2020: My Year in Review
This year...where do I even begin? I’ll spare you the overview of all the terrible things that happened (google, as always, put together a great summary of the year), and instead take you on the journey that was my 2020. This year, I kept more data and spent more time reflecting on myself than ever before. As a result, not only did I still accomplish a lot but I was also able to track many of my patterns.
Let’s start with the good stuff. Although most of my big trips this year were cancelled, I still got to do some domestic travel. In January I went to LA to see my friends and help my sister get settled, and also saw the Warner Brothers facility for the first time. In February I went to the opera for the first time (Madam Butterfly), and went on a ski trip to Lake Tahoe which was amazing. Then corona hit in March but I still eked out a couple more trips. I visited my friend Grace in New York in July, went to Zion National park in August, and Michigan with my family in October.
I had a few notable work accomplishments as well. Mainly that I got to keep my job and keep working as normal, but I also got my AWS Cloud Practitioner certificate in March and got PMP certified in May. I finished at two clients and am currently on my third for the year. Finally, I got a much larger exposure to agile project management, which was an area I was hoping to grow into and even did some agile coaching with one of my clients which was a big accomplishment for me.
Personally, I had a few small wins this year. I negotiated my lease for the first time and got a huge rent price reduction. I fostered a kitten and gave her a home until she was adopted for real! It was my first time having a pet and it was a huge learning experience. I revamped and re released my blog early in the year which has led to much more viewership than ever (top posts are linked below) and I even did a couple of sponsored posts this year which I had never done before.
Top Viewed Blog Posts:
Sex on the First Date - this one actually accounted for 10% of all traffic to my blog this year
People really liked relationship and mental health content so maybe I’ll try and focus more on those next year!
Additionally, I got lead climbing certified (which means I can climb outside now!), and improved my climbing quite a bit despite taking a ton of time off. I baked a pie from scratch for the first time! I also culled over 25k photos and I learned how to play super smash brothers - which I now view as a valuable life skill.
Another big accomplishment was that I got into and out of a relationship this year. I’m keeping this on the positive side because it ended on the best terms I’ve ever had a relationship end, so I got to keep a great friend out of the whole ordeal. Finally, I really invested in myself a ton - I signed up for therapy, got a nutritionist, reignited my mandarin lessons, and have officially been taking Greek lessons for two and a half years!
Now for some negative things. I sprained my foot/ankle after my Zion trip - a small injury but one that seriously made me examine how my self worth is tied to my health. My anxiety also shot through the roof this year. I shouldn’t be surprised, many people have experienced an increase in anxiety due to the general unpleasant state of the world. But of course, work and personal reasons piled on to it as well. I lost ten pounds from anxiety alone this year. My weight has barely fluctuated at all since high school, but there was a time period in the fall where I was so anxious, I was barely eating one meal a day but was still doing all my normal workouts. I went from 145-147 pounds to 135-137 pounds in about three weeks. I still like the way I look but it was not healthy and I don’t relish the fact that it happened. Lastly, there was all the general stuff - cancelled trips, desperately missing family and friends, and the feeling of my life being on hold, of wasted time and potential.
Ok now for the fun part. Data, data, data. I have tracked as much as possible about my life this year. This may be the most Type-A thing I’ve ever done. I tracked how much water I drank, how often I worked out, how often I practiced my languages, how often I wrote, which books/tv shows/movies I consumed, which new restaurants I went to, and how I spent all my money. Are you ready?
I worked out for an average of 22 days each month or about 5.5 days per week. This makes sense since I normally workout Mon-Fri each week. I counted workouts whenever I would do a proper session, walked more than 12k steps (like on trips), or was active for more than two hours (a long climbing session).
I hit my water goal the majority of the time as well. I had always struggled with drinking enough water so I aimed for 2L per day. This helps my appetite and digestion so I wanted to make it into a proper habit. I hit this goal on an average of 6 days per week. I also even did dry January this year and did 30 days without alcohol in addition to my water goal.
Writing was another habit I wanted to do consistently this year. On average, I wrote for about 4 days each week. This habit got counted if I worked on a blog post or just wrote more than 200 words in a day on any random project.
My languages were the last major habit I wanted to focus on keeping up. I made an effort to study language at least a little bit every single day. I have a proper Mandarin lesson with a tutor once a week as well as a Greek lesson once a week, and on all the other days, I spend at least 10 minutes (up to an hour), studying language. I accomplished this goal an average of 7 days per week. In fact, I missed only 4 days the whole year for not doing some kind of language practice.
