I wanted to share my updates on my goals now that we are slightly beyond 75% into 2025.

I joined toastmasters, rewrote my app, and biking around the neighborhood.

Improve Communication Skills

Ever since I joined toastmasters, I feel more confident and I write more, and each week I feel like I am making some progress towards becoming a more confident speaker. I have been attending toastmaster each Thursday with the only real break during the August when my daughter was born in late July. I truly cannot do this without my wife and my mother-in-law’s help. They put the children to bed while I attend toastmaster class. Here’s what I have been up to since the last update. I did my ice breaker speech in March, which I believe people liked. I talked about my history with public speaking during University which I believe people could relate to. During the Spring and Summer months, I did many roles such as timer, Sergeant-at-Arms (Welcoming speech), grammarian, and quiz master. I also participated in many table topics sessions too. In the September, I presented a Toast to Canada and told a joke as Joke Master. I am learning so much, and I like having each week to practice. In October, I am starting my second speech that I wrote during the spring and summer. I will be presenting that on October 16th, 2025. Toastmasters is a lot of work, but I feel like I will reap the rewards soon. I chose to focus my energy on Toastmasters because of the consistent practice and feedback.

Rails

I put my Rail’s goal on pause for now. I want to rewrite my Java application to C# .NET MAUI application because the deployment and the GUI framework for building windows application is much better. I rewrote most of the app during the summer and I enjoy programming in C#, but I didn’t spend a lot of time learning the language, just learned some basics. It is very similar to Java. I want to finish this app by mid November and deploy in the windows app store. I want to try to sell and market it during Christmas and January 2026. I am not sure of the market, but now that I have a windows application I feel like it will be easier to launch into the windows app store.

Fitness

I haven’t really changed much in terms of fitness. I injured my foot; it feels like plantar fasciitis, and it has put a damper into running or doing other activity. I bought new shoes, and the injury feels like it went away instantly. I believe the old shoes were cramping my foot or not sized properly. There is a possibility of an imperceptible defect but only reveals itself during long term use. Anyways, despite the injury, I started biking my 3-year daughter around the neighborhood travelling to different parks and playgrounds, which is quite a workout during the day. The fitness is the most challenging one to figure out. I am probably over committing myself on too much stuff, or is that just an excuse?

Overall, it’s been a great year so far.