Chatterbox #343 – Goodbye 2025

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Q-Lips. You're listening to Chatterbox, the series where we have completely natural, unedited conversations between native speakers. And this series is designed for intermediate and advanced English language. learners. So if you are one of those people, then you're in the right place. And I think you'll enjoy our conversation. My name, of course, is Andrew. And today I'll be joined by my co-host, Anna, and we are going to do a massive

year in review style episode. We have 15 rapid fire questions to talk about, and we're going to cover everything from surprises that definitely weren't on our 2025 bingo cards to our biggest goals. the year ahead. It's going to be a fun conversation and we'll get started with it in just a sec. But before we do, I want to give you a heads up about something huge that's coming your way. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. In just a few days,

year, our 2026 new year sale is starting. If one of your resolutions for 2026 is to improve your English and hit the next level, then you'll want to be ready for this. For the first two weeks of January, we'll be offering a 25% discount for yearly memberships or membership renewals.

It's our only sale of the year and it's the best way to get full access to our interactive transcripts, our helpful study guides, our speaking classes and all the tools that you need to succeed at English for a super affordable price. So make a note in your calendars and get ready to grab that discount as soon as the sale goes live. Okay, and now let's get started with this episode. Here's my conversation with Anna. Enjoy.

Hey, Anna, how's it going? Hi, Andrew. I'm very well, thank you. And yourself? I'm doing great. And Anna, I think this is going to be a fun conversation that we're about to have here. What we're going to do is look back on 2025 and we have 50... 15 rapid fire questions that we're going to throw back and forth at each other just to sort of look back.

on the year and talk about what we got up to, some of the highs and lows and in-betweens of 2025. So I'm looking forward to hearing about your answers, Anna, and looking back and reviewing my own year as well. Let's hop right in and get started. The first question on our list is, what's something that happened in 2025 that definitely wasn't on your bingo card?

Well, I'd have to say that in the family, in my family, of course, over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of weddings. And we actually had another wedding this year, which was so lovely. And my uncle got remarried. to a wonderful lady this year so that definitely wasn't on my bingo card i i didn't know we didn't know that that was going to be coming up in the pipeline but that was a really lovely event this year and it was so nice to have all the family together because

don't know about you Andrew and if you're listening it's not very often that really all the family are together in one room so that is one of the nicest things about that wedding so that was definitely something that stuck out that wasn't on my bingo card for 2025. What about you, Anju? Nice. Yeah, it's very rare that the whole extended family can get together, right? I can't even remember the last time that happened in my family. Funnily enough, Anna, I have a romance-related event too.

This isn't about me. This isn't about my life. This is just 2025, this year in general. So I guess we can talk about our lives or just what happened in the world this year. But this one was... Definitely not on my bingo card. And I think definitely not on a lot of Canadians bingo cards either. And that is because the Canadian former prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

He came out and said that he is now in a relationship with the American pop singer Katy Perry. And this just blew my mind. It's such a weird, like, couple. When I stop and think about it, they kind of look good together, actually, to be honest with you. And it's all over the Canadian media and all over the internet. So, yeah. I just never expected this at all. And yeah, it's pretty funny. It definitely wasn't on my bingo card.

From the outside, you know, you never ever would put them together. So I absolutely agree. That was something that I don't think was on anybody's bingo card throughout the whole world. That was definitely a bit shocking, to be honest. Yeah, it's kept Justin Trudeau relevant, I guess. Usually former prime ministers of Canada, once they're finished with their term, they sort of just sail on into the sunset, you know, but not him. He's still all over the news.

Good for him, I suppose. All right, let's move on to the second question, which is, what is one moment from this year that made you smile? And maybe you have thought back on it several times. There's actually loads of different things that happened this year because I journal and one of the things I journal is what was a good thing that happened today. So I had quite a few examples, but I'm going to just mention one very briefly.

I speak Spanish. That's my second language, if you guys don't know. And, you know, I can speak, I can communicate. I'm not perfect, but I can definitely get by. And I remember I had an interaction in a coffee shop.

a couple of months ago I went in it was a new coffee shop in the neighborhood and I like to go in and introduce myself and get to know the owners because it was a it wasn't a chain it was an independent coffee shop so I like to support it I went in and For some reason, we struck up a conversation, me, the owner, and another...

person that was in the shop and we had this really nice conversation we were talking about where we were from everything in Spanish and then at the end of the conversation they were like you know you speak Spanish really well you have a really good accent and it was I've never met them again because I've never been back, unfortunately, but it was just such a nice random interaction with people that I didn't know in my second language.

