Last of the year

Yesterday the was the last time I had to physically go into campus for the rest of this crazy year. Now it’s just a few more days of working from home until we are off for Christmas Eve until New Years. One of the many perks of my public sector education job is that we get this small reprieve at the end of December, without needing to dig into our vacation hours. Campus is closed, and so are the workers.

In some ways, it’s amazing that we are nearing the end of 2020 already. The COVID circus that began back in March doesn’t seem like that long ago, until you start counting the months. It’s like we’ve been stuck in suspended animation for going on nine months. At least the thawing process have begun: the vaccines are here.

I am immensely grateful that my immediate circle of family and friends have weathered through this pandemic with our health and employment intact (so far). A great too many Americans do not have that privilege. It’s important to remind myself of this: yes, it sucks that I can’t travel back home to China as I typically do during this time of the year, but things could be much worse. Just got to hunker down for a bit longer; it’ll be over soon enough.

So instead of meeting up with family back in my hometown of Guangzhou, the plan during this break is to sit at home and read many books. The goal is to whittle down the list of unread that are currently sitting on the shelf. After which I will be free to buy even more from my Amazon shopping list! Who said reading books can’t be equivalent to mindless media consumption?

I am signing off from this blog until 2021. There’s still two more things to come on this website, though: my year-end long form on 2020, and the December update to the BMW M2.

Take care, everyone. I’ll see you soon.

View fullsize

Woodsy.

Half over

Good news or bad news, 2020 is half over. The calendar has turned the page to July, and by god we’ve made it to the center marker of this crazy and wild year. Good news of course is that we made it this far, and should count ourselves lucky if we still have employment and free of the coronavirus. Bad news of course is that COVID-19 is still very much with us, and with the recent case spikes in America, I don’t suppose there an end in sight yet to the 2020 madness.

I wouldn’t say this new reality of ours since early March have sort of become normal; all it takes is a slight shift in perspective to realize the current situation is absolutely the opposite of what it is suppose to be. Breaking bread at a restaurant with friends remains an impossibility, and I’ve nearly forgotten what it’s like to watch a movie at a theatre. I guess it’s not something that enters the mind when the combination of lockdown and racial protests are happening at the same time these past few weeks. You simply do the best you can to go about your day as peaceful as possible.

At the same time, you try not to think about what you were doing during this exact time the previous year, because it can get sad rather quickly. Last July I had the trip of a lifetime to Japan: for two weeks it was the best travel experience out of the many I’ve had in the past five years (not so humble brag). I was so inspired by the trip that I wrote a five-part photo story, and also got super depressed in returning to my normal life after being in a country that fits my personality so damn well.

Obviously, it’s best not to think about it too much during this time, and instead concentrate on making lemonade out of the crappy batch of lemons we’ve been given this year. The goal is come out of this mess a better and improved person, especially for those of us in a fortunate enough position to not have to worry about job security or the harmful effects of the coronavirus. We’ve stewed indoors for more than four months now, and it seems there will be many more months to go; the work continues.

View fullsize

Socially distanced Apple Store.

First of the year

Hello, friends, and welcome to the first blog post of 2020. As it is per usual, I’ve been away on holiday back home in China to start the year, therefore it’s not really until the middle of January that the new year officially begins for me. That’s not a complaint; I quite like having the two weeks’ time to decompress and meditate over the game plan for 2020, and I’m incredibly lucky to be afforded such leisurely opportunities to do so. Most people only get Christmas Day and New Year’s Day off, and that’s it.

Indeed, heading home to Guangzhou allows me plenty of time to think things over because being back at a familiar place meant I’m not busy doing the typical touristy stuff when I travel to other countries. The pace is decidedly slower, and the primary goal actually is to see family and eat lots of Cantonese food that I can’t get back in the States. Plus, thanks to the Great Firewall of China, the Internet as I personally know it is largely blocked off when I’m inside the country. Due to the protest in Hong Kong, the Chinese government have even targeted VPN services, meaning my usual route of bypassing the censors was mostly ineffective.

I barely got my end of 2019 reflection piece in, with the photographs taking forever to upload under VPN speeds. Yes, Squarespace and any website hosted on the platform is blocked in China.

All of that is to say, I had a lot of time to ruminate on what I want out of 2020, and I’ve narrowed it down into a key few items. First and foremost is to be kind, both to myself and others. My bouts with anxiety in much of 2019 stem from the inability to take the positive perspective to the things that are happening to me, and that corrupted how I see the outside world as well. It’s not a very nice mental place to be, always thinking the worse of situations, especially when they are outside my sphere of control.

The second item is to do only the things I’m passionate about. Life isn’t about ticking as much boxes as possible, but rather it’s ticking just the boxes that are truly important. If something no longer holds my eager interest, I will drop it immediately. This goes for books, podcasts; any activity, really. The point is to have experiences and tasks that are meaningful and matter to me on a personal level, and not something to do for the sake of doing - I’m not here to collect accomplishment trophies. In 2020 I want to read only good books, and not finish the most books.

The third item is to constantly keep focus to the absolute present, and try not to worry (too much) about what has happened in the past and what’s to come in the future. Detach. Easier said than done, obviously; it’s one of those daily practices that remains a work in progress for possibly a lifetime.

One foot in front of the other. Let’s go.

View fullsize

Winter recess.