Good lord.

I may have finally become the sort of person who writes self-reflections and resolutions in the hopes of having a more productive, well-adjusted year in which I achieve goals. Yuck!

Unfortunately, I’m guilty as charged. So without further ado, here is… my reflection.

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2021 in Review

For me, 2021 was a better year than 2020.

I got to start travelling again, seeing people, and I got to enjoy some amazing life experiences, and so on.

I apparently set a mere two goals for last year: doing 52 Frames, and moving “once things re-open.” I achieved them both.

Summer was a blast. September was a blast. And though I moved to the Pacific Northwest in one of many gloomy periods, I’ve been making the most of it.

My favorite hike of the year was in the crater of Haleakala. My favorite photograph was of an egret atop a cow. And my favorite experiences were otherwise so myriad as to be unquantifiable.

It was better than 2020.

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Entering 2022 (A.K.A. Fuck Omicron)

And now everything feels despair-worthy again. I flew westward from Christmas 2021, with the heavy news that many friends and their loved ones had contracted COVID-19, probably the Omicron variant, despite vaccination.

Given its contagiousness, and the paucity of available tests, it becomes not unlikely that I myself can contract it without much effort. The safety around various activities is severely reduced in a blink of an eye, and I’m honestly not sure what the guidance is for this newest of “new normals.”

Couple that with a city that was still in the grip of snow and ice, which gradually melted away in a freeze-thaw cycle that left certain sidewalks slick af, and it’s probably unsurprising that my New Years was spent with a group of 3, and that I did not go see the jaw-dropping fireworks at the Space Needle in person… this year.

I did have some lovely pork & sauerkraut though… some traditions are very worth keeping.

Hopefully, the Omicron cases will fall as quickly as they rose, and future variants of this disease will continue to be less lethal. Hopefully people will take precautions, and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully things will eventually reach a stable and long-lasting state that I am happy to call a “new normal.”

Hopefully.

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Hopes & Dreams of 2021

These are my goals for the year… in no particular order.

• Explore Seattle (and surroundings more)
• Continue practicing photography
  • Moreover, organize, print, and/or delete stuff from the last two years of photographs.
• Finish the damn album I’ve ostensibly been working on for the last six years now. (You’ve already heard two songs off of it.)
• Do some language learning

More than that, if I had a single resolution, it would be to take the tract of more direct self-expression in place of conflict avoidance. Not in a way that was rude or bent on conflict, but simply in a way such that I am less sheepish about expressing my opinions in stressful situations.

Perhaps, as an extension of this, I will finally post (this month!) the summary of why I left New York City, and my true feelings about the neighborhood where I spent a year living.

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A Short Thank You

December 2022 marked the two year anniversary of this website. Thanks to whoever is reading this. I hope that it has brought (at the very least) a marginal entertainment value to your day.