And they were just really kind and really welcoming. So I look back on that and that really sticks out to me this year. a moment that made me smile. I should probably just go back to the coffee shop, to be honest, but I should go back. I should go back. But that was something that stuck out for me. What about you, Andrew?

Yeah, I love that, Anna. That is so cool. And it just goes to show that we should try and be kind as much as possible, right? Because you never know the impact of your words. I'm sure those people who you were talking to at the coffee shop. They probably were just, you know, giving you a compliment, probably an honest compliment, but...

they wouldn't have known the impact that it would have had on your life. And so, yeah, I love that. And it's a good reminder to us to always be kind to others and to compliment when we can. So that's fantastic. For me, I think... Looking back on this year, some of the happy moments were... with my wife and our dog, Owa, who we adopted in May. And actually her name, Owa, translates to May in English. So that's why we named her that. And I think just like adjusting to a new...

dog in our home and going out for walks and seeing her adjust to our family. And she was kind of timid and shy at first. She's an older dog, six years old already. adjusting to the new home and warming up to us and now being like super comfortable around us. I think those were some of the moments that I'll look back on. smile when i see and my wife is a pretty good social media er i don't know can i say that

She's got an Instagram account for the dog. And when I do look at it, I always smile. It's nice to look back at the photos. So that's my answer, I think. Oh, that's such a beautiful name for the dog as well. That's so nice. I love that.

you know the the translation it sounds really nice okay and i'm going to jump to the next question if you don't mind andrew as well I'm going to ask you this one. So what is one thing that you started doing in 2025 that you want to keep in your life next year going into 2026? Hmm, what is one thing that I started doing? Okay, so this year I started getting into...

web development and a little bit of programming more so than I ever have in the past. And I think that's because it's starting to become more and more and more accessible for people who just have a little bit of... Programming knowledge or computer knowledge, like me, because of AI. So really when I say I'm doing the web development, I'm doing the programming, it's mostly AI doing these types of things, but I'm finding that my ideas can come to life.

now because of using these kind of new tools that are available to us so i started getting into it in a big way i've been building games i built this really cool game that Maybe I can share with everybody. It's kind of like a geography game for helping me memorize all of the different districts in Seoul. So it's like a quiz game. I know...

Anna, that you like geography, so maybe I can show you this game. Yes, I love that. Okay, I'm interested. Yeah. Yeah, so I made this geography game. I've been making other games and experimenting with... even games for learning English and all of this kind of stuff. So I'm having fun, I think. Now with AI, as long as you have some creative ideas, the tools can help you make those ideas a reality. So I've got lots of ideas, but not a lot of skill, but I can.

let the AI do all of the heavy lifting and bring these to life. So yeah, it's been really fun. Something that I've been experimenting with and probably will continue to do. Oh, wow. Well, Angie, now you're going to make mine look pathetic. No, no. What's really cool and interesting? Mine's like really bad. Okay, so. How about yours then?

Well, I have to say that actually building on from that, and you were mentioning about the geography quiz, which I have to say, one of the things I started doing in 2025 was trying to learn all the countries and capital cities of the world. I'm done with Europe. I'm moving on to Africa now. So I've got a little bit stuck. I haven't been practicing over the last couple of weeks or so. So that is something I am going to carry through into next year.

So it's really hard because there's a lot of capital cities, for example, that I don't know. So that is one thing. But the other thing that I actually wrote down before we recorded was cooking. Cooking, okay. Yes. My mum... started this book which is it's called the fast 800 this is a little plug but it's a it's a great book anyway i'm not on a diet because i don't really count calories i've never been like that but

she used to make these meals and every time I would go home she'd make these really nice healthy meals and I was like mum what is this book so she gave me the book and over the last I would say three months I've been cooking with that book and I absolutely love it because it's simple it's easy it's not like one of these books that's like you've got 50 steps and you've got to have all these different herbs from

really obscure places or whatever. It's just simple ingredients, put it together, but in a really tasty way. And I've enjoyed that so much. And my partner as well is also really happy with my newly acquired... culinary skills yeah i bet yeah so i will definitely be taking that into 2026 and doing some more recipes

more recipes from the book. But yeah, I've really enjoyed that. I didn't know I would enjoy cooking, but there's something really nice about starting something with the ingredients, making it, and then at the end being something really nice. There's something

Yeah, it's like a sense of satisfaction doing that, you know, it's good. Yeah, I love that. Cooking is very satisfying and it's something that you can do rather quickly, right? You can sort of put together a delicious dish and not too much time, not too much effort. The sense of satisfaction that you get from that is so high. So it's a great payoff, I think. Awesome.

