Year in Review: 2025

Every December I promise myself I’ll write one of these while it’s still fresh, and every year I write it in the last hour of the last day. So here it is — 2025, honestly, before I forget how it actually felt.

The short version: this was the year with two halves. Bandung and the student chapter closing, then Sorong and a working life beginning. On one side, I saw what I’d built. On the other, I started building something new.

School

I finished the thesis in February. After all of 2024’s grinding, the ending was quieter than I expected — a last round of edits, a submission, and then that strange emptiness when the thing that owned you for two years suddenly doesn’t. Later in the year, a part of it was published in a Q2 journal, which is the proudest research line on my CV.

Then the slow dismantling of student life: packing everything out now that S2 was done, selling some things, shipping the rest home to Sorong. And on 10 May 2025, wisuda — the master’s, official. Second graduation, and it hit different from the first. This one felt like the end of school for good.

Work

On 3 June 2025 I received my SK CPNS — the call I’d been waiting on since 2024 finally came. I started work at BKDD Kabupaten Sorong, and just like that I went from student to civil servant.

The adjustment was the real story. New environment, new colleagues, and an entirely different shape to the day — no more all-nighters, no more thesis room, just a steady work-life rhythm I’m still learning to hold. July through October was mostly just work, heads-down, settling in. In between I got my first dinas (work trip) to Manokwari — first time in the city, and I made sure to look around while I was there.

Life

The big move: after years of the Bandung–Sorong shuttle, I officially came home to Sorong for good. Before leaving Bandung there was a proper send-off — a villa with my friends up in Dago Utara, because everyone was scattering to different cities and we all knew it.

Family came to visit around graduation: we took a 3–4 day trip to Jakarta, then I brought them around Bandung — all the tourist spots, the cafés, the food, playing tour guide in the city that had been mine. Back home, a short reunion with high-school friends reminded me that some bonds just pick up where they left off. Closed the year with a new year at home, with family — which, after a year of goodbyes, was exactly right.

Travel

• Masjid Al Jabbar, Bandung — the “floating mosque,” and every bit as striking as the photos.
• Camping at Batu Kuda, Gunung Manglayang — one last mountain before leaving West Java.
• Jakarta with family, and the farewell Bandung tour.
• Manokwari — first visit, courtesy of work.

Hobbies & games

Started running — and I’ll be honest, I haven’t really improved and I’m not consistent about it. But I keep coming back to it, so that counts. Back in Sorong I started a weekly badminton session with a high-school friend, which is quietly the best routine I built all year. In November I came back to Valorant after months away — a little washed, but happy to be back. And I caught Marathon season two. The Steam year in review has the rest.

Gear

One upgrade that mattered: a new iPhone 15. After years on Android it’s a whole re-learning, but it’s been a good companion for the new chapter.

Carrying into 2026

• Build a real work-life rhythm — not just survive the adjustment, own it.
• Make running and badminton stick. Consistency over intensity.
• Keep one no-stakes project of my own alive at all times.
• Stay close to the people who scattered. Distance shouldn’t mean silence.

2025 was the year the scaffolding came down and I got to see what I’d actually built — then packed it up, went home, and started again. Not everything I hoped for. More than I expected. On to the next.