Year-end reflection
Dec. 26th, 2021 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormkeeper_lovedorisThe year is almost over, I may as well take some time to reflect on it.
Work
I almost wrote that nothing much happened here, but there's a lot I can put here. First, I continued working from home till October, and then went in 1 day per week. Early in the year, I interviewed for a DEI role but didn't get it. I completed Cornell University's certification in Project Management. My team had a big, in-person meeting early in December, and I stayed at a hotel the first night - something I haven't done since early last year.
Fandom
Work
I almost wrote that nothing much happened here, but there's a lot I can put here. First, I continued working from home till October, and then went in 1 day per week. Early in the year, I interviewed for a DEI role but didn't get it. I completed Cornell University's certification in Project Management. My team had a big, in-person meeting early in December, and I stayed at a hotel the first night - something I haven't done since early last year.
Fandom
Pretty much fandom for me this year was all about Spartacus though I still love The 100. I also got pretty into The Outpost but never wrote any fic for it.
And speaking of fic, I started writing Spartacus in 2020 but did most of it this year. A look at the numbers....posted 13 fics, ranging in length from 2,900 words to 40,000. Average kudos on these fics comes to 81.
Books
This was a great year for books! I’ll list my absolute favorites below, like I usually do but even with this long list, there are plenty that didn’t quite make the cut but were still incredible.
Fiction -
o White Houses by Amy Bloom (Note: I finished this just the other day but it will be on whenever my next book report is posted)
o A Song of Flight by Juliet Marillier
o The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
o The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
o Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles
o Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Non fic -
- The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina
- Humans: A Brief History of How We Effed It All Up and Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullshit by Tom Phillips
- A Wild and Precious Life by Edie Windsor with Joshua Lyon
- My Holiday in North Korea by Wendy E. Simmons
- The Less People Know About Us by Axton Betz-Hamilton
- I Have Something to Tell You by Chasten Buttigieg
- Thick and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
- The Purpose of Power by Alicia Garza
- The Fox Hunt by Mohammed al Samawi
- Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad
Friends, family, Doris
I wish I had more to say here. Everything is fine in this area. I guess in general I'm just glad to have a wife, a family, and friends and that most of them seem to be doing at least somewhere between ok and good.
No big vacations thanks to COVID. (And thanks to Doris's work schedule as usual. Never forget that the last 'real' vacation we took was January 2016.) Doris and I did have some nice weekend trips to Galena and Saugatuck this year.
Politics
Volunteered with Postcards to Swing States. (And a bit with the local Dems, on their fundraiser and staffing their table at the farmer's market). I plan to really step up with Postcards in the New Year. There’s no reason not to. It’s decently close to me, there is no annoying phone banking or canvassing, in fact there’s not much contact with anyone else, and it looks like the postcards actually work (https://turnoutpac.medium.com/a-gateway-to-activism-postcards-win-close-elections-5bf7f45da15a)
But yeah, about politics, it does feel like if we can’t get voting rights passed on the federal level that 2022 might be the last elections this country has. One political party has abandoned even saying they care about democracy.
