END OF 2023 // BEGINNING OF 2024
HAPPY NEW YEAR FREAKS! 2023 was my zen and monklike year, I think this has been a good year and I got a lot done! I starting taking better care of myself both physically and mentally. I started going to the gym and stopped drinking soda and whatnot! I started waking up earlier and trying to go outside more and have some kind of routine and I picked up some new hobbies. MOST IMPORTANTLY I deleted instagram and twitter! I also got my drivers license but I got in an accident so uh yeah idk but other than that this year has been pretty fantastic.
WEBSITE
2023 was the first full year I've had this website!! This place looks a lot different than it did a year ago I had no idea how to make a website and I didnt have an aesthetic I wanted to go for. I didn't even know what Neocities was for petes darn sake! This is what it looked like at the beginning of the year.
(the other tabs were not cooler)
For most of the year, my website kinda stayed looking like that since I didnt work on it much due to no inspiration or knowledge. But then on 7.26.23, my friend LOEVI sent me a link to dimden's hotel and it (along with other neocities sites I found that same day) inspired me to revamp my website. I took a lot of inspiration from Dimden's site since I loved it so much (and you definitely can still see that inspo now) and made this layout that week.
I remember being so happy with this layout and getting that currently playing tab thing to work. I continued to improve upon this layout for a few months, until it looked like this.
I liked this layout, but I wanted something cooler. I spend a lot of time looking at neocities sites and there are so many cool people there with great layouts and I felt like this one was silly in comparison to them. I still love this layout though cause it was how I learned most of what I know about coding now and is one of the only projects I actually finished.
In December, I began thinking of ideas for a new layout, and coded it all on the night of December 31st. hash tag NewYearNewMe! I went with darker colors and a more condensed layout with the intention of having less pages, but each page is a unique layout, which I am still working on. I am honestly really proud of this layout, I still have some gripes since you are your own biggest critic but this is definitely a big step in the right direction for me!!
And now we are here in the blog page writing the code for penguinjaa dot com slash blog slash 2024
MUSIC
This was a big year for music for me, I branched out to a lot of different genres and I really started my vinyl collection. I listened to a lot of the new Lil Yachty album, I love that album so much!! Because of that album I started listening to Tame Impala too, who is also amazing. There was also the new Quadeca album which was very good. I also dipped my toes into some jazz, especially japanese jazz, which ive been enjoying a lot too. Since this was my zen and monklike year, I listened to a lot of music I found to be mentally/creatively fulfilling, You can see the zen and monklike playlist below!!
My Spotify Wrapped
General Stats:
> Minutes Listened: 110,098
> Top Artist / Minutes Listened: Kanye West / 12,705 (Top 0.05%)
> Top Song: Digital Love - Daft Punk
My Top Artists:
> Kanye West
> Khary
> Quadeca
> Daft Punk
> Lil Yachty
My Top Songs:
> Digital Love - Daft Punk
> the BLACK seminole. - Lil Yachty
> Say My Peace - Khary
> Sisyphus - Quadeca
> WE SAW THE SUN! - Lil Yachty
New Vinyls
This year, I got a lot of new vinyls!! I went to oregon and got some at a record store which was awesome sauce. The vinyls I got:
> Let's Start Here. - Lil Yachty
> 808s & Heartbreak - Kanye West
> Madvillainy - MF DOOM & Madlib
> Igor - Tyler, The Creator
> Thank U, Next - Ariana Grande
> I Didn't Mean To Haunt You - Quadeca