Okay, let's move on to the next question, which is kind of the opposite. Do you have a habit or routine that fell apart this year? And why do you think it fell apart? I have had a couple of things like, for example, I'm going to bed a lot later in the past couple of months and I'm not really sure why. I'm still sleeping enough, but I'm just going to bed a lot later. So I really need to.

hit that on the head in the new year and try to go to bed a little bit earlier i've kind of just got into like you know when you just get into a bad routine and it's a couple of weeks and then it's really hard to shake so that's definitely one and then also another thing that was really kind of sad is that Every morning at about half past 11, I would go for a break and go for a coffee with one of my family members. And unfortunately, because...

They've been traveling a lot. I've been quite busy. We've kind of lost that routine of going for a coffee in the morning, which I really, really liked because it was a chance for me to see them speak Spanish, catch up. So, you know, I would like to try and maybe see if we could.

put that back in the calendar next year maybe not every day but yeah those are a couple of things that have just sort of fallen by the wayside this year completely but yeah what about you Andrew anything that you used to do that you're not doing as much now? Probably a lot of things. I think I start a lot of things and then stop doing them. Unfortunately, I just dabble a lot. Yeah, recently I was wanting to...

be a little bit more mindful of my eating habits and what I eat and how many calories I'm consuming. I especially wanted to track that. I want to lose a couple of kilograms just for marathoning and running. I think I saw this really shocking video online. I was watching this video.

And it's quite funny. It was with one of the top Korean track coaches, running coaches, and he was coaching this really elite athlete. And this video that they shot was in the summer and all the guys were running around the track. with no shirts on. And the top coach looked at this runner who is in...

impeccable shape, a great runner, and anybody would look at him and be like, this guy is a stud. And the coach was like, you got to lose some weight. If you want to speed up, you got to lose some weight. And that shocked me because I look totally different than those guys and so I was like ah me too for my running I should lose a few kilograms nothing crazy but drop a few and so I

thought, okay, I'm going to get serious about this and track my calories and write down what I eat and not even really try to go on a diet, but just be mindful of what I eat. And that lasted for about a week. And then... I just couldn't be bothered to weigh how much food, how many grams of rice I'm eating each meal and stuff. So yeah, it was just too bothersome. I kind of gave up on that. So yeah, I think that's one thing I stopped doing and also sleep, Anna.

You kind of stole my answer there. Sorry. No, it's okay. I think for me as well, especially over the last month, or two. I don't know if it's because I'm busier in my life or maybe because of the seasonal change. I think seasons have a big effect on our sleep, but I feel like I've been going to sleep later and later.

I haven't been really sleeping in later in the morning either. So I'm kind of not getting as much sleep as I should. So two kind of unhealthy habits that I need to nip in the bud for 2026, I think. Yep. Well, sleep is just one of those things, isn't it? It's so, so important. That's one thing that I've realized this year is I've actually slept well this year, but just going to bed later so that, like you said, I just want to hit that.

nip it in the bud. I love that expression next year too. And Andrew, I'm going to jump in straight with the next question as well.

This time, I want to ask you about something you've bought. So what is something you've bought in 2025 that actually improved your life? Thinking about Q-lips here, we got a new camera that... has made my life so much easier for doing the bonus episodes which I release.

every week or almost every week. And I film them and put the video version up on YouTube. So guys, if you haven't checked out our YouTube channel, go on over there and give us a subscribe. We're almost at, well, not almost, but... 10,000 subscribers away from 100,000. Wow. If we hit 100,000, we can get the cool YouTube button. So guys, go on over and subscribe if you're not a subscriber yet. But we got this. cool little camera and it's like super, super small and it just...

It's handheld. It's really like smaller than a smartphone. It's super, super tiny. And it's made my life so much easier because before when I would do video stuff for Q-Lips, it would be, you know, setting up tripods and... cameras and lenses and blah, blah, blah. And it was a lot of work. And now it's just super, super easy to set up and record. So it saved me time and I think looks better as well.

So I'm going to say that that little camera by a company called DJI has been awesome this year. Yeah. How about for you?

kind of the same it's all like technology things for example my wireless headphones i don't know why it took me so long to get on that bandwagon like I would never go back now the ones that I'm wearing to do my classes or whatever like they are just a lifesaver because I used to have the ones with a wire like a cable and now I just feel free and liberated with my wireless headphones so I love those also just

basic things like getting a good iphone charger that actually charges properly it doesn't take like three hours to charge your phone and I think that but I think the thing that's improved my life the most hands down now I'm not sure if you'll get this Andrew but if you know you know is a blow dry brush so Let me explain. This is like a brush which blow dries your hair and it's basically, you don't have to, you don't have to use a hairdryer and then another.

