Gah! It’s already 2017! It feels like just yesterday that a bright and shiny 2016 arrived at my door with promises of awesome things to come, but now it’s gone into that cold, dark night where time disappears to when one is not looking.

So after a long break that started at the end of July when JET contract ended, I’ve had to finally get back into the groove of waking up early and going in to work.

My recent trips to Canada and South Africa as well as a pretty great Christmas have seen me come to the not surprising revelation that I need to get out of my current rut and get my butt into gear so that by this summer I haven’t turned into some sort of gelatinous blob that is barely describable as human-shaped.

If there is one constant in Japan, it is that you will somehow end up getting the flu here at least once. And I don’t mean the flu as in a rather bad cold that makes you feel all miserable and grumpy, but rather full blown influenza that sees entire classes being told to stay home for fear the flu virus rampages through your school.

Its that time of the year again when most of Japan finds itself blanketed under a layer of pristine white snow and my Facebook feed is filled with posts and photos from giddy ALTs who have never seen snow before.

Wil Wheaton recently wrote a post about rebooting his life, which got me thinking about steps I could take to try and improve my life as well. The new year is also fast approaching so its pretty much perfect timing on my part to start reassessing where I am and what I want in the foreseeable future.

If you’re wondering what exactly happened with my last past where I talked about my Canada trip and visit to the doctor then fear not, you’re not just imagining that it’s vanished into the mists of time and crevice between the internet’s seat cushions. Some background changes to my hosting meant that my poor backup routines finally came back to bite me and meant that I lost my last post as well as numerous other posts that I had transferred over from another site.

If there is any time of the year that I feel ‘meh’ then this is it. The change of the seasons means that we’re in that zone right between spring and summer where the weather is just nice enough but has started tending towards being humid and sticky during some parts of the day.

With spring and summer and all the awesome warm weather it bring (excluding the typhoons, humidity and numerous creepy crawly insects everywhere) it’s finally become possible for me to put on my running shoes and hit the road on a daily basis.

Now that January is coming to a close I thought it would be interesting to see if a new year has led to any changes as such in my routine. Think of this post more as a way for me to evaluate myself than for any public consumption.