I had had a “cold shower” during the winter months of January and February: 41/59 days, so not too bad. (Note, after a minute under the cold shower, turn the tap to hot and you'll get a wonderful “buzz” as you finish your winter shower.)

Spring Dead-hang Challenge

I watched some YouTube videos about the benefits of dead-hanging and wanted to give it a try to see if my spindly arms could hold out for any length of time. On my first attempt I aimed for a mere ten seconds - I was so low in confidence that I’d be able to do it. Here is the video I posted on YouTube and TikTok:

And here is the blog post:

https://hive.blog/ctp/@hirohurl/spring-deadhang-challenge-1--can-i-manage-10-seconds

I aimed to do a 1 minute dead-hang, and in my final attempt I managed 48 seconds, as I recall, and then, once college term began in April, I didn’t get around to it again.

However, earlier this month, I found another set of bars by the river near one of my college gigs, so I hope to revive this project in January and see if I can get past the 1 minute barrier in 2024!

Tolstoy and Dostoevsky Reading Project

Back in the autumn of 2022 I felt that my reading habit had declined in recent years and decided to challenge myself to read War and Peace on my smartphone Kindle app, and also to listen to an Audible audio-book version in a different translation.

I was blown away by the vastness of Tolstoy’s Russia, and inspired to read Anna Karenina during the first months of 2023, and then Resurrection immediately afterwards.

Tolstoy’s Resurrection was a set text in a European Literature course I took at university, but I only had the vaguest of memories of what it was all about.

In the spring of 2023 I switched, not without trepidation, from Tolstoy to Dostoevsky with the intention of reading three of his novels in like manner.

I began with Crime and Punishment, and immediately felt constricted by the narrow and obsessive world of Raskolnikov. However, the novel grew on me, and I found myself engaging with Raskolnikov, almost, as it were, “rooting for him,” though appalled that he should seek to model himself on that Corsican upstart, Napoleon.

Next came The Devils, another “set text” at University, which I completely failed to grasp at that time. Well, distracted by parties and university social life, I had only given myself a week in which to read it, was completely confused by Russian naming conventions, and had no idea what was going on or why it was going on.

This time around, I fared much better (as one would hope) and felt it to be a timely warning against the dangers of political fanaticism.

The final book I read in this project was perhaps the most challenging of the lot, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.

I finished Brothers Karamazov a few months ago, so perhaps I should take up the challenge again in 2024, and move on to another Russian novelist. Any suggestions?

Language and Translation Projects

Whereas my adventures in Russian literature seemed “too much” to blog about, my sporadic attempts at translating snippets of Latin and Japanese made ideal topics for blog posts.

1. Translating Livy

I’m slowly working my way through the Roman historian Livy’s account of the Rape of Lucretia, which is a “founding myth” of the Roman Republic.

My original inspiration for this project was a plan to write an academic paper comparing how Machiavelli and Shakespeare read Livy and treat this myth in very distinctive ways. The paper never materialized, but I do want to continue with my translation work, and with my engagement with Chat GPT as part of that process.

Here is the first blog post I published in 2023 on the Rape of Lucretia:

https://hive.blog/proofofbrain/@hirohurl/translating-livy-s-account-of-the-rape-of-lucretia-part-2-temptata-res-est

2. Translating the Japanese Karuta Proverbs

This is a fun project that I began in October 2022 in response to @jongolson’s “index4index” challenge. Karuta is a popular Japanese card game in which a reader reads a series of common Japanese proverbs and the other players compete to grab the corresponding picture card.

I published several blog posts on this topic as I worked my way through the first eleven cards in the deck. Still a long way to go, mind you, as there are 48 proverbs in each deck, and the proverbs vary from deck to deck. Here is the first post I published on this topic in 2023:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/iroha-karuta-9-2-good-medicine-tastes-bitter

Chess Progress and Parties

I must have played chess online every day in 2023, thanks to the multiple games that I have on the go at any time on Gameknot.com. I also hit a new milestone on that website when I broke into the 1800s.

I don’t think I’m an 1800 player in over the board games by any means, but it was great to get into a new percentile on that website. They also give you a “rating floor” which is 200 points below your percentile, which means that no matter how big a losing streak I may fall into, I will never drop below 1600 again. 😂

Here’s my blog post about hitting the 1800s:

https://hive.blog/hive-157286/@hirohurl/the-pubchessbluffer-hits-the-1800s-on-gameknot-here-s-how

I didn’t do so much chess study in 2023 as I’d’ve liked. Also, I only published some chess tip blog posts in July, both here and on my own chess blog:

https://easychesstips.com/2023/07

During the summer I enjoyed a few evenings at home under the air-conditioner drinking cold beer and recording some live blitz chess on Gameknot that I posted on my chess channel on YouTube and reported about on this blog from time to time, with the video set to double-speed:

https://hive.blog/hive-157286/@hirohurl/saturday-night-beer-blitz-chess-and-splinterlands-mayhem

I kinda slacked off the social chess activities this year, but did blog about a couple of events, one with students in the dog days of summer:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/a-mad-dog-chills-with-charming-chess-champs

The other was a Halloween chess party with some chess-playing friends:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/the-gobfather-returns-as-the-pub-chess-bluffer

Out And About In Japan

I have become quite a “stick in the mud” since returning to Japan from my last overseas trip way back in 2018. The overseas tourists returned to Japan in force during 2023, and lots of my acquaintances have gone gallivanting off hither and thither whereas I managed only two trips away from Hiroshima, and only one trip outside of the Prefecture. Here are four occasions that I enjoyed going “out and about in Japan” during the year”

1. Picasso “The Blue Period and Beyond” Exhibition

I went along with Mrs H to this exhibition in Hiroshima city centre:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/picassos-mother-and-child-by-the-sea

2. Party in Kure

Kure is a port town about 40 minutes away from Hiroshima by train. It is where the battleship Yamato was built. I went there in the spring to have dinner with a friend and his parents at the restaurant of a recently-graduated student of mine. I got there early, so took the opportunity to relax in a traditional Japanese bath house.

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/hanging-out-at-a-local-japanese-bath-house

3. Local Summer Street Festival

For the first time in four years, we were able to enjoy our local summer street festival, held on two consecutive Saturdays towards the end of July.

Here’s the blog post I wrote about it:
https://hive.blog/liketu/@hirohurl/summer-in-the-suburbs-of-hiroshima-1st-rakurakuen-street-festival-in-4-years

4. Autumn Trip To Nagasaki

I really pushed the boat out in October and went all the way to Nagasaki with the Mrs to see our daughter perform with her cheerleaders club at the Nagasaki University festival.

While we were there we visited some temples including this fine Chinese influenced Zen temple which is also dedicated to the Chinese sea goddess Mazu:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/sofukuji-a-chinese-zen-temple-and-sea-goddess-cult-in-nagasaki-japan

Not a bad year when all is said and done, even if I was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud!

The daughter has come back home for the New Year and so I’d better get this blog post done and dusted so we can see in the New Year together over a bottle of sparkling Italian wine (the award winning "Santero Premium Pinot-Chardonnay Spumante Brut" - yeah!). 🙂

Happy New Year everybody!

David Hurley
#InspiredFocus