115 lines
9 KiB
Markdown
115 lines
9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "2020: In Review"
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date: 2021-01-09
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excerpt: A remarkable year.
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tags: ["year recap"]
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---
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How do you even begin to summarize the whirlwind that was 2020? What are the Greatest Hits? Here’s a short list:
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- COVID-19.
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- The president was impeached and nothing happened.
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- Harvey Weinstein was sentenced.
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- The death of George Floyd.
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- The Beirut explosion.
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- Murder hornets.
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- Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s passing.
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- The sucker punch: news of MF DOOM’s passing on the last day of the year.
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When I was young, I always wondered what it would be like to live through a historic event like the Vietnam War, or the AIDS crisis. It feels like I’ve lived through a lifetime of them in the span of a year. And my list isn’t even close to everything that happened in 2020.
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A lot of good things happened this year too:
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- Multiple vaccines for COVID-19.
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- There might be microbial life on Mars! Water on the Moon!
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- [The Pentagon released footage of “unidentified aerial phenomena” (read: UFOs!).][ufos]
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- Working from home had a revolution.
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- Lots of really cool SpaceX launches.
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- [That time that air pollution was so low because of the pandemic.][pollution]
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- Trump lost. And kept losing.
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- [Italian mayors losing their shit telling people to stay home.][mayors]
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- [Olive and Mabel by a sports commentator.][commentator]
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- [Google is being sued by the US for antitrust violations.][antitrust]
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- We got Season 2 of The Mandalorian.
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{% image "https://cdn.wonderfulfrog.com/8deaca3a-3ad8-4a2b-9068-b6ea1b7f7ec1.jpeg", "A screenshot of my phone with a news heading that says 'BIDEN BEATS TRUMP'", "" %}
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I had to search for both positive and negative events because my brain is having enough trouble dealing with the present, let alone reasoning what happened in the past.
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As for me... well...
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## Work
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When 2020 started, I was only 2 months into my new job. A year later and I’ve dug into the work. This year has been such a fantastic reminder of how fortunate I am to work for my company. There is a clear understanding of the events in the world and an implicit assumption that nobody is at (or even near) 100% productivity. There is a tacit acknowledgement that sometimes people need to take a few hours (or more) off to refocus. They care about the humans behind their work.
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It’s also my first workplace that feels “real” — in the sense that we (the company) have core values that we all believe in, and if we don’t meet them the expectation is that we shore up or ship out. I had a sobering reminder of what that means this year. It was like my first year of university. Impostor Syndrome struck its claws into me quite deep this year, as I felt like I was an outsider/impostor working with such a talented group of people across disciplines. I felt anxious and was certain I was going to be axed once the pandemic rolled in. The opposite could not have been more true. Everyone was there to support me and make sure that I landed with two feet. It was an incredible feeling knowing I was valued.
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I’ve found my groove now after a rocky start. Being surrounded by colleagues who value their work and really truly want to do the best can be an invigorating feeling.
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Last year I was excited to get started in iOS development, and started making a super simple (Magic the Gathering) life counter app. It never got beyond the earliest stages though. Then my work ended up going in a very web-focused direction. Now I’m not so sure I want to even have an app on the App Store as my indifference toward Apple seems to grow by the day.
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On the team leadership side of things, I did get the opportunity to lead a small team in creating a Slack app for a not-for-profit company. That was a ton of fun for multiple reasons, but above all it was my first time seeing something the company made (that I had a hand in) live in the real world! It was a real privilege being able to work on it.
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I spent more time working with GraphQL and I feel like it’s becoming a reliable tool in my belt now.
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Lastly, I finally took the time to learn vim. It was (and still is) an uphill battle, but it’s so rewarding being able to accomplish anything I want using just the keyboard. It’s been a few months and I feel like I’m back up to speed with my mouse and keyboard self. Speed aside, it’s been a ton of fun tweaking my editor to have it _just so_, using things like VimPlug to get some essential plugins. It’s also made me realize how feature-rich vim is by itself and how few plugins I need to get a very powerful editor. I’ve since moved onto NeoVim (nvim) for the plugin ecosystem and have no plans to go back to VS Code.
