It’s that time of the year again. Let’s not sugarcoat it, this year sucked…it really did. This time around, I’ll summarize my year on my blog instead. Without further ado, and in no particular order, here we go.
Family
As always, hands down super thankful and grateful for having such a supportive family, both immediate and extended. There have been many ups and downs this year, and my parents and bro have been there for me for all those moments. I wasn’t able to meet up with my cousins in Eastern Canada, but we hung out virtually while playing some Among Us.
Running
With gyms closed in the middle of the year due to COVID-19, my friend Ray suggested that I join him and some other people to run outside, and that’s exactly what I did. I felt great to get back to doing physical activity.
Eventually gyms did re-open with a bunch of safety measures in place mid-year, so I ended up running outside and going into the gym to bike and play mobages. Nearing the end of the year, I’ve opted back to keeping my physical activities outside instead, so I haven’t been to the gym in the last 2 months.
Virtual YouTubers
Being the year of staying indoors, you need to keep yourself sane. For me, I ended up falling into the virtual YouTuber (or vtuber for short) hole when Hololive EN debuted in September. I watched some vtubers before, but since Hololive EN is natively English, this made it a lot easier to casually watch. Also have my friend sayaka to thank for this, she definitely helped influence a lot of people (myself included) to fall into this hole :P. I definitely recommend searching the squad up on YouTube and Twitter.
Akai Haato (AKA Haachama) is pretty interesting, too. Although I don’t understand everything she says, I’ve enjoyed watching her streams. The energy she brings is pretty upbeat and has recently brightened my days, so I hope to continue watching her streams.
Virtual Hangouts
Virtual hangouts with friends have also kept me sane. Limiting physical visits with friends was definitely a hard thing to maintain had it not been for platforms such as Discord, where I can video call with friends and screenshare the games we play. We’ll probably have to continue doing this in the new year, but hopeful we can meet again once it’s safe to do so again.
The SFU Anime Club played another important role. Though I wouldn’t say I’m particularly close with people on the server, but I feel it’s pretty easy to join in on the conversation in text or voice so that’s pretty good. I enjoyed several events throughout the year, including movie screenings and even seeing a virtual icebreaker.
Aside from virtual hangouts, I was able to keep my social circle small with seven of my friends, and was even able to get together in August for a camping trip locally, but other than that, haven’t really hung out with friends pretty much since mid-March, so yeah the world kinda sucks right now. We’ll get through it, though.
Music heals the soul
I’ve listened to so much music this year. Without music, I also don’t think I would’ve made it through this year. I’ve gotten the feel trip music, and also the upbeat recovery music. One of my favourite anime series I finally got a chance to watch this year was Carole and Tuesday, which had several great tracks I jammed out to at work.
Work anniversary
As I wrote about recently, I passed the one year anniversary mark, but in between that came lots of ups and downs. Mental health is important. I’ve had my fair share of emotional breakdowns, but it really does help to have someone to talk to.
Anime
There were some really great series that aired this year. My favourites include Somali to Mori no Kamisama, Majo no Tabitabi, and Ishuzoku Reviewers (NSFW).
In conclusion, this was a weird year. It sucked, and I think I need to learn to adapt better. I hope other factors beyond my control will help to make 2021 better, and that I take back some of that uncertainty I had. See you in a hopefully brighter 2021!
~Lui
