2017 in review, belatedly
Life keeps happening at me and I feel like I'm behind it at least half the time. But I'll try to get some broad strokes of the last year down.
I'm doing traditional monthly highlights format, 'cause I've enjoyed it more than most normal end of year formats.
January
Arisia, per usual. I had a weird time at Arisia 2017 where I was in a sort of depressive funk kicked off by external events and some internal thing in my head telling me the only reason I'm competent at my job is it requires no skills. This is laughably off-base, but at the time my head was very convincing.
This is also the month I stopped looking at Twitter because I realized it was making my mood basically tank constantly. I regret this in some ways because I feel significantly more out of touch, but not enough to have started back up yet - it's been a full year I haven't looked now.
February
Work's holiday party was this month, and was fairly fun, given that it was a work party. I'm looking forward to this year's again, weirdly. Chorus is well underway at this point, and we're working on the Brahms Requiem and it is a flipping slog. And sort of depressing. Also this month, some amount of trying to figure out basement cleanout and other logistics in preparation for our house breaking up. /:
March
I closed on a condo. I definitely recall the week of being dicier than I wanted it to be because we had a huge snowstorm that closed things the day before, so I'd had to make it to my bank the morning before going into work, then closing over lunch, then going back to finish my work day and it was all somewhat hectic. But worked out, regardless. Also volunteered at a women's shelter for the first time. Need to do that again this year, been a while.
April
So much work on moving. And my mom visited and stayed over the new place. We generally did not get along well, which is relatively unsurprising, I guess, but we did get a bunch of stuff done, so there's that? Also this month was the best party gimmick ever, which my friends Jess and Steve hosted - tea and opera and jigsaw puzzling. That was great. :)
May
I sang the Brahms requiem three times. That is too many times to sing that piece in one month. More moving house stuff, and I hosted Beth's birthday at my new place, since the house was packingpalooza, still. It's nifty to be able to host stuff. I need to ever, ever invite people so as to do it ever again.
June
Started a D&D 5e game which has been super entertaining, and was really glad to meet new people this way. Also Thomas came and stayed at my place and we puttered around and had some really fantastic conversations that were really helpful. One of them has sort of been percolating in my head for half a year since, and has been sort of a theme for me lately, and was basically around relationships, why we have them and how we find meaning in life. Y'know, the simple things. Also this month was old house cleanout. And holy crap, was that difficult, despite the copious help of wonderful friends.
July
This goes down as the month I was brave about putting myself forward, though it didn't come to anything. Still proud of myself. Also visited my mom in NY around the middle of the month, with an added short visit to Thomas in there for fun. Once this month I really enjoyed getting together with a friend for a cooking and watching BS things on YouTube evening, which is a fantastic way of doing social stuff for minimal cost, and I'd love to do that more often.
August
Honestly I remember this month feeling really empty and lonely. I was really, really ready for summer to stop aaaany time. With chorus not yet in session I had very few evening commitments, and I think I just ended up being at work too long in the evenings because there was nothing I needed to go to afterward, except on gaming evenings. This was bad news central and I need to find a way for my next summer to not look like that. One of the positives here was that I did end up spending a lot of time with one of our interns, and started more consistency with our boardgaming group at work. But like, partly this was because I was just perpetually at work, to an unreasonable degree.
September
This month was a few random hangout days, I did the Railsbridge workshop to get more hands on time with Ruby on Rails, which was actually pretty great, though I could really do with harder work than what was given, and I saw the first half of Angels in America with Becca, but failed to see the second. >_< Also end of the month I visited Thomas again, which is always happy-making. Oh, and I finally sorted out my passport renewal with my new legal name in time for...
October
I went to the UK and France over two weeks, spending most of my time in London and Paris. Paris and I sort of didn't agree on things. I loved seeing the Centre Pompidou, and walking around in general was nice, but I almost completely failed to eat at any Parisian restaurants at all because I kept either being too early for dinner or the place mysteriously wasn't open though the time table implied they ought to be, or they didn't have anything vegetarian. Seriously I think four of five days all my meals were from a supermarket. London and I agreed much more, and I loved it so much I'm going back in 2018. I also took some weird detours into Leicester and Bedworth, of all places, to see a couple standup comics I really like. (I'm doing that again in 2018 as well, but twice as many, and I think my locations are better than Bedworth, though I won't get much time in any of them, except one spare day in Cambridge.)
