[5/16-5/22] 2026 Goal Progress

This week was the week I went to the orthopedic clinic. Just when I thought I'd mostly recovered from being sick, now I'm visiting the hospital for an injury. Things just don't go smoothly.

That said, in exchange, this was also a week where running AI tasks in parallel finally felt like a real, settled operation.

Health

Sciatica from New Shoes and Flip-Flops, Orthopedic Visits

This week I hurt the back of my hand and my foot/ankle, so I was going to the orthopedic clinic. Home training was just a little dumbbell press, and I deliberately took a break from exercise.

The cause, when I asked the doctor, was surprisingly stupid.

The new shoes I bought didn't fit my feet, so I was walking with a weird compensating gait
As a result, my calf muscles stiffened and pressed on a nerve, producing sciatica-like symptoms
For extra punishment, I ran around in flip-flops, which piled more strain on

Total self-inflicted damage. That said, with treatment, the pain has dropped significantly and I'm trending toward recovery.

Sleep Stable, Tired Enough at Night to Sleep Well

Sleep was good again this week.

Wake up properly in the morning
Can act right after waking up
No headaches

My daily rhythm didn't fall apart, and I kept a morning-ish lifestyle. Even though I'm not exercising, I fall asleep at night feeling "tired", so apparently some kind of fatigue is still building up. That's not a bad thing.

Smoking: "Forced Smoke-Free Week" Starts Next Week

Smoking-wise, I still feel like the count is decreasing (I'm not strictly counting).

And next week, I'm going on a ~1-week trip to a country where you can't smoke e-cigarettes. I'll keep the destination private.

Which means a basically forced smoke-free lifestyle is about to start, and I should get used to it now. Going back to paper cigarettes is absolutely off the table, so this should be a pretty effective forcing function.

Work

AI Dev Flow: Finally Hit the "Improve the Precision" Phase

This week's highlight continues to be renovating the AI-driven development flow.

For all the things I've built up in a rush so far, I could finally focus on:

Improving precision of each piece
Cleaning up flaky, unstable spots
Raising the quality of each component

The next steps came into view, so I'm actually starting on them and entering the validation phase.

Next Up: QA Testers × AI — Expanding Beyond Engineering

As cloud-based verification became more efficient, the QA load has gone up significantly. New challenge.

So here's what I'm working on next:

Workflows that let AI execute QA
Test endpoints that prep data so testing is easier
A service-specific MCP server so all of that can be invoked naturally

The workflow where engineers review AI-created PRs is taking root internally. Next, this expands beyond engineering — to QA human testers using AI-generated test cases/results to make merge decisions.

There's a path where they then feed back into skill updates and brush-ups. "AI workflows reach roles beyond engineering" is a pretty good direction, I think.

Challenges: "Mountain of Conflicts" and "Manual Infra"

There are issues too.

For auto-generated tasks, the "each one is small but there are tons of them" case. When merging to develop/main, other PRs all conflict — happens a lot.

I have a conflict-resolution workflow, but it needs GitHub Actions to set up the environment first before it can run — still room for improvement.

On top of that, new projects are slowly coming in, and infra setup (Terraform stuff) is still partly manual. Want to make that more efficient too, but the frequency isn't that high, so priority isn't that high either. Probably a luxury problem.

Money

Took Profit Twice This Month, Goal Progress at 60%

On the US stock I've been holding all year, I successfully bought the dip and sold the high — twice — just this month.

That brings me to about 60% of my yearly goal. At this pace, I should be able to clear this year's target.

…easy to say in writing, but it only works because I'm watching closely and timing carefully. I want to keep this up.

Paid Note: From Validation to "Actual Try"

The paid-note project is going well too.

This week I did various validations, and finally moved into the actual try phase. I'm excited and having fun with it. More updates eventually.

Duolingo 141 Days, AI Call Feature Now JP/EN

Duolingo is at 141 consecutive days.

Recently, Duolingo's AI call feature got upgraded to let you converse with AI in either Japanese or English. This is really good. I'm continuing while focusing on the call feature.

It's also a refresher on the English I learned for college entrance exams, plus I'm learning new things — I'm enjoying my English study.

Environment-Wide English Switch, X (Twitter) Goes English Too

To accelerate English learning, I'm pushing an environment-wide English switch.

LINE with friends
PC and phone settings

All flipped to English to build an environment where English naturally crosses my field of view. Getting used to it.

An interesting side effect: my X (Twitter) habits changed.

In Japanese I can find random posts and casually enjoy them
In English I can't read everything → time on X drops
I only understand info that's truly necessary in English, falling back to the original Japanese text when I don't get it
For English articles, I slowly read from the top, a bit at a time

Unintended side effect: less time on X. Not bad at all.

Closing

This week had lots of hospital visits, plus family things, so time was often tight.

Even so, I didn't drop my usual work output — that's the AI-driven operation paying off.

Have AI run about 3 things in parallel while I do other stuff
For personal projects, always-on AI loops are in place

As a result, the total amount I get done in a day has dramatically increased. Want to keep this going.

For next week:

Continue the AI-delegated operation
Manage my health
Treat the injury

And, I'm going on the trip next week. No blog post next Friday — please bear with me. I'll also be doing the forced smoke-free week out there.

I'll keep at it.