Recently in January '26

January went in a blur: it feels like 2026 has just begun, and yet the first month is already gone. It reminds me of what my parents always say: the time goes by very fast, and it gets worse with age. Maybe I'm sort of getting to the point where I start noticing it more and more. 🍄 Life A Snow Angel January started with a beautiful blanket of snow, which I've made sure to share multiple times. I really enjoy snow, and the "opportunities" it offers. I've even made a snow angel! That was the first one of my life, but I hope not the last! Fortunately, the snow cleared up before it was time to go vote in the Portuguese presidential elections, because the trains in the Netherlands are snowflakes - you see what I did there? As expected, none of the 11 valid candidates had a majority, so a second round is coming next weekend. My desire to go and spend around five hours of my life is not that high, but I'm planning to do it anyways. Other than that, no other major event happened this month. Some other things I will mention below. I've also visited friends in other cities, and also had a friend visiting us from the UK. And last weekend I also went to FOSDEM, but a post about that will come later! 💪 Health As I mentioned some time along the month, I started swimming lessons, and I absolutely love it. I'm now in level 3, which is "half-way" there. But that's just because I already had good basis, now it'll take a bit longer to move up the ladder. I really enjoy it, I just think the lessons are too short! I might try going one more time to the swimming pool in some weeks if I have time! I've also had my Invisalign intake, which was a can of worms and I'm not sure what to do about it. It turns out that I not only have an open bite - which I knew -, but I also have a cross bite on the right side of my jaw. That explains why I tend to bite my cheek on that side quite often. However, they think they can only fix the open bite, but not the cross bite, and they say that's probably also the case for more traditional braces: I just don't have a large enough upper jaw and the bone is not thick enough to be able to move those molars. So I'm at this crossroad trying to evaluate whether it's worth the probably 2 years of treatment to close my bite, or not. 🍿 Entertainment We finally saw RAYE 🎤 live in her new This Tour May Contain New Music tour. It. Was. Just. Incredible. And. Amazing. She brought a mini orchestra with her, her voice is astonishing, and the show was just... Wow. If you don't know her, I'd recommend giving a try. RAYE at the Ziggo Dome When it comes to movies 🍿, we saw Eternity, Rental Family and Wake Up Dead Man. If I had to recommend only one, I'd say Rental Family, it was funny to see the clash of American and Japanese cultures, as well as dive into some of Japan's interesting cultural bits. When it comes to series 📺, we've watched too much, so I'm just going to list them: Stranger Things (finally!), Slow Horses, Pose, Drops of God, Percy Jackson, Overcompensating and Heated Rivalry. Some we binged, some had the last episodes released this month. That was all! Until next time!