2021

 OK, so I didn't blog at all in 2021... so it's like the year didn't exist, right? [facepalm]

BTW, I have 3 students writing an exam (it's a class of 12, but 9 of them have asked to take the exam online the way it was last semester). So... I am not only getting back into blogging, but I'm doing something I've literally never ever done, which is blogging from work. From inside my classroom. It feels I'm engaging in incredibly risky behavior. LOL So funny! And obviously there is something I should be doing -- finishing writing my own self-evaluation because I'm the "chair" of the peer eval committee of the NTT faculty in my department and we are meeting tonight, and I obviously didn't submit my eval papers which were due last Friday. :-P

But, back to 2021. I wrote an Instagram/FB post in early January with 10 photos as a review of the year, so because I'm lazy, I'll copy it here (with some minor edits, I can't resist):

2021 — What we did because of what we couldn’t do

The Year in Review

2021 was the year of trying to do alternative things to kind of “make up” for all that was missed both in 2020 and 2021 itself. 

 

In late June, we visited San Francisco (shortly after things “opened” there which was nice!), did two hikes in Yosemite National Park, and visited friends and their super cute boys in Sacramento area + Lake Tahoe…

 

… because we couldn’t go to Turkey, cruise the Greek Islands, and visit London — neither in 2020, when first scheduled, nor in 2021. (We have no idea whether we’ll get to do it in 2022).

 

We visited Brazil twice (in July and December) because my parents are elderly and time with them is precious, and we saw my brother and family again after two years (3 years for Kle & Kel).

 

We spent a week with my husband’s family at the beach in Florida in July because we missed it in 2020, and then, in the week between Xmas & New Years’s (after a spectacular brunch offered by my mother-in-law’s cousins), we spent some days at a hotel in Brazil with my MIL, two brothers-in-law’s families, and aunts and cousins & families…

 

… because we missed a full family + extended family Caribbean cruise in January 2021, my parents (and maybe brother) would have gone too — this one won’t ever happen. [insert crying emojis here]

 

I know that, in spite of everything we had a wonderful year, and work-wise it was definitely way better than 2020, but still… life isn’t the same and will never be, and we are all still grieving. As you can see, the focus shifted strongly to our nuclear and extended family and to relationships rather than places and things, because people matter most. Children grow, grandparents grow old and, eventually, out of existence (we lost my husband’s grandmother to COVID, and several friends also died in 2020 & 21.)

 

P.S. In 2021 K & I also celebrated our 50th birthdays, bought a house, sold the other and moved. It was a busy year!

 ~   ~   ~   ~  ~

So this is the summarized version and it's missing SO MUCH. One thing I'm super proud of (and then a bit sad too, I'll explain), is that in January 2021, my husband and I, at the prompting of my "Canadian" sister-in-law (she's actually Brazilian, but we call them "Canadians" to differentiate them from the "Koreans" and the Marylanders ;-) --> where my other two BILs and families live) we started working out using an YouTuber's workouts -- her name is Caroline Girvan, she's from Ireland and she's crazy, but we love the workouts. 

 

We basically worked out (with weights and other contraptions, such as bands and yoga blocks) 5-6 times a week through the whole year until October when we bought the new house and our lives became utterly chaotic. And, after the move in late November, I developed painful and "chronic" tennis elbow in my right arm, which only began to heal now in late January and early February when I started taking massive doses of turmeric and... drum-roll! ... started working out again, yes, lifting weights. My arm is so much better!! I guess I needed to strengthen all the surrounding arm muscles for my elbow muscles to heal. I still have localized pain on the outside of the elbow, but nothing like I was experiencing before (I felt pain even when sleeping!). 

--> wow, now the "Aging (Strongly & Gracefully)" label I created I don't know when makes perfect sense. YAY!

OK, I need to do some work, so I'll hit publish. I have so so so many words in me and I definitely need to go back to blogging. I know there aren't many of you out there, but I will enjoy interacting with whoever is still around.

