A look back on 2025

As we get toward the end of 2025, I thought it would be a good idea to look back on 2025 before welcoming 2026. The end of the year is always emotional, either in a good way or a bad way. For me, this year has been mixed.

2025 has not been an awful year like 2010, 2016, or 2021, but it has had some serious downs for me. I'm going to try to go through the months of the year to describe the year as best I can in a couple of sentences, rather than by month.

Firstly, ZPE hit a significant milestone this year when the parser became up to 24% faster, resulting in a much more performant ZPE. This was a substantial improvement for ZPE. Additionally, ZPE also hit 10 years this year in May - something I cannot believe. ZPE also got a new file sandbox security within plugins, and it's really powerful. And the YASS language got labels and goto statements (again), and the editor saw a massive change with the introduction of BalfLaf (a new project of mine that's now applied to all my UIs). 

I reintroduced BalfComment as the primary commenting system on my website. As time goes on, I'm going to continue improving this to ensure that comments are automatically moderateable (through AI) to avoid users seeing unsavoury comments.

DragonDocs introduced AI marking last year, but this year it improved considerably. You see, the marking was done on each script individually, whereas now it is done in one, so the marking is consistent. Additionally, the context is retained so that future tests are marked using the same marking strategy as before.

Technology-wise, I did quite a few reviews and got some really cool new tech, including my new Nintendo Switch 2, GPD Pocket 4, iPhone 17 Pro, Apple Watch Ultra 3, my Unfolded Circle Remote 3 and my Zettlab AI NAS D6. 

I also moved into my house four years ago, in February. I also got myself a nice little upgrade on the house with my understairs drawers. Speaking of upgrades, I've made a lot of progress on the smart home, with things like my smart front door that locks and unlocks via my watch and my new LED light strip along the back of my house, and I've finally developed a powerful, handy dashboard for my home control tablet at the door.

Although I began planning my move out of teaching and back into my previous career in 2024, 2025 was the year I started putting those plans into action. My aim is that by the end of 2026, the remaining pieces will be in place to allow me to change careers fully. This year also saw me move from my previous school — one I genuinely loved — to a new school. While I do enjoy working there, it doesn’t resonate with me in the same way. A significant positive, however, has been gaining a wonderful colleague who makes day-to-day work far easier and more enjoyable. In a broader sense, not being as emotionally attached to my current school has given me clarity. It reinforces that I’m ready for change, and makes the decision to eventually step away from the profession feel both practical and achievable.

April was a good month overall, though it did include one of the year's most challenging episodes. Following an incident in March, my mum—despite my reassurance that everything was fine—contacted an ambulance. The crew attended, carried out their checks, and confirmed there were no concerns. In April, the hospital requested a follow-up. Although there was no evidence to suggest anything serious, one doctor chose to pursue a possible seizure diagnosis—something that appeared to be based on little more than fatigue. This line of enquiry continued through to June. Thankfully, in July, a different doctor reviewed the original ambulance report, which explicitly stated that no seizure had occurred, and concluded that the earlier assessment was not supported by evidence and could not be substantiated. The drawn-out nature of this episode caused significant disruption to my life and was extremely distressing at the time. Still, it was ultimately resolved after a more thorough, evidence-based review. Ultimately, however, this plagued 2025 as it put so much pressure on me and left me feeling pretty broken.

As if to round off the year properly, my fridge/freezer decided to pack in at the very end of 2025.

So here's to 2026, but let's not forget all of the positives that came from 2025. Let's hope I can get myself sorted next year.