I also went to King Richard's Faire with friends, which was good to do having missed the past several years, but ridiculous, and I saw Marian Call in concert again, which was great. :)
November
Yet more travel. Work sponsors us going to one conference per year, and this year I went to RubyConf in New Orleans. The conference was actually pretty fantastic and well done and I made sure to give them feedback calling out specifics on how well they did. Also hanging out in NOLA was cool.
Immediately following that (as in I didn't go home first), was a family vacation. Mom wanted us all to get together, so mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, my two nephews and I all got on a cruise from LA to Mexico. I'm not so much a fan of cruises now that I don't need them to essentially enforce downtime from work (OMG, how much do I love my workplace for how easy it is to go on vacation and catch up afterwards, versus how it was at Whole Foods? SO MUCH), but mom's mobility is not so good, so cruising it was, and I got to spend a lot of time with the family, which I can pretty much never do with my sister or nephews in particular, so that was lovely. Also my sister arranged for us to all do a glass bottomed boat tour together, and seeing the wildlife was really excellent. We also saw a ray go flying through the water from the cruise ship itself, as well as a huge pod of dolphins swimming alongside at one point.
Also in here at some point was helping someone from my chorus figuring out stuff with databases. It was really, really nice to do this exercise because essentially it was "oh, so I do know things," in an objectively visible way. I really appreciate the extent to which my current job has allowed me to spend more time doing technical work, and commensurately has resulted in me having more technical knowledge than I did two years ago, despite the fact that I was doing a CompSci major at that point.
December
Friendsgiving with folks who I know from Whole Foods, since the general policy is "Thanksgiving is overwhelming and terrible during November, but the food and seeing people is great... let's just do that later." More assorted gaming evenings, another chorus concert and also a gig at the Somerville tree lighting ceremony - this season's music was much, much lighter in tone than spring's, and also much less difficult. All the travel in October and November meant I literally missed one out of every two rehearsals, but regardless I had no problem performing the concert quite well. There were some holiday parties in here, and I felt more prepared for them than I think I've felt in the prior like five years at any point. It was really nice.
This year was largely shaped by all the changes of moving out of my living situation for so many years. There were a lot of sort of new experiences, and some of it was great and some of it was lonely, but on the whole I'm definitely not complaining. Though there's definitely something about living by myself that seems to just cause the thought of "if I die, no one will ever find me" to run through my head totally unhelpfully at the most random times.
I think my main lesson from this year is that I need to be more proactive about seeing people and setting up social time. And I'm definitely not any good at that, so some of it may just be "if it looks like you'll have spare time, go sign up for a class somewhere" or something like that. Because I will get extremely frustrated if I'm underscheduled, and I continually forget that's as much of a problem as being overscheduled. I guess it's a nice change of pace, though?
Also, I feel so, so grateful that I have the capability and resources to take vacations at my current job, and it felt so relaxing, restorative, low pressure... It was fantastic, and there have definitely been way more years in my working life than not where the type of time I took for myself would just not have been possible.
I did some amount of activist things in this year, but like, countable on one hand. Definitely many, many other people I know were much better about doing this consistently, and I should step up. I often feel unknowledgeable/incompetent/afraid of being alone, and have generally not done as well as I want to because of those feelings, but if you're thinking of going to something local and want company, please feel free to ask me, because it'd help me be better about this, and I want to support people more than I have been.
2017 was definitely not a year I appreciated for its global impact, but in a personal sphere I feel like I came out of it more or less doing well. I'm trying to have hopes for 2018, but am feeling really cynical about it, which honestly serves no one. I guess I can hope the world positively surprises me and that's about the best I can do right now.
Also... every year looking back on what I focus on, it seems like work is just a huge part of my life and my thoughts, and I don't know if that's normal or not. I definitely think I get a lot of identity from work, and prioritize it really, really highly in terms of time and effort, while simultaneously constantly wondering if I'm actually slacking off, which is probably objectively ridiculous, but in my head is a real concern. Is life like this for other people? /: Luckily I don't resent it, particularly in my current job, so I guess it's okay?
Anyhow. So that was my 2017, sort of. Only 10 days late.
This entry was originally posted at https://sandrylene.dreamwidth.org/16337.html. Feel free to comment here or go there and comment at https://sandrylene.dreamwidth.org/16337.html?mode=reply.