appliance like straighteners for example so you just use the blow dry brush like a brush you just dry your hair and it is the best thing ever I would never ever go back i don't need a hairdryer anymore it's so convenient it makes your hair looks super good so blow dry brush that is my big secret of 2025 so i like

I just love it. It makes my life so much better. And I would be sad if I didn't have one. Nice. Yeah. I know what those are, but no experience with them, unfortunately. Well, that's what I said, but they are. If you have hair and if you have like longer hair and you like to style it and so that it sits nicely, it is a really inexpensive. I think mine was like, I don't know, 40 euros or something like that. It's a really inexpensive alternative and you don't need any of this.

of posh expensive brands or anything like that you just need a a decent one and oh it just saves me so much time like you said before so much time it looks makes my hair look great oh I just love it. I don't know what took me so long to buy one. Cool. Okay. How about the other end of the spectrum? Is there anything you bought this year that's like not so good or that you regret buying?

Anything like that? Yeah, I bought this to make poached eggs. I was kind of the marketing of like, here's a little poached egg maker. So a poached egg is when you just put the egg in water and it makes it... that makes the egg that way and so I thought oh that sounds great so you could buy these little makers where you put the egg inside and and it was just awful

I tried using it. I just cannot get it to work. Like, I just don't think it's a very good product. So it was like 10 euros. I mean, it wasn't a huge investment. But that was just completely... useless and then the other thing that I did buy was I bought this because I have quite a lot of mics probably like you as well Andrew so I have my headphones I have a reserve pair of headphones and I also bought like a

one that just goes over one year so it's it's it's for if you're traveling for example and it's not that I regret it I just don't use it enough to make it worth how much I spent on it But I will have to try and see if I can use it a little bit more in in 2026. So, yeah, just a couple of things, really. I try to really research my stuff before I buy it to try and make sure that that doesn't doesn't happen. But sometimes.

you know, this little terrible poached egg maker, just going to sit there probably for years without being used. What about you? Yeah, I'm trying to think of something. Nothing immediately comes to mind, which is great. I think maybe the only example I can give, and it's not even a great example because it's not like we spent a lot of money on this or anything, but there was a clothing sale here for...

were a popular brand, and it was an online sale. And it was kind of a time-limited sale, so you had to act quickly before the sale finished. And I don't know about in Europe these days, but here... in seoul and a lot of the fashion for guys and for ladies as well especially for i don't know for younger people maybe and i'm not young at all but kind of like maybe 40 and under let's say i'm like

right at the upper limit, but a lot of like loose fitting clothes, baggy pants, baggy shirts, oversized, you know, like this is really trendy and in these days. And so a lot of these clothes were were that kind of like oversized fit. And they look great on the models on the website and stuff. And my wife has some clothes from this brand and she looks great in them. And so it was this limited.

got to act fast kind of sale. And my wife was like, do you want to try this kind of like oversized, you know, trendy look? And I was like, yeah, okay. Yeah, let's do it. And so we bought some pants and a shirt. And then they came and they just looked like so bad on me, just like not good for my body shape at all. And I just looked like a drowning rat, you know, in these clothes.

We couldn't return them. There was something like it was all sales final. Couldn't return them. It wasn't a ton of money, but yeah, they're just sitting in my closet and I don't think I've ever worn them. Yeah.

That's a shame. It's funny, isn't it? Because the oversized look and all these different fashion trends that come and go, you know, sometimes it's really tempting to be like, oh, I'll try that out. But I've learned from my mistakes there as well, where I've tried to follow a trend and actually just looks.

hideous of me the oversized look for example just makes me look because I'm quite short well pretty short I it just there's just something about it that makes me look enormous or number one it makes me look enormous or it just makes me look just shorter than I am it's it's it's odd I just I just don't suit it I don't suit that style and some people really do but I I'm definitely not in that in that category unfortunately you'll have to find an occasion Andrew where you can

an oversized clothes convention, perhaps. Halloween or something. Yeah, something like that. I know. Maybe when I'm painting the home or something, I can wear them as painting clothes. I'm not sure, but yeah.