For no real reason, I also tracked my media consumption this year. Surprisingly, I consumed a pretty average amount of media this year apart from my book goal. You can read all about the book goal here if you feel so inclined, but total this year, I ended up reading 59 books which also made for a total of 21,646 pages. For movies, I counted them only if they were my first viewing of them. I rewatched a ton of movies this year since watching my favorite films is a form of comfort for me when I’m overwhelmed. Total, I watched 34 new movies. Lastly, TV shows. For TV Shows, I counted them if they were my first time viewing them and if I watched at least ten episodes. I watched 27 different new TV Shows this year. You can view what all I read and watched if you scroll down below to the index!
One other thing I kept track of this year was how many new restaurants I tried. So these were counted if they were my first visit. Food is usually surrounded by memories and I wanted to make more of an effort to record where I had eaten, not only so that I can repeat them if they were amazing, but also so that I can solidify those memories. I ended up trying 73 new restaurants! A lot of these happened on trips or through delivery, but still a much higher number than I expected and I am glad, I still got to be exposed to a lot of delicious food this year despite the lack of travel.
The last thing I tracked was my money. I’ve been tracking every dollar I spend for a few years now, but this year I amped up my tracking to be able to visualize everything. I was able to dedicate hefty amounts to my student loans and to my investments, but here is the breakdown by category of my spending. The ‘Necessary’ category includes rent, bills, debt payments, and investments for extra context. The ‘Appointment’ category is for any time of appointment whether that’s therapy, waxing, doctor, etc. The rest should be self explanatory. This comes in super handy since I can now see where my money is and where the areas are I could focus on minimizing. For example, I should probably cool it on the restaurant spending if I’m spending the same amount of groceries. My finances are what I track the most closely, so if you’re interested in how I manage them, just let me know in the comments and I can do a full post!
This year was unconventional to say the least. Plans were derailed, progress was halted, and everything seemed simultaneously more and less stressful all at the same time. I’m proud of myself for surviving this year and for the things I did get to accomplish. Even though this year didn’t look at all how I planned, I managed to adapt and move forward, even in small ways, despite everything. I’m not holding my breath but I really hope 2021 is way better.
Zion National Park
INDEX
Below you’ll find all the habit data, media I consumed, and restaurants I went to this year for reference. I’ve included a highlights section right at the top here in case you don’t want to go through the whole list.
All time Favorites for the year (books, movies, tv shows, restaurants, products)
Products: Kristen Ess shampoo/conditioner; cosrx snail mucin essence, nintendo switch
Books: Everything by Leigh Bardugo, Warcross, The Seven Husbands of Evenlyn Hugo, This is How You Lose the Time War, Range, Debt, Lost Connections, The Devotion of Suspect X
TV Shows:
Haikyu!! (Anime - Netflix), Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu), The Great (Hulu), The Last Dance (ESPN), The Boys (Amazon Prime), Crash Landing On You (Netflix), Queen’s Gambit (Netflix), Promised Neverland (Anime - Netflix), Demon Slayer (Anime - Hulu)
Movies: The Half Of It (Netflix), Kimi No Nawa (Your Name) (Amazon Prime), Train to Busan (Amazon Prime), Princess Mononoke (HBO), 13th (Netflix), The Social Dilemma (Netflix)
Restaurants: Kobawoo (LA), Budlong’s (Chicago), Tempest Cafe (Chicago), Nonono (NYC), Scarpetta (Las Vegas), Piccolo Sogno (Chicago), Avec (Chicago)
Habit Data: Below is a table with all my habit data. Each column shows the number of days that month I completed that habit. I like having this as a reference because the tracking action itself helps me to do the habit and then at the end I can find patterns. I can see that in August I worked out less than usual, but when I think back, I was injured so I took some time off. I like being able to spot overall patterns and the subsequent discrepancies.
Media Data
Books (reference book post for the first 52) 59 Total. These are in the same format as the first post since I kept more data on the books I read than any other media.
