A Year with Our New Family Member
We spent our first year with Roy, our new family member. While seeing him daily, I didn't notice much, but looking back at photos occasionally, I'm always amazed. He grew so fast. A baby who couldn't even roll over is now starting to walk.
I'm grateful that he stayed healthy and ate well throughout the year without any major illnesses. Special thanks to everyone around us who helped so much. We actually bought very few baby toys ourselves. What we purchased were mostly finds from Value Village or a couple of $2 Hot Wheels cars. We received so many from Canadian friends, and honestly, our apartment is too small to buy more even if we wanted to.
Anyway, 2025 was a busy year, but I'm especially grateful to my family for being there with me through it all.
Korea Trip
We traveled to Korea to introduce Roy to our families. While we were there, we also held his first birthday party (doljanchi). The schedule was so packed—family gatherings, first birthday photo shoots, meeting my wife's friends, and my friends—that 5 weeks flew by in an instant. With a job transition happening during the vacation, I had to stay up late for over a week for handover, which made everything twice as hectic.
Despite that, we made the most of those 5 weeks. Leaving Roy with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, we had a much-needed date, which was so relaxing. When it was time to return, the pressure of having to do everything ourselves again in Canada was palpable.
It was just over a month, but we had such a wonderful time, and I gained about 6kg haha. The trip ended without any incidents... until we left our bag at the Incheon Airport food court on the day we were returning to Canada. Roy's first birthday ring was in that bag, so the lost items were quite valuable. I couldn't eat properly for 3 days, but we eventually found everything.
Everything worked out well, so now it's just a funny memory.
Parenting
I realized that parenting is really not easy. When I wrote last year's review, the baby was only a month old, and we had help from a postpartum care specialist, so it was manageable. But once he started crawling, things got chaotic.
In the early days, I was very involved in parenting, handling baby food and other tasks, which helped my wife avoid postpartum depression. But as work got busier, I had to leave more to my wife. Of course, I still handle things like family doctor visits due to language barriers and document-related matters, but my wife has been incredibly strong and cheerful with baby care, and I'm so thankful.
YouTube
I haven't been uploading YouTube videos publicly. I'm hesitant about exposing the baby's face, so I've kept videos unlisted for people who know the link. In 2025, I made about 5 videos, and you can find some on my personal travel blog.
There's been an interesting change recently. I used to buy BGM and songs from services or platforms like Artlist, but now I'm making them directly with AI. I tried AI-generated lyrics, but the quality wasn't great, so I reminisced about old times and wrote lyrics myself for the first time in a while.
For music generation, I used the Suno V5 model. It handles Korean well and captured the rhymes I put in the lyrics so perfectly that I had fun working on it. Below is one of the results.
Health
I ran a full marathon. I completed it. And I failed spectacularly.
It took me over 6 hours to finish because I had to keep walking from around the 25-kilometer mark due to lower back pain. I wanted to give up in the middle, but thanks to people around me who were limping along and wouldn't quit, and who encouraged me to stand up when I tried to sit down, I made it to the end.
At 20 kilometers, it took me about 2 hours, so I thought, "I'll finish in under 5 hours," but I completely failed. I plan to try again next year. Until then, I need to train my core muscles more to avoid lower back pain issues. For now, I'm scheduled to run a half marathon in May with Kyu.
Job Transition
In December 2025, I left behind 8 years of memories at Venngage and moved to a new company. 1 year at Mobidea in Korea, 4 years at Infraware, and 8 years at Venngage after coming to Canada. Every time I change jobs, I feel the same way—starting fresh is both burdensome and exciting.
Excluding the 6 months I took off to learn English before coming to Canada, I've worked for 13 years. Given how bad the hiring market is, I think I was very fortunate to maintain my career and transition smoothly.
Writing this review, I feel grateful to many people who helped me—Kyu, Dave, Seok-chan, Ken, YB, Evan, and many others who knowingly or unknowingly supported me.
This year, I ended up living busily with full-time work, contract work, and parenting. But it seems like I was rewarded with a good opportunity at year-end. Add to that the advancement of AI technology that helped me handle my busy schedule—once again, I realize how lucky I've been.
Blog
To make excuses, I was so busy that I barely managed to write book reviews. Even then, I missed 2 reviews. One because I was swamped with parenting, and another because of the job transition. Aside from those 2, I completed all reviews. Thanks to Hanbit Media, I gained access to great books, information, and knowledge.
Besides that, I only posted one article. This is somewhat frustrating because over the past 3 years, I've drafted several AI-related articles while working, only to abandon them as they became obsolete over time.
I really need to reflect on this. Looking at recent posts, it's just a book review blog. In 2026, I need to invest more time to shed this reputation.
Fortune Telling for Fun
I checked Naver's New Year fortune again this year. Last year, it said not to be arrogant and stay humble, and it's the same this year. Especially lately, with parenting and other things, I haven't been focusing well, so the part about managing my life firmly resonates with me.
Closing
Wishing everyone happiness in 2026.