Highly Curated Content versus Relatively Raw & Unflitered...

... or the Instagram/Pinterest versus the Blogger/WordPress generations.

Nothing like a scattered and hastily written blog post to dispel writer's block, I guess? ;-) ;-P

Yes, I know that smiley faces make me look less intelligent, but this is not a work email, and I don't care. Although I am bravely resisting the urge of adding emoticons to my emails to students. I still draw smileys on exams, though. ;-)


I have wanted to say this for a while and I wish I could write a highly edited and curated blog post, but a quick one will have to do, before the writer's block sets in again! (can you feel the despair in my voice?)
;-P

In any case, first of all, I think this is a generational difference... (that's why I added the "Aging" label -- I don't have one about different generations) younger people (and by that, I  mean folks 10-15 years younger than me) have a "thing" going. At least the sample of younger people that I know and interact with -- most are originally from Brazil, BTW. They are very intentional in the way they decorate their house, plan and execute their weddings, pose for photos, not to mention fashion choices. They also photograph everything daily life & events very selectively and at expert angles & lighting and post it to Instagram.

I guess it all started with Pinterest and the ability to curate content online (so people would find the same things cute & "fashion" would become even more uniform than it already is) and then Instagram made it easy to share one's highly photogenic choices and lifestyle.

There are some older people (although maybe still slightly younger than me) such as Dooce and other professional bloggers who have been very picture perfect in their online life, although not exactly like the younger people I know -- but those are the "professional" web content creators. Today, everyone looks perfect like that, I mean, at least the sample I'm exposed to.

One thing that is kind of scary to me is how fads and styles have become the same here and in Brazil. The style of wedding decoration and children's parties, for example... Wooden things, greenery, mason jars for drinking, naked cakes, hanging lights...

Sigh...

Can you tell I'm slightly irritated by all this perfection?

I miss words, many many words rather than pretty images. I miss raw feeling and relatively unfiltered thoughts. I still attempt to share them here, but I confess that I'm becoming more and more overwhelmed by the millennials that create such perfect content online now. I severely limit my exposure to such folks, only following a few people I know on Instagram, but even this small exposure already influences me.

Looking at their neutral colors, extremely beautiful party decor, lovely assortment of picture frames arranged on walls, is making me feel ugly and old and too colorful and LOUD, even.

I LOVE who I am, I love my funky style, all the colors, all the flowers, but sometimes I feel like I want some of that stereotypically beautiful style that today's younger generation likes.

A prime example is the new Magnolia line at Target. I have also been photographing things in this style for a while on my phone and I'll try to illustrate my point with photos later.

For now I just want to say that I really, really, REALLY miss the community of bloggers that I was active part of from 2005-2009, maybe 2010. I have some more thoughts about this (that have to do with the openness that came along the advent of blogging and that has now waned), but I'll try to share those later.

Have you noticed this new Pinterest/Instagram trend? What do you think?

I'm Officially Old! 8-(

I need reading glasses!  :-(

/       /
O - O

(I made that up, couldn't find instructions online, though I'm sure they exist!)

However, I don't really need them because it's only in ONE eye!!! (my right eye, +1.50)

I've noticed this lately when using my phone and I'm sure that all the reading on my phone PLUS crazy texting and messaging is the culprit for this.

The eye doctor told me, however, that they may have done this on purpose when I had LASIK: made one eye's correction better so the other eye had a chance to still be slightly near-sighted and not need reading glasses. THAT or my brain being incredibly smart and managing to do that on its own.

In any case, I hope this situation will hold. And, if the right eye is bothering me too much, I can buy a cheap pair and knock out the left eye lens. :-P

I suppose I should be happy I had four great-eye years after getting LASIK in 2012. I'm almost 45, so it's not a surprise I finally have this problem. Do you need reading glasses?

--> So, I created a label for this post. If I really do continue blogging as I intend to, I'll be using it in the years to come.