This year, I was inspired by my friend Ben Hong (who himself got the idea from Jen Myers) to track nearly all of the media I consumed, as a supplement to my movies and books recap. As I’ll be resetting the Media Log page on this blog, here is what I logged in 2019.Read More »
Tag: year in review
Looking Back on 2019
Happy New Year’s Eve, everybody! Around here, another year means another recap. This year was obviously a really BIG year for me because of 2 major life transitions: (1) I moved to New York! and (2) I got married!! A lot of 2019 revolved around those two big transitions: settling into my new city and settling into my new marriage.
Despite what this highlights reel says, what it doesn’t say is that 2019 was not without difficulties. Leaving DC while furiously applying for jobs so that I could join Ben as quickly as possible meant that I felt rushed leaving behind my friends and family. Moving to New York while planning a DC-area wedding meant I spent the first half of the year with a foot in each city, not entirely in either. I spent a lot of time confused because I was grateful for all the time I was spending with Ben, first as an engaged couple and then as a married one, and for being in the city that I felt almost entitled to my entire life, but I felt lonely and longing for the companionship and community I left behind in a hurry back in DC.
With that being said, 2019 was still full of so many great moments!
2018 in Film
Last year, I started strong thinking I was going to watch a ton of movies, my best year yet! It was even a resolution of mine, because I was armed with MoviePass and the opportunity to watch movies as a contributor for Punch Drunk Critics.
But then… well… I stumbled pretty hard. When my mental health took a hit, I definitely didn’t go see any movies, especially when MoviePass became harder and harder to use. My PDC reviews dropped off in the summer. (Sorry Travis!)
A couple of things I noticed with this year’s movies:
- It was a big year for superhero movies for me and I didn’t even see all of them.
- No early screenings this year! I just didn’t have the mental bandwidth to wait in line and spend the time this past year, and I was less incentivized once I started paying for movie subscription services.
- Despite the long stretch of time I was in China this year, I didn’t get to go to the movies while I was there,
Without further ado, here are all the 2018 theatrical releases I watched last year:
2018 in Books
As I’ve done the past few years, I participated in Goodreads’s annual reading challenge. Having exceeded last year’s goal and finishing at 19, I set my 2018 book goal at 20 books.
I wound up reading almost 30, coming in just short at 29 books.
A few quick reflections on my reading challenge this year:
- I felt a lot faster finishing books this year, in large part because I was not reading the A Song of Fire and Ice series this year, having finished that last year. It took me weeks to finish each of those books with the scant amount of reading time I had, so the quantity of books I read last year took a toll because I read several 1,000+ page books.
- The longest book I read last year was 1,177 pages, whereas the longest book I read this year was 818 pages.
- That being said, I sped through my first five books and then really felt my decrease in velocity when I hit that 818-pager.
- It typically takes me a few days to about 3 weeks to finish a book, given that I read almost exclusively on my commute to and from work. It took me almost 3 months to finish this year’s behemoth.
- I enjoyed reading a lot more mindfully this year. There were days when I would steal away for a quick walk outside to clear my head during the workday, or take lunch by myself on a nearby bench, with my Kindle in tow to get some sunshine and reading done.
- I much preferred the mindful reading to what I find myself doing often, which is walking to and from the subway while reading. This is, admittedly, not a very safe practice.
- But! While doing this in DC one day, I walked past a friend who was doing the exact same thing! She was the one who looked up from her book to recognize me, but I felt so validated seeing her with her open Kindle in hand, too.
- With the end of the Blogging for Books program, I didn’t feel as much of the obligation getting through books I didn’t enjoy but was reading for review this year.
Here are the books I finished reading in 2018:
Looking Back on 2018
Happy 2019 everyone!
Erm… it’s been an awful long time since my last blog post, and an awful lot has happened since then. To be honest, I kept thinking about explaining my absence and settling back into the regular posting schedule, but every time I did, I felt super anxious about both the explanation and the regular posting. It was a lot easier to not think about the blog.
But I’ve missed blogging a lot, and I could not let myself not post my annual year-in-review posts, which are the highlight of my blogging year every year. I’ve been reflecting on my calendar years basically since I started blogging in 2001, and I wasn’t going to let my rough year ruin my streak!
So let’s just start fresh and run through a list of what I did this year.
(Note: Photos, videos, and reference links will be added at a later date, so stay tuned to social media to see when this post will be ~complete~ in that respect. A lot of polishing is needed here, but I will be doing it.)Read More »
Sip of Starrshine 