Monthly #23

Lol these monthly posts are consistently getting done later in the month. At least that’s consistent, right?

November 2025

🇯🇵 TPAC 2025 in Kobe, Japan. Having spent 3 weeks in Japan through October, I was back again in the second week of November for the W3C’s annual TPAC gathering. It was a terrific experience, though was completely draining at the same time. Besides all the peopleing at the conference itself, I had a pretty decent shopping list from Kay of all the things we’d held off on buying on our holiday to Japan which I was supposed to pick up this time around. I knew the supermarkets & shopping streets of Kobe’s Sannomiya area pretty well by the end of the week.

I’ve written more about my time at TPAC in Reflections on TPAC 2025.

🏉 Coaching Youth Touch in Taipei. November also saw the start of the Touch season at the local American school here in Taipei. The girls at the school play Touch, while the boys play Rugby from November through to the end of January. This year I’m back coaching the Junior Varsity team, a challenging task given the wide skill range of the players in the squad, but one that is always rewarding as players develop through the course of the short season.

This year, for the first time, our team also has an end of season tournament which we are training towards! Exciting stuff for all involved.

Tracking start, stop, continue targets

These are my current Start, stop, continue items for 2025. I’ve made one change to the “Start”, removing drinking a glass of water every morning (that’s become habitual) and replaced it with a goal to get 2 days at the gym in each week for the rest of the year.

Start

Tracking habits daily: 😔 Nope. I’m canning this one, it’s not going to happen.

Carrying a water bottle with me: 😔 Not really, as the temperatures have gone down a bit I don’t feel the urge to hydrate while I’m out.

2 days at the gym each week: 😅 No, it’s just not possible with coaching time being squeezed in around Green Web Foundation work.

Making a weekly “Links & Listens” list: 😅 Haven’t updated the links page in a while, sorry.

Cooking more regularly: 😔 Nope.

Stop

Reaching for sugary (fizzy) drinks: 😔 Nope. Japan. Convenience stores.

Not waiting for things to be perfect before releasing them:😅 Nope. Working on some major changes to our verification process at work, which is probably something we’d want to have close to finalised before putting it out there~

Continue

Trying to get Touch into more local schools in Taiwan: 😔 Nope. Things have been quiet on this front.

Getting in a 20-30 minute walk during the day: 😄 Yes! Much walking around Kobe especially.