Samsa-Studies

More About Me

One of my favorite hobbies is reading, with yearly reading goals in each resolutions post

I also write in my free time! I have a goal each year of finishing a new manuscript

My most played video game at the moment is Project Sekai. Other games I enjoy are Armored Core 6, Honkai: Star Rail, and Silent Hill F

Notes

Follows do not come from this blog, they come from @chaotic-smartass

2026 Resolutions

Finish a minimum of 52 books

I think this is a good goal to reach, not so low that I make it easy on myself but not so high that I am struggling and speeding through books to try to make my goal. It's a book a week and about half of my goal last year, so it is definitely achievable.

Study Russian for one hour for at least 100 days

I decided to focus on Russian this year, since I plan on focusing on Eastern Europe for my graduate degree in international relations

Complete my cybersecurity certification

I mentioned this in my last post but I had put it off until I felt like I could focus because the course charged a monthly fee for access to the course materials, but I plan to make 2026 the year I get the certification.

Finish my first manuscript and round of edits

Improve my night and morning routines

Attend one anime convention

Be more adventurous, do new things often

Post more often here on my study blog and grow my audience here by posting better content!

FINAL REPORT

Books Read: 83/100

I think this is very good! More than last year, and I know that most of my issues with meeting the goal this year were related to decision paralysis, which I am fixing next year by not allowing myself to read too many books at the same time and by focusing my nonfiction reading on more specific subjects for longer periods of time.

Wrote 25k of the 50k words of my planned manuscript. I am going to focus more effort into it in the new year, as the cold weather will be keeping me inside.

My language study very much fell off in the beginning of the year, largely because I was trying to do too much at once. I am going to be picking one language to focus on for 2026 (and likely a few years after).

The choices are between Latin and Russian. I think for graduate school, I will be choosing to focus on Russian.

The plan is to get my cybersecurity certification early next year, again using the excuse of the cold weather to stay in and focus on these things.

The certification program charged a monthly fee for access, so I was putting it off until I knew I would be able to dedicate the time to finish it as fast as possible.

It turned out my plans to go to graduate school this year ended up being put off due to monetary issues, but with some careful planning, next year looks like it will be the year that I can apply, and 2027 will be the year that I attend. Similar issues arose with Fulbright, as there were cuts to funding and issues with people being unable to get return flights, so my family and I decided to try to look elsewhere for funding opportunities.