Have to try and find some use. Yeah. Okay. Why don't we move on to the next one? Let's see. What are we on? We are on number eight. Okay. So what is a trend or cultural moment from this year? that really screams 2025 to you? Something that you'll always think like, yeah, this was 2025 in a nutshell. Well, I'm not sure if it's 2025 in a nutshell, but this is the first thing that popped into my head and it was...

the Coldplay concert. Do you remember when there was the concert and the two people from the same company were in the like Kiss Cam or whatever it was that they were doing there? Like that blew up. That was crazy because I just think that whole situation of the fact that the day before they were completely unknown to the world and then like 12 hours later.

they were literally viral throughout the world. Like I think that for me was in a way encapsulates the kind of society we live in now about virality, for example, that you can literally be completely unknown. You go to bed, you wake up and you're like, oh my goodness. And I don't know, I always think about that and everybody gives their opinion on it, what they were doing and things. And I'm like... yeah i get it it's not good but do they really deserve to be viral around the world like that's

That was just crazy. Like, honestly, it was just nuts. And I think everyone could relate to that. Like, if that were me, or if that were someone I knew, like... It's just crazy. It's just nuts. So I think that's one thing that really stuck out for me as quite a cultural moment that everybody was talking about, at least here, for example. But yeah, it was nuts.

For listeners who lived under a rock this year and don't know this story, Coldplay, the band from the UK, they did a big world tour this year. And I guess during one of the songs they would play at their concerts, they would scan. the camera around through the stadium and you know put a couple random couples in focus and then the idea is that you could encourage them to kiss right we call this a kiss cam and you often see it at sporting events as well

And so one of the couples that got focused in the lens of the camera was this couple that were embracing each other. And it turned out that they were having an affair and they... had different wives and husbands, I guess. And they got caught and they tried to hide, right? Probably if they had just done nothing and sort of like laughed it off, but they immediately both kind of...

tried to hide and get off camera. And then because of that, people looked into it more and they found out that they worked at the same company and they were... I think, C-level executives at this company that they worked for. And so it just went viral around the world. And yeah, probably ruined their lives, I would imagine.

I mean I think both of them resigned or they were fired I'm not sure exactly but yeah that's the kind of thing right it's like a huge impact on their lives and completely unexpected as well i mean they were they didn't ask to be put on the kiss cam you know so it raises all sorts of questions really i mean i guess when you go to a concert probably when you buy the ticket you agree to be filmed

But you do kind of think otherwise, you know, unknowingly you could be part of the next viral video that goes around the world. So yeah, that was something that really stuck out for me. What about you?

For me, I'm going to go back to AI because I feel like this was the year of AI slop, AI slop. And for listeners who don't know this expression, AI slop, this is what we call all of the... content that's generated by AI that is just very very low quality and low effort so it could be text it could be video it could be images anything I think this is really the year where these tools

became accessible to everyone and everybody experimented with them. Remember like the Studio Ghibli images? Like everybody made a Studio Ghibli style image of themselves. this year and put it on their Instagram. And like, yeah, that went viral. That trend went viral for like a week, right? And then disappeared. But yeah, we're seeing so many fake videos, deep fakes. just like really poorly generated content everywhere online. So for me, I think this is the AI slop here.

That's a really good point as well, Andrew, because another thing I noticed as well as a trend was those models as well, AI models in advertisements as well, modeling clothes and things like this. And you kind of have to take a second glance because you look at it and you're like, wow, they look amazing. And then you're like, hold on a second that hair looks really smooth and blended together and then you're like ah okay that's it that's an ai model it's not even a real person yeah that's

crazy yeah this year it made the jump to the point where it's like it's almost real is it real you know like we're right on the edge with some of this content And not knowing if it's real or not, I think that finally became a reality this year. And it'll be interesting to see next year if we go... over the edge and the technology gets good enough where it's like we can't tell if it's real or fake anymore or if we've kind of hit the limit so time will tell we'll see but i think

this year was the year of the slop, at least with everybody experimenting and making so much. Okay, let's go on to the next question. And this one's about travel. Did you have a great travel experience in 2025? I have to say, not really. 25 hasn't been a big travel time for me. I've just gone kind of back and forth to the UK. I haven't done a lot of traveling this year, but I think the only thing that stuck out was, I don't know what is going on at the moment, but the landings in the plane.

this year for me have been awful. I don't know why, but they seem to be really bumpy. And whenever I've landed in the UK this year, and I normally fly into Edinburgh or London, I used to be fine with the landing. And yeah, just for some context, I can fly. I don't particularly like flying. I like to be on the ground. So I'm happy when the wheels... touch the ground at the end. I'm good with that. But I don't know what it is, but flying seems to be more turbulent. The landings seem to be...

Really scary, actually. I've had a couple of scary landings this year, especially flying into Edinburgh, which I have not particularly enjoyed. So yeah, no particular travel moments, just maybe my fear of flying has slightly increased. this year. But yeah, that's it. And you? Well, I had some great travel experiences and some, yeah, some...

less than pleasant travel experiences when I got food poisoning in Japan. But before that, before my time in Japan, I went to Hawaii. That was awesome. And I talked a lot about... that trip to Hawaii. So if listeners want to go back who didn't catch those episodes, you can go back to the bonus episodes from earlier in 2025.

and listen to those. But I think that was the peak for me visiting Hawaii with my wife for a week. It was just absolutely fantastic, amazing, wonderful. And yeah, one of the travel highlights for me from last year.

