Blog: Books Read in 2020

Consequences. Personhood. Stereotypes.
Embers. Romans.

Have I mentioned that I read American Elf when I'm stressed?

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Games of December 2020

I'm not sure I was in a great mind-space in December. Looking at how I felt about most of what I played none of it really seemed to be great. I've been thinking about how to manage happiness and fun and so hopefully for the stuff I play next I'll be able to enjoy it more.

My top five games (by play time) for December were:

1. Civilization VI - Coming out of November I had a few fun games and a few games that weren't so fun. I want to love this game, but sometimes it just feels so draggy.
   
   
   
   
   


2. Hades - I'm a little frustrated that I'm not better at Hades than I am. On the other hand even as someone who isn't very good at it the game is still fun and interesting and doesn't make me feel like I'm really missing out. I wonder if playing mouse and keyboard has held me back some (I don't think much), but mostly I think I'm just a little too impatient with the game. I'll talk more about it in my 2020 wrap-up post, but the fact that this became a top 10 game in less than 2 months of play time really speaks to just how good it is.
   
   
   
   
   


3. Illusion of Gaia - I don't pick up Illusion of Gaia every year at the holidays but it's definitely the time when I want to play it again. It was nice to have a couple of days to play and I was able to get all the way though quite quickly this year (9 and a half hours) at least partly because I learned the speed running tactic (fact?) that the game gives you all of the XP even if you don't defeat the enemies. So it was nice to be able to tour through the parts I liked and keep going. It felt interestingly dark in the year 2020, with a lot of people not really responding to the crisis the world is facing in the game. 
   
   
   
   
   


4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - I dunno. It's cute but I'm finding less and less urge to actually play. I've given myself a goal of getting my island to 5 stars in January and then we'll see what's next but without a significant update, I may just drift away from my island.
   
   
   
   
   


5. Luigi's Mansion 3 - If you are an animator you should play this game. Other than that I'm not sure. I think there are a ton of fun ideas in here and it's certainly charming, but I just didn't every feel that invested.
   
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for December:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

New Year's Resolutions 2021

I'm always a little hesitant to do new year's resolutions, since really thinking about what I've accomplished and what I want to do is really a thing I do all the time. That being said, I get a little bit of breathing room each December, so it's a nice time to think about life and it's pretty fun to look back at these a year later*.

via GIPHY

With that being said, here are some things I want to work on in 2021:

1. Relax - I'm realizing just how badly my own stress is sitting on me and making my life harder, so I'm hoping by the end of 2021 that I'm able to get chill a little better than I am right now.
2. Go on More Adventures - This was one of my resolutions for last year, but then 2020 happened so now most of my adventures are trips as far away as my local coffee shop once or twice a month. Hopefully by the end of next year I'll be able to go more places and see and do more things that are a little out of the ordinary.
3. Read More - I read more in 2020 and I want to keep reading more and more types of things in 2021.
4. Write More - A lot of the projects I'm working on involve writing and certainly writing more would help get those done. Additionally I've been writing a journal since the beginning of pandemic and it's caused me to spend a lot more time thinking about the written word and now good it feels to craft sentences well.
5. Do More - This is a bit of an expansion on my resolution to Move Projects Forward last year. There's a ton of little things in my life that I'd like to get done and so I just want to remind myself that I can do a little bit each day and make really great progress.

* I like when podcasts do a predictions / predictions review show, but I really have no interest in predicting anything.

Looking Back at 2020's New Year Resolutions

 Uh. So. 2020. That happened ... a lot.

Back in the normal times of December 2019, I wrote down some resolutions. How'd those go?

1. Accept Life as It Is - The thrust of this was to try to be better about finding happiness internally rather than relying on outside factors or waiting for particular conditions to be met. In the first half of the year, I did okay with this, I think but I really fell off. I had some disappointments and ended up feeling very out of control. It's certainly the worst I've felt since the darkest days of my PhD.
2. Go on More Adventures - Uh ... fuck.
3. Read More - I did this. It was pretty good. I'd still like to read more and with a little more grace and control, but I read a lot more and a lot of cool things too.
4. Move Projects Forward - I almost did this, but by equal measure my Fall semester completely beat most of the project thinking out of my mind. Hopefully I'll be able to be more on track in 2021.

At the end of the day I'm not unhappy with 2020. 

I think I made some choices that held me back as the year went on. I got hung up on "need to" and "should" and struggled keeping with the day-to-day and finding my own happiness. I also struggled with my identity quite a lot and how to balance that with things that need to be done and what I want to do or be (and how what I want to do affects who I want to be). 

Still I learn a huge amount, about myself, about teaching, about making do and how done is so much better than perfect. So even even though 2020 was a pretty rocky year, I think I'm coming out of it stronger.

via GIPHY - and now for a 2020 nap.