53. Warcross - Marie Lu (357) - A sci-fi novel about a girl who has to save the world from an intrusive game. 5/5
54. Wildcard - Marie Lu (346) - Sequel to Warcross. 5/5
55. The Mosquito - Timothy Winegard (442) - A non-fiction book of how the mosquito has influenced world events from the beginning of history. 4/5
56. The Rook - Daniel O Malley (487) - A fictional novel about a woman who is dropped into the middle of a supernatural spy agency to solve a mystery. 5/5
57. Flash Boys - Michael Lewis (305) - A nonfiction book about how broken the stock market system is and some of the people who have tried to fix it. 5/5
58. Legend - Marie Lu (309) - A dystopian fiction book about two teens on opposite sides of a war. 5/5
59. Prodigy - Marie Lu (375) - sequel to Legend. 5/5
Movies - 34 Total
Little Women
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 2
Casablanca
Shazam!
Birds of Prey
Onward
Toy Story 4
The Half of It
Jumanji - new
Jumanji 2
The Mummy Returns
Aladdin 2019
Miss Americana
13th
Men In Tights
Treasure Island
Work It
Addams Family
Clue
Enola Holmes
Train to Busan
Yes God Yes
Emma
Kimi no nawa - Your name
Unpregnant
Princess Mononoke
Tenet
Over the Moon
The Social Dilemma
Holidate
Christmas Inheritance
Princess Switch
WW84
Moulin Rouge
TV Shows - 27 Total
Demon Slayer
Code Geass
YOU
Haikyu
My Hero Acadamia
Altered Carbon
Free!
Samurai Champloo
Kenichi
Little Fires Everywhere
Never Have I Ever
Too Hot to Handle
MaidSama
The Great
The Last Dance
The Boys
Indian Matchmaking
Crash Landing On You
Babysitter’s club
Heroes s1
Selling Sunset
Emily in Paris
Meteor Garden
Promised Neverland
Queen’s Gambit
Big Mouth
Vinland Saga
Rewatches:
The Good Place +S4
His Dark Materials +S2
Insecure +S4
Carmen San Diego +S3
HxH
Seinfeld
Restaurants - Total 73
Pinstripes (Chicago)
Rice n Bread (Chicago)
Jungle Bowls (LA)
Mr Holmes (LA)
Kindness & Mischief (LA)
Lotus & Light (LA)
Kobawoo (LA)
Paradise Bowls (LA)
Meli Cafe (Chicago)
In On Thai (Chicago)
Imperial Lamian (Chicago)
Danke (Chicago)
Hot Chocolate Bakery (Chicago)
Budlong’s (Chicago)
Bandit (Chicago)
DaNang Kitchen (Chicago)
Mercadito’s (Chicago)
Little Goat Diner (Chicago)
Platiea (Niles, IL)
Cafe Baba Reeba (Chicago)
Forno Rosso (Chicago)
Ara On (Chicago)
Atwood (Chicago)
Hopsmith Tavern (Chicago)
The Hangge Uppe (Chicago)
Tempest Market (Chicago)
Small Cheval (Chicago)
Batter & Berries (Chicago)
Cafe Tola (Chicago)
Poke Burrito (Chicago)
Lou Malnati’s (Chicago - yes my first time was this year)
90 Miles Cafe (Chicago)
Johnny’s Beef & Gyros (Chicago)
Carmelita’s Tacos (Chicago)
Fish Cheeks (NYC)
Grace Street (NYC)
Nonono (NYC)
Dim Sum Palace (NYC)
Take 31 (NYC)
Her Name is Han (NYC)
Essa Bagel (NYC)
Sweet Moment (NYC)
La Storia (Chicago)
Saba (Chicago)
Eli’s Ark (Chicago)
Sunda (Chicago)
Whiptail Grill (Springdale, UT)
Soleil Cafe (Springdale, UT)
Deep Creek Coffee (Springdale, UT)
Meme’s Cafe (Springdale, UT)
Momofuku (Las Vegas)
Milk Bar (Las Vegas)
Scarpetta (Las Vegas)
Beard Papa’s (Chicago)
Big Star (Chicago)
Bonchon (Chicago)
Big Jones (Chicago)
GG’s Chicken Shop (Chicago)
Sushi San (Chicago)
Bunde Bakery (Saugatuck, MI)
The Mitten Brewing (Saugatuck, MI)
Captain Nemo’s (South Haven, MI)
Kilwin’s (South Haven, MI)
Admiral Jack’s Bar (South Haven, MI)
Jiao (Chicago)
Boozebox (Chicago)
London House (Chicago)
Tanoshii (Chicago)
Beatrix Fulton Market (Chicago)
Piccolo Sogno (Chicago)
MCCB (Chicago)
Stax Cafe (Chicago)
Avec (Chicago)