Okay, Anna, let's move on to the next one. Let's do it. So what is something you've cooked, watched, or listened to this year that became an unexpected favourite? Something that I cooked or watched or listened to. Always I listen to lots of great music. I think for me... 2025 was the year that I got into jazz music in a really, really massive way. And especially like the classic jazz music.

I use Apple Music as my music app. And I just recently got the year in review that gives you like a summary of all the different music that you listen to throughout the year. And I think eight out of the 10 artists were jazz artists. Number one was Herbie Hancock, the great pianist. And yeah, Miles Davis was up there as well. So I think...

It was cool exploring and learning about jazz in a way that I hadn't done before in the past and just, yeah, discovering a lot of amazing, amazing music. But nothing that I would say was like... from 2025. It was mostly from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. I think there are still a lot of great current jazz artists.

But not like back in the day. It seemed like back in the day in the 60s and 70s and earlier than that even. That was just such a really fruitful time of jazz music. Not as much anymore. But I think that was what I got into for listening.

this year jazz how about you anna i don't know there's a couple of things i guess maybe this year we've watched a couple of like horror movies scary movies and normally I wouldn't pick that at all but for some reason I don't know what it is but I used to get quite scared watching horror movies but I don't know whether it's just because I'm like really busy now I'm just like I just don't

they don't stick in my mind like they used to. Like I don't watch them and then think about them afterwards. So that frees me up now to watch sort of these. horror thriller type of movie. So I've watched a couple of those and really enjoyed it. There was one which was really unexpected that we watched, which was called The Barbarian. And it was just a really weird horror film, but really good.

Totally unexpected, loads of twists. So I really recommend it if you guys like horror movies. And then maybe something I've cooked because I was talking about cooking earlier. I never, ever used to cook.

rice or lentils like ever I just to be honest it's because I didn't really know how to cook them but I just never used to cook those those things I don't eat as much rice now but I learned the perfect way to cook rice every time so that was great and one of my unexpected but favorite dishes is pesto lentils which is this really nice combination of vegetables lentils pesto and it's

incredible it's like one of my favorite dishes that I made I made it last night actually so I've got some leftovers for today which I'm looking forward to eating so yeah that was one of my recipes from this book that I learned which I didn't think I would like at all but actually it was

amazing and i love cooking it and eating it eating it even better to be honest sounds delicious yeah it's really good i'll have to give you the recipe it's it's it's lovely so yeah those are those are some unexpected favorites this year

Nice. Okay. Moving on to our next question. It is, what is a moment when you felt proud of yourself in 2025? Maybe I'll answer this one really quickly because I just spent the last QLips bonus episode or maybe when our listeners hear this episode. It might have been a week or two ago, but I...

finished a marathon in November and I broke my personal record. I was very proud of that. I told the story in the bonus episode, so I won't repeat it again here, but I think that was my proudest moment of 2025. How about you, Anna? What was your... What was your high point in 2020? Again, you're going to make me look bad here because I did not do a marathon this year. I don't know. I think I was thinking about this the other day.

The other day I was trying to write down, because sometimes you forget, right, some of the things that you've done. If you don't write it down, you don't think about it, you just forget and then you feel like you haven't done anything. But when I went back this year, I was proud about becoming completely self-employed.

this year so that was one thing that I I did earlier this year so now I'm full-time working for myself and I think you know sometimes it's really hard and and blah blah blah but I'm proud of that I think sometimes I have to sort of pinch myself a little bit and think wow I mean I with the support of other people as well of course like I've created that and set that up myself and a little bit like you Andrew I do a podcast regularly so

you know all of these things I'm really proud that I did that and proud that I just keep it up because sometimes it can be really hard to keep up that type of thing and I'm still doing my public speaking group as well which I've continued this year so I haven't had like a major, huge milestone, but I think, yeah, being fully self-employed for me is a, I'm proud of myself for that. I'm proud of that.

Yeah, and I'm proud of you for that as well. That's amazing. That's not easy to do. So awesome. It's really a great accomplishment. Cool. Okay, moving on, Anna, because we have just a few more here, but we're...

Going a little long, so let's do it real rapid fire. The next one is, what is one thing you wish you had done earlier this year? Maybe something that you started, but you're like, I wish I had started that earlier.

Oh, loads of stuff. I mean, goodness, I'd have a long list here. Probably, I would say, as a quick answer, getting my wisdom teeth taken out, because I'm going to get... probably get Invisalign or some kind of thing here and I didn't get them taken out until November and I probably should have just got it done earlier in the year and then I could have just got on with it and moved the process forward. So yes, earlier wisdom teeth extraction, I would say. And you? Okay. For me, stretching.

