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Thanksblogging, part 2
// 2025-01-08
Welcome back to the second and final part of the inaugural "Thanksblogging" event here on my blog! It's taken me a few more days than I'd hoped to write this particular post, because I had lots of thoughts on each of the subjects in question. But the good news is that the 8th of January is only one week after New Year's Day, which means we're technically still on track with the #100DaysToOffload challenge.
Without further ado, let's pick up from where we left off last time!
- New friends. Through various means, I've managed to make a few new friends this past year. I've got stuff in common with each of them—sometimes to such a startling degree that it's astonishing we didn't meet before. Whether you're a I exchange emails and/or forum messages with you, or whether you're a fellow player in a D&D campaign I'm in, it's a pleasure to have you in my life going forward!
- Improving my skills. I don't mean this in a boring, career-oriented way, believe me—I hate talking about anything like that, and if you catch me doing any of that on this blog, I want you to subdue the impostor that's clearly replaced me. But I'm getting sidetracked. I feel that my computer skills have progressed quite a lot this year. Not only am I somewhat of a dab hand at HTML now, but I've finally managed to branch out from Windows: I've got a laptop running Linux Mint now. I don't use it as much as I perhaps should (perhaps that will change this year?), but I've enjoyed fiddling around with the command line and whatnot.
- A holiday to Italy. In May–June 2024, I went on holiday with my parents and my grandma to Lake Garda in the north of Italy (between Venice and Verona). It might well be the best holiday I've ever been on. I've been itching to go on holiday to Italy for years; my grandma and I had planned on visiting in 2020, but then... well, 2020 happened.
I adored the beautiful setting, the general dolce far niente, and (of course) the FOOD! Italian food has long been my favourite, and I came back craving (strangely enough) duck ragu with tagliatelle. It really was a perfect holiday. Even the music was great! I feel like I could write a whole blog post about my memories of this holiday. Perhaps I will, although it feels a bit weird writing about something that happened over half a year ago now. - A holiday to Devon. Look, I'll be honest: despite the holiday to Devon being more recent than the holiday to Italy, it hasn't quite etched itself indelibly into my memory in the same way. It might be something to do with the fact that I've been on holiday to Devon probably getting on for nearly a dozen times in my life. All this to say, there aren't many days out that I remember from this holiday.
What I do remember are the nights in. We each brought DVDs with us—I remember watching Casino Royale, The Big Lebowski, and Starship Troopers—and we played board games, including my new World of Warcraft-themed Pandemic-style board game based around the Scourge in Northrend. We also went on a big walk over a gigantic hill. I'd just finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring at the time, so it felt like we were trekking over the Misty Mountains! - The courage I've found. This is the first time I've explicitly mentioned it on this website, but I'm trans. I've known since 2020, but it's only this past year (the past few months, in fact) that I've taken concrete steps towards transitioning socially amongst those closest to me—and until I'd done that, I couldn't really go through with transitioning physically in any permanent way, as I didn't want to hurt those people by making them think that they weren't important enough to me for me to give them prior notice. Obviously no trans person has to give advance notice to anyone in their life that they're planning on transitioning, but I wanted to. I'm an only child and very close to my parents, so I didn't want to leave them out of this big event in my life.
- The books I read. At the end of 2023, I started using StoryGraph to track my reading, as I'd found myself unable to log into GoodReads after years of using it. Since then, I've read... well, not as many books as I'd have liked to, necessarily. My app tells me that I finished just eight books in 2024. They were mostly fantasy: I read the first two books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I'll be reading the third as soon as my reading buddy is ready to do so), as well as Von Bek by Michael Moorcock (which I had somewhat mixed feelings about at the time, but which has captured my imagination in the months since then). I also read The Wind in the Willows, which was the perfect holiday read during my time in Devon, and I picked up a couple of manga volumes—my first foray into that particular medium.
- The films I watched. Speaking of the Devon holiday, that's also when I started properly using my Letterboxd account to review films and whatnot. Before July 2024, I'd only reviewed one film, and that was Warcraft (2016)—the gist of my review was "It's not thaaat bad, come on guys..."
But since then, I've been dutifully rating and listing the films I've watched as soon as I watch them. That way, I don't forget what I've seen recently, even if I've watched it before. A particular film-related highlight for me this year was watching all three parts of The Lord of the Rings on consecutive weeks on the big screen. I was too young to see them that way when they first came out, so it feels like a cosmic injustice has been finally put right. ☺ - The victories of others. I know some really ridiculously talented people, and it's been great to see some of them being given the opportunities and/or recognition that they deserve. One of my best friends directed an opera in May; another of my best friends absolutely SMASHED her starring role in The Yeomen of the Guard in June; and all in all, I think my the people I love are really starting to find their feet.
Most of my friends now have graduated already, so we're all just muddling through the haze of being a twenty-something in the Twenty-Twenty-Somethings. (Obviously I can only see it from my own perspective as a 25-year-old, but it really does feel like this decade of history shares a lot of its characteristics with the mind of a twenty-something: messy, with a tendency towards extremes at times, but situated right on the cusp of something great.) - Breaking free from social media. Well, almost. This evening, I've reinstalled Instagram just so that I can try to acquire the non-social media contact details (email, Discord, etc.) for friends I don't want to lose touch with. But all in all, I've found it surprisingly easy giving up social media. I deleted the apps from my phone, so now on the rare occasions I need to check my Instagram (for messages and stuff, at least until I acquire those contact details I mentioned), I can just log in on my desktop.
- My health. Honestly, there's not much to say here, which is exactly why I'm grateful for it.
- The food I eat. I'm so lucky to have parents who are such fantastic cooks. It must have skipped a generation with me; although I enjoy the idea of cooking, I find it hard to justify spending more time preparing a meal than it takes to eat it. It's a mindset I really want to get out of, because eating some of my favourite meals is a joy that I do probably take for granted too much. As I type this, my dad is downstairs cooking what could well be my favourite meal of all: chicken chorizo pasta. Maybe I'll share the recipe at some point (it's no secret or anything, but I don't even have it myself currently). For now though, I'll say just this: conchiglie is the best pasta shape.
- My frame of mind. Again, this could be a blog post by itself. But I've always been a very easygoing, "type B" kind of person. Some would call me a slacker or downright unambitious. You know what, though? I'm happy. I'm not the kind of person to chase things. Just as the constant pursuit of growth isn't sustainable for an economy, the constant pursuit of external achievements isn't sustainable for a human being. Hell, we're animals. Do you think the tiktaalik was on its way to work when it first crawled out of its primordial waters?
- The year ahead. (One for good luck!) I don't know what the year ahead has in store for me... which makes it fun! Imagine how dull life would be if we just moved from one set-piece to another. There are a few things I've got planned: going to more cons, for instance, and seeing Chappell Roan at the Reading Festival. But other than that, who knows where I'll be at the end of 2025?
This is post 2 of 100 in my #100DaysToOffload challenge.
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