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## Creative
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2020 was the year of being indoors, so all the more reason to really engage with my creative hobbies. I started up piano lessons again with my previous teacher after a year of sort-of-but-not-really-trying to play on my own and find a jazz teacher. The value of a teacher who understands you and knows how you like to learn cannot be understated.
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I finished a long-standing knitting project (a scarf, but using 2 different colors of yarn) for my Mom. I was proud to finally finish it after starting it last year.
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I mostly kept up with drawing, although I’ve had week-long (or more) periods of no practice. I’m eager to get into working with a teacher, but not sure how well it would work remotely.
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I got busy with some side projects in the coding space:
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- [A static site powered][teabase] by NextJS and AirTable to publish our tea collection.
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- [A simple API][hltbapi] for querying [How Long to Beat][hltb], integrated into an iOS shortcut.
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- A (incomplete) [CHIP-8 emulator][chip8] built using JavaScript.
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I was quite pleased that I kept up (more or less) with monthly summaries on the site here. I hope to continue doing that with some shorter form posts in between. I have a few topics in mind I’d like to explore.
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## Mental Health
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As with I imagine the majority of people on the Earth this year, my mental health took a sharp nosedive. I remember feeling off all the time, and how nothing seemed to be interesting or engaging. Not even work got me excited. I’m so fortunate that I had the ability to see a professional to talk about these things and start feeling better. I think it was a case of the [“COVID-19 wall”][covidwall].
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Working through my emotions though, [I did learn some things about myself][octrecently]. I am more aware of how much I value short, actionable tasks instead of large, vague goals.
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I could feel my moods decline when I was paying attention to events unfolding in the US over the year.
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## Playing
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Being at home I got the chance to settle into some games this year. Without a doubt the majority of my time (over 400 hours worth) went into [Animal Crossing: New Horizons][acnh]. Talk about the right game at the right time. It has regularly been my escape from the... **\*gestures at everything\***.
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It also served as a gaming jumping on point for my partner and my parents. Everyone got into it in a big way and it served as a fun bonding activity. We also all got into the same island at once, which was so much fun!
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My other favorite games this year would be [A Short Hike][ash] and [Hades][hades]. I went into more detail with my experience with Hades in an [earlier post][novrecently].
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## Listening
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A notable achievement would be finally organizing my music collection. It’s been something on my todo list for years and I’m so happy I finally got around to it. I’ve been using it happily without issue since I got it running, and it’s super easy to maintain. For those curious [I went into more detail in this post][music].
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Finally I feel like I need to mention [Bandcamp Fridays][bcf]. This was a hidden gem turned into favorite of mine this year. It was one day a month I went a little crazy and bought a ton of music. I’m happy to see the tradition is returning in 2021.
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## Closing
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I’m writing this post about a week into 2021 and if you’ve been following along... 2021 be like “hold my beer”. I’m hoping it turns into a redemption arc, but we’re not off to a great start. Here’s hoping, though. As a great man — Ted Lasso — once said: it’s the _lack_ of hope that kills you.
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[ufos]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/pentagon-ufo-videos/index.html
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[pollution]: https://www.insider.com/before-after-photos-show-less-air-pollution-during-pandemic-lockdown
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[mayors]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxtGJsnLgSc
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[commentator]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhpJuraz14
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[antitrust]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/17/google-search-antitrust-lawsuit/
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[teabase]: https://teabase.vercel.app
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[hltb]: https://howlongtobeat.com
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[hltbapi]: http://hltb-api.vercel.app/
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[chip8]: https://github.com/devinwl/chip-8
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[covidwall]: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/23/how-to-push-through-six-month-coronavirus-wall-13309340/
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[octrecently]: /posts/recently-10-2020
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[acnh]: https://www.animal-crossing.com/new-horizons/
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[novrecently]: /posts/recently-11-2020
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[hades]: https://www.supergiantgames.com/games/hades/
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[ash]: https://ashorthike.com
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[music]: /posts/take-the-power-back-music
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[bcf]: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-2021
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