I’ve been challenged to name 10 good things about 2020. I have a lot more than 10, so, in no particular order, here goes:
1. Noticeably increased my income.
2. My husband has had the best year of his life, and it’s a joy to see his blissfully happy face every day.
3. My kid barely noticed the pandemic and didn’t have her life affected by it. She’s also having the best year of her life.
4. Got published in Ukraine.
5. Got published in Germany.
6. Got published in the Canary Islands.
7. Got published in Canada.
8. Did my first edited volume. I’m the editor and the author of the first chapter.
9. Became Chair and discovered I’m loving it.
10. Fell back in love with my job after a period of 4 years of great disappointment with it. (I’m not talking about the profession but the specific job at this particular school).
11. Traveled to Seattle, Boston, the Ozarks, and Florida.
12. Didn’t allow COVID hysteria to pollute my brain.
13. Got my first article on Castellanos Moya published and then wrote and submitted my second article on him.
14. Joined a book club.
15. Bought furniture.
16. Red some fantastic books and discovered a bunch of great writers. These are all Hispanic writers. I’ve pretty much given up on recently written literature in English at this point.
17. Discovered a bunch of great new restaurants thanks to a very worldly friend.
18. Saw Disney on Ice. (Not on TV).
19. Discovered Alex Berenson who singlehandedly saved my sanity in times of COVID.
20. Discovered a great new conference. It’s like a real community and not one of those cold, impersonal MLA-type things. I’m now going to be a regular.
21. Taught in person.
22. Had a really great experience homeschooling.
The bad things are:
1. I haven’t seen my sister, parents, niece and nephew in a year. This is very painful to me.
2. Discovered that a lot more North Americans than I could ever have imagined are totalitarianism-loving pussies. This makes me angry.
3. Witnessed a terrifying growth in censorship and electoral fraud.
4. Realized that a senile corrupt useless idiot will be our president.
5. Did a lot worse on my health goals than in 2019. Those daily cafeteria lunches are not my friend.
6. Had to teach online for 2 weeks.
Glad to hear that overall you had such a great year! So many people in the media are proclaiming that 2020 was the WORST YEAR EVER!
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What, even though their favorite senile guy has been pushed into presidency? They should be jumping up and down with delight.
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Have you considered traveling to see your family? I have done a similar trip recently with a small child and despite being stuck in quarantine upon arrival and having to take a Covid test before getting out, it was worth it to see my family. Quarantine took altogether 7 days. We stayed with a family member not afraid of Covid so it was not too bad. By the way, at least at my destination my child was exempted from testing, which made it easier. You do need to have a stretch of time available for travel (at least 3 weeks) because you have to be flexible with dates. My flights did get canceled and rescheduled several times.
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I’m really glad you were able to travel!
I now have an office job, plus I’m teaching over Christmas and New Year’s, so for now, no travel. But I’m hoping to persuade my parents to visit in April.
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Amen to finding Alex Berenson. I found him through your blog and he changed my life too. 2020 was overall a mediocre year for me; professionally I did okay — there were some ups and some downs. Socially, I missed my friends and had to grapple with the death of a close family member (not from covid), but personally, I grew a lot. I learnt to think critically about what is going on in the world, and I became a conservative. There’s no turning back for me there if the current trends in the Democratic party continue.
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I’ve already figured out a long time ago myself that most people are a bit “totalitarian” by nature
…more into “community”, their cherry-picked circle of like-minded friends and groups, their demographics, their neighborhoods, their clubs and such—at the expense of developing any individuality of their own and thinking (and living) for themselves.
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