I'm doing traditional monthly highlights format, 'cause I've enjoyed it more than most normal end of year formats.
January
Arisia, per usual. I had a weird time at Arisia 2017 where I was in a sort of depressive funk kicked off by external events and some internal thing in my head telling me the only reason I'm competent at my job is it requires no skills. This is laughably off-base, but at the time my head was very convincing.
This is also the month I stopped looking at Twitter because I realized it was making my mood basically tank constantly. I regret this in some ways because I feel significantly more out of touch, but not enough to have started back up yet - it's been a full year I haven't looked now.
February
Work's holiday party was this month, and was fairly fun, given that it was a work party. I'm looking forward to this year's again, weirdly. Chorus is well underway at this point, and we're working on the Brahms Requiem and it is a flipping slog. And sort of depressing. Also this month, some amount of trying to figure out basement cleanout and other logistics in preparation for our house breaking up. /:
March
I closed on a condo. I definitely recall the week of being dicier than I wanted it to be because we had a huge snowstorm that closed things the day before, so I'd had to make it to my bank the morning before going into work, then closing over lunch, then going back to finish my work day and it was all somewhat hectic. But worked out, regardless. Also volunteered at a women's shelter for the first time. Need to do that again this year, been a while.
April
So much work on moving. And my mom visited and stayed over the new place. We generally did not get along well, which is relatively unsurprising, I guess, but we did get a bunch of stuff done, so there's that? Also this month was the best party gimmick ever, which my friends Jess and Steve hosted - tea and opera and jigsaw puzzling. That was great. :)
May
I sang the Brahms requiem three times. That is too many times to sing that piece in one month. More moving house stuff, and I hosted Beth's birthday at my new place, since the house was packingpalooza, still. It's nifty to be able to host stuff. I need to ever, ever invite people so as to do it ever again.
June
Started a D&D 5e game which has been super entertaining, and was really glad to meet new people this way. Also Thomas came and stayed at my place and we puttered around and had some really fantastic conversations that were really helpful. One of them has sort of been percolating in my head for half a year since, and has been sort of a theme for me lately, and was basically around relationships, why we have them and how we find meaning in life. Y'know, the simple things. Also this month was old house cleanout. And holy crap, was that difficult, despite the copious help of wonderful friends.
July
This goes down as the month I was brave about putting myself forward, though it didn't come to anything. Still proud of myself. Also visited my mom in NY around the middle of the month, with an added short visit to Thomas in there for fun. Once this month I really enjoyed getting together with a friend for a cooking and watching BS things on YouTube evening, which is a fantastic way of doing social stuff for minimal cost, and I'd love to do that more often.
August
Honestly I remember this month feeling really empty and lonely. I was really, really ready for summer to stop aaaany time. With chorus not yet in session I had very few evening commitments, and I think I just ended up being at work too long in the evenings because there was nothing I needed to go to afterward, except on gaming evenings. This was bad news central and I need to find a way for my next summer to not look like that. One of the positives here was that I did end up spending a lot of time with one of our interns, and started more consistency with our boardgaming group at work. But like, partly this was because I was just perpetually at work, to an unreasonable degree.
September
This month was a few random hangout days, I did the Railsbridge workshop to get more hands on time with Ruby on Rails, which was actually pretty great, though I could really do with harder work than what was given, and I saw the first half of Angels in America with Becca, but failed to see the second. >_< Also end of the month I visited Thomas again, which is always happy-making. Oh, and I finally sorted out my passport renewal with my new legal name in time for...
October
I went to the UK and France over two weeks, spending most of my time in London and Paris. Paris and I sort of didn't agree on things. I loved seeing the Centre Pompidou, and walking around in general was nice, but I almost completely failed to eat at any Parisian restaurants at all because I kept either being too early for dinner or the place mysteriously wasn't open though the time table implied they ought to be, or they didn't have anything vegetarian. Seriously I think four of five days all my meals were from a supermarket. London and I agreed much more, and I loved it so much I'm going back in 2018. I also took some weird detours into Leicester and Bedworth, of all places, to see a couple standup comics I really like. (I'm doing that again in 2018 as well, but twice as many, and I think my locations are better than Bedworth, though I won't get much time in any of them, except one spare day in Cambridge.)
