The week between Christmas and New Years has always been a favourite. A period where nobody expects anything from you and nothing you do matters much. I call it the cheers week.

In cheers week, I like to look back on the year that’s passed and wrap it up. Here are some of my favourite things from 2023:

Memories: Witnessing my first birth in O+G. Saying hi to my niece June who was born in June. Verifying death on a patient who had just died. Regaining my fitness after an achilles injury five years ago. Getting my short stories published and the imposter syndrome that followed. Taking tennis lessons. Finishing OSCEs. Morning bike rides with no agenda. Encounters with strangers in the rain. Getting a concussion right before exams.

Newsletters: Sahil Bloom’s Curiosity Chronicle for rich ideas. Austin Kleon’s newsletter, author of Show Your Work! – the book that made me start this blog. Rob Walker’s Art of Noticing. Alex & Books’ newsletter for book summaries and practical reading tips. George Mack for short 0.1% ideas. Farnam Street’s Brain Food for interesting articles.

Fiction: Genzaburo Yoshino’s How Do You Live?, a heart-wrenching and uplifting story of a boy finding his way in the world. Claire Keegan’s Foster, a story about the impact strangers can have on our lives, and an inspiration for my published short story Nurture. One Hundred Years of Solitude, a classic that captures the world and its intricacies in the town of Macondo. Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky of Open Wounds, my poem collection of the year. Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, where two unlikely women overcome enormous obstacles in the Taliban-run Afghanistan. Will you please be quiet, please?, my short story collection of the year.

Non-fiction: Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry, a summary of a fascinating yet controversial field of medicine. People of The Lie, an investigation into human evil and ways of healing it. Hyperfocus, a book that shaved hours off my study time. Clear Thinking, a handbook for understanding our biases.

Movies/TV/anime: Beef, an examination into the consequences of our actions. Severance, a sci-fi series that completely took me by surprise with a ridiculous cliffhanger. Coach Carter, a lesson on education and mentorship and provided the best movie scene of the year. Fight Club, which takes the plot twist of the year. Season Finale of Attack on Titan, the best anime series I have watched.

Games: I adored Dave the Diver on the Switch, which I binged in the middle of my exam season. Occasionally I get the itch to play Guild Wars 2, my favourite MMORPG, and it always hits the spot.

Lastly, this blog has grown a modest amount since the start of this year in terms of subscribers and readers. Getting emails and comments from strangers is always surprising, given I predominantly write for myself, but touching. Thank you for those who read and support – publicly or quietly.

Looking forward to what the future holds. Cheers to a new 2024.