I think stretching. Unfortunately, that marathon that I just mentioned kind of injured myself. I'm not sure what's going on, but... It's been over a month and every time I run, I'm in pain these days. So I started stretching and doing some strength and conditioning exercises to try and mitigate some of that pain. And it's really been helping.

And it's kind of one of those things. It's like you just sort of regret. You're like, why didn't I do this the whole time? Why didn't I start doing this earlier? So maybe I'm kind of... Yeah, paying for my past sins of doing no stretching in the past. So I think stretching is my answer. Gotta stretch. Yes, stretching is very important.

And as the next question, Andrew, what is a skill? I know you mentioned before you've been looking into a lot of AI stuff, but what is another skill maybe you started learning or improving in 2025? You know what? I don't think I've tried doing too much new other than... playing around with some of the game making and web developing and programming stuff, trying to think if I tried to learn any other skills.

I don't think so. You know what? I think I'm always just trying to get better at the things that I'm already doing, which are mainly CULIPS. I want to be an awesome English teacher and podcaster. I also want to be a great Korean speaker and I want to be a fast runner. Those are like my three main focuses right now. So I try to dedicate all my effort towards those three things in terms of like.

personal development. I also want to be a great husband and a good brother and a good son and all of these things related to family as well. But for my personal development, it's those three skills. And I feel like if I try to add... you know, learn more new things and add more things into my life that is just going to make those other ones not grow as quickly. So I try not to learn. I know that sounds bad, but I...

I really don't want to learn too many more new things. I just want to get better at the things I'm already interested in. Cool. Yeah, no, makes perfect sense. I get that. I get that. How about you? Yeah, I mean, as I said before, I've continued going to my public speaking group. So my presentation skills, and that's exactly the same thing as you, Andrew. It's improving what I've already learned. And then maybe the thing that I absolutely started from scratch.

was tennis. Wow. Cool. I mean, absolutely horrendous. So this is... because my partner's been playing tennis like his whole life. And he was like, I'd really love it if we could play tennis together. And I'm like, okay, but you've got 30 years of practice on me. So I think this is going to be a little bit painful for you. So we did start and I did start.

Sort of trying to learn the technique and stuff. But honestly, it's so hard. Tennis is such a technical sport. But I'm trying. I'm going to try in 2026 to get up to at least a basic beginner level. That was that feeling of, you know, starting something where you're just so bad, so bad at the beginning. It's really hard to motivate yourself to keep going. So that is something that I just started absolutely from scratch. But I think I'm going to.

migrate across to paddle, which maybe if you're a tennis player, you're going to sort of wince at that. But paddle is just a little bit more accessible, a little bit easier to sort of get going. And then maybe I'll go back to tennis as well. So let's see.

The nice thing about being a beginner, though, is if you just keep at it for a little while, you can really, really improve your skill, right? And you can go from a beginner to an intermediate level pretty quickly, usually like maybe a year or so of just...

keeping at it. And then to go from intermediate to advanced, as I think all of our listeners know with their English and me with my Korean too, is like getting to those high, high levels takes a lot of time, but getting to the like, you can enjoy it. You're not bad at it. It doesn't take too much time. So keep it up, Anna. I think you'll get there. Maybe. And the next question, Andrew, I'm going to ask you here is...

We're going to talk about nice things, which is lovely. What is the nicest thing somebody did for you this year? The nicest thing somebody did for me this year. It's too hard to just say the one thing. I had a... I have a colleague who I work with often who always goes above and beyond to be helpful. And so I can't go into too many details about it, but that person in particular really helped me out a lot this year.

Of course, my wife always does nice things for me. That's why I married her is because she's a very kind and lovely person. And so she's always helping me out. You know, sometimes if I'm tired, she'll say, oh, just. sleep in for an extra hour. I'll take the dog out for a walk in the morning. Some things like that are always really kind. My mother-in-law just came back from a trip and she bought me some mittens.

And some running socks as well from Japan. So like that was awesome. Wasn't expecting that. So yeah, there's always people who are treating me kindly. I'm very blessed in that way. That's lovely. Do you have like one particular moment or one particular action that stands out to you? You talked about the compliment you received at the top of the episode, but anything else?

Well, of course, apart from family, friends, partner, which of course always do nice things. I was actually thinking about people who listen to the podcast, my podcast, Confident Business English. And maybe they would send me an email or they write a comment. Or they donate and they buy me a coffee and they support me like that. Those are some really nice comments that people leave. And I'm sure for you as well, Andrew, when you get really great feedback about the podcast.