I also went to King Richard's Faire with friends, which was good to do having missed the past several years, but ridiculous, and I saw Marian Call in concert again, which was great. :)
November
Yet more travel. Work sponsors us going to one conference per year, and this year I went to RubyConf in New Orleans. The conference was actually pretty fantastic and well done and I made sure to give them feedback calling out specifics on how well they did. Also hanging out in NOLA was cool.
Immediately following that (as in I didn't go home first), was a family vacation. Mom wanted us all to get together, so mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, my two nephews and I all got on a cruise from LA to Mexico. I'm not so much a fan of cruises now that I don't need them to essentially enforce downtime from work (OMG, how much do I love my workplace for how easy it is to go on vacation and catch up afterwards, versus how it was at Whole Foods? SO MUCH), but mom's mobility is not so good, so cruising it was, and I got to spend a lot of time with the family, which I can pretty much never do with my sister or nephews in particular, so that was lovely. Also my sister arranged for us to all do a glass bottomed boat tour together, and seeing the wildlife was really excellent. We also saw a ray go flying through the water from the cruise ship itself, as well as a huge pod of dolphins swimming alongside at one point.
Also in here at some point was helping someone from my chorus figuring out stuff with databases. It was really, really nice to do this exercise because essentially it was "oh, so I do know things," in an objectively visible way. I really appreciate the extent to which my current job has allowed me to spend more time doing technical work, and commensurately has resulted in me having more technical knowledge than I did two years ago, despite the fact that I was doing a CompSci major at that point.
December
Friendsgiving with folks who I know from Whole Foods, since the general policy is "Thanksgiving is overwhelming and terrible during November, but the food and seeing people is great... let's just do that later." More assorted gaming evenings, another chorus concert and also a gig at the Somerville tree lighting ceremony - this season's music was much, much lighter in tone than spring's, and also much less difficult. All the travel in October and November meant I literally missed one out of every two rehearsals, but regardless I had no problem performing the concert quite well. There were some holiday parties in here, and I felt more prepared for them than I think I've felt in the prior like five years at any point. It was really nice.
This year was largely shaped by all the changes of moving out of my living situation for so many years. There were a lot of sort of new experiences, and some of it was great and some of it was lonely, but on the whole I'm definitely not complaining. Though there's definitely something about living by myself that seems to just cause the thought of "if I die, no one will ever find me" to run through my head totally unhelpfully at the most random times.
I think my main lesson from this year is that I need to be more proactive about seeing people and setting up social time. And I'm definitely not any good at that, so some of it may just be "if it looks like you'll have spare time, go sign up for a class somewhere" or something like that. Because I will get extremely frustrated if I'm underscheduled, and I continually forget that's as much of a problem as being overscheduled. I guess it's a nice change of pace, though?
Also, I feel so, so grateful that I have the capability and resources to take vacations at my current job, and it felt so relaxing, restorative, low pressure... It was fantastic, and there have definitely been way more years in my working life than not where the type of time I took for myself would just not have been possible.
I did some amount of activist things in this year, but like, countable on one hand. Definitely many, many other people I know were much better about doing this consistently, and I should step up. I often feel unknowledgeable/incompetent/afraid of being alone, and have generally not done as well as I want to because of those feelings, but if you're thinking of going to something local and want company, please feel free to ask me, because it'd help me be better about this, and I want to support people more than I have been.
2017 was definitely not a year I appreciated for its global impact, but in a personal sphere I feel like I came out of it more or less doing well. I'm trying to have hopes for 2018, but am feeling really cynical about it, which honestly serves no one. I guess I can hope the world positively surprises me and that's about the best I can do right now.
Also... every year looking back on what I focus on, it seems like work is just a huge part of my life and my thoughts, and I don't know if that's normal or not. I definitely think I get a lot of identity from work, and prioritize it really, really highly in terms of time and effort, while simultaneously constantly wondering if I'm actually slacking off, which is probably objectively ridiculous, but in my head is a real concern. Is life like this for other people? /: Luckily I don't resent it, particularly in my current job, so I guess it's okay?
Anyhow. So that was my 2017, sort of. Only 10 days late.
This entry was originally posted at https://sandrylene.dreamwidth.org/16337.html. Feel free to comment here or go there and comment at https://sandrylene.dreamwidth.org/16337.html?mode=reply.