Even though maybe they don't feel like, oh, it's just a comment or whatever. It's so nice that they take the time out of their day to write to me.

say you know that really helped me or that really was very encouraging or motivating or whatever like that is really nice to do that because for people who create content or podcasts is quite a lonely sort of job because you kind of just do it by yourself and you just put it out there into the world so to get that type of feedback is it's really nice to hear that and also

suggestions as well but i would say those are some of the nicest things that people do for me is send me a little email or they write a comment somewhere or they recommend it to someone like that it's a really nice thing to do that it's really motivating for me to keep going and know that I'm on the right track so thank you very much if you've left me a comment or said something nice this year

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, Anna, because I couldn't agree more. And I think we're very blessed and very lucky because literally every day I get to sit at my computer and read something nice, like literally every day. Somebody sends me a nice message or, you know, saying I learned so much with you or keep going. You're doing great. And it's like. How lucky am I that I get to read all this great feedback every day? That's very unique, very special. And of course...

I love it. It feels great to read those kind of comments, but I'm really, really thankful just as you are to all of our listeners out there who support us and encourage us and motivate us. And it is great to know that there are people listening on the other end because...

You know, we're just kind of like talking here one-on-one, Anna, and you're like, will anybody listen to it? And so if you guys don't send a comment or a message or a DM, then we don't really know. So it's nice to get that reassurance from listeners. Yeah, we're blessed to get that nice feedback from everybody. So thank you guys so much for doing that.

And Anna, let's get to our very, very final question here. The last one, which is looking forward. Finally, not looking back, looking forward. Do you have a prediction? about you or the world for 2026 that you want to make? Goodness me. Well, from a world perspective, absolutely no idea. Who knows? Who knows what we're going to get our way in 2026. But then from my perspective, I think the word that pops out to me is just like more, like meet more people, try more things.

learn more, grow more, just do more things, I think, and take on more challenges, push myself out of my comfort zone more, that type of thing. So yeah, I think just more stuff. And I think specifically for me, it's just trying more things, trying out things that work, things that don't work and just going for it a little bit more, I think. And that can sometimes be hard when you have your own business and you really have to put yourself out there.

And that could be quite intimidating and scary. So I really want to try and work on that and push myself to get over some of those obstacles next year. But hopefully lots of fun times and good times too. And I'm sure there will be difficult things as well. But hopefully I'll be able to face them and be resilient. So let's see. Who knows? That's always the exciting thing. You never know what's coming up, right? What about you, Andrew? I'm going to go in.

the exact opposite direction of you, Anna. And I was actually smiling while you were saying that because I'm going to go with the word less. I'm going to try and do less, more time for rest, more time for quiet. more time for just taking it easy. And of course, I'm a very ambitious person. I love to improve. I'm very competitive. I love beating other people, which can be unhealthy sometimes, I know.

I'm very like motivated to grow and become a better person. And I'm also, yeah, just ambitious. I want to do more and more and more. But I think there's a limit and I'm starting to feel a little bit. older now that I'm getting into my 40s and I'm like, maybe it's time to slow down just a little bit, take a little bit extra time to relax and enjoy.

you know, quiet mornings instead of always hopping on my computer and getting to work. So I think I'm going to try and take one little tiny step back for 2026. And find some quiet and some time to relax and rest. And yeah, I think sometimes when we do less, we can actually achieve more. And so I'm going to try and less is more for 2026. We'll see how it goes.

Yeah, so you're a less is more, I'm more is more. So we'll have to see how that goes. We'll have to, at the end of 2026, we'll have to see if we met that objective. Yeah, let's compare this time next year. Yeah, great. Cool. All right. Well, Anna, that's going to bring us to the end. And of course, guys, we want to throw it out to you and hear what you have to say about your...

2025 and also your predictions for 2026. So the best way to share your thoughts about this topic is on our discord community. It's free for everyone to join. It's the place where QLips listeners. gather and hang out and improve our English together. We always have every day great discussions over there. So if you haven't joined us yet, just follow the link that's in the description for this episode and you can do that. And we'll also have...

a full helpful study guide for this episode and an interactive transcript, a quiz, writing and discussion questions. And we also have speaking classes as well, where you can join with me and the other QLips teachers to practice. practice your English speaking and get feedback from us and meet other highly motivated English learners just like yourself.

If you would like to get access to all of these great resources, just visit our website, QLips.com and you can sign up and become a member for an affordable price. Okay. Anna, I think that's going to bring us to the end. Happy New Year, and we'll talk in 2026. All right. Happy New Year. See you in 2026. Bye, everybody.