summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2021-12-30 11:44 pm
summercomfort) wrote2021-12-30 11:44 pm
2021 Year in Review
Heyhey, it was my birthday today! I am now officially 38, which is kind of a weird in-between number. In my head I'm alternately 36 or 40, but eh, in a few years I'll be 40, so it'll work out.
Anyways, year in review time!
This year really passed in a blur. I can't believe that back in January, we were just starting the Winter Term where I was teaching 2 classes on campus on Mondays and Wednesdays, socially distanced and masked, with the windows open so that the room was 40 degrees. And that mid-April was when I heard back from the 3 schools that Miss Rutabaga applied to, where we got wait-listed at all three. And was it only four months ago that I started full time teaching on campus and being out of the house from 7am-6pm? In the middle I did STS in the summer, and I sold some comics in Oct/Dec.
Right now, even with omicron raging, I feel like ... life has returned to 80% normal? I went from being on Zoom pretty much every day to not being on Zoom at all. Restaurants are open and we usually get something to go. Comickers have resumed meeting on Thursday night. We live in an area that is very highly vaccinated and highly masked, so our infection rates haven't been that high. Miss Rutabaga got her second shot on Dec 8, which was super exciting! And Spouse finally got his booster a few days ago. Honestly, masking isn't horribly onerous for me -- the normal surgical mask fits my face very well, and doesn't bother me as long as I breathe normally. Omicron also seems to be much milder than expected??? (At first they thought it was 40% less severe but 3x more transmissible, but now they think it's 80% less severe? I haven't been keeping a super close eye.)
Anyway, Miss Rutabaga has really come into her own this year. She started reading last summer, but it's really grown by leaps and bounds since then. She's also gotten much more confident in writing since starting Kindergarten. The school has been really good for her -- she is confident with a hot glue gun, knows about "upstairs brain" and "downstairs brain", and when she has a project in mind, she is very good at pursuing it. On the other hand, she has joined the Silly Club at school and has grown more bratty and rambunctious. I think one thing that I'd like to do is play with her more, and not just be the Mean Parent. Do more of the bedtimes, maybe. Read with her more. She just made a super thoughtful birthday present for me (she remembered that I wasn't happy with the nose of the red pikmin plushie that I got from ECCC, and worked with Spouse to fix it).
In terms of creativity, this has been an odd year. I did a spate of fandom stuff in February and June/July, then school started for realz and between the mid-Oct show and ECCC, I focused more on getting Wong Kim Ark and Climate Hope done in-between all the grading and everything else. Falcon and the Winter Soldier came out in... April?? and it added a lot of good Sam and Bucky stuff, but also Steve's absence is... sigh. I don't think I can create in a world where Steve isn't there. So I'm blissfully pretending that he's still around, but that doesn't seem to be where a lot of the fandom energy is directed. I'm also at this weird slump after ECCC, where I'm not sure what direction I want to take my original work -- more shows? try to get published? just post online and share widely? I think I need to commit to one
- More shows: tiring, there's a lot of logistics and hustle, since you have to apply to each individual show well in advance, and you might not even get in, and there's really not money to be made there for my sort of work. They're all on weekends, and my weekends are busy enough as-is. There's also a sense of "that's it?" that I got from ECCC -- I've been tabling at shows for the past 7 years and it feels... samey, like I hit a personal maximum
- Trying to get published: daunting. I don't think there's an easy market for my kind of stuff, I don't even know where to start looking. Did I screw myself by printing and selling and putting it online? I think.... I also need someone to give me permission? Like, someone with experience in the field to say "go do it, this is what it's like, and you should try it."
- Posting online and sharing widely: dissatisfying. I want a wider audience, I think. But then again, maybe I can do it in a way that makes it feel more satisfying. Actually get an instagram, and spend time doing promo. Or just feel less invested in printed matter.
Anyway, I think this is something I'd like to come to a decision on for the next year.
Spouse has been.... doing mostly okay? He went to a series of anxiety workshops in Jan/Feb and saw a therapist twice. He had major "all life is ending and we must move the Canada to be subsistence farmers" episodes in June, August, and September. And possibly since then, but I think... this is now just a thing that we've agreed to not talk about? I'm just going to assume that he is constantly thinking that the world will end (but I can't think about it too hard because then I get really upset.) I think the core problem is that in order to accept his beliefs to be true, I'd have to believe that humans a fundamentally evil and hopeless, and my entire worldview is built on believing that humanity, despite all the ridiculous and selfish things that we do, is capable of generosity and art and community. So whenever he mentions his beliefs, I react very viscerally. (Whereas I think if I ask him to accept my beliefs as true, he would have to give up his trust in his own ability to extrapolate from current data trends.)
Last but not least, Work. It's been really good to go back to teaching in person. There's definitely a lot more workplace drama now that hallway conversations are back. And also, overwork, wow did I not miss you during COVID. I miss being able to turn off Zoom and take a nap. I miss being able to have lunch with Spouse. I miss being able to work in the quiet of my own house. I got voluntold into an extra work thing this past semester that really threw off my grading rhythm, which -- bleh. I'm trying to make that less work for the next semester. I did get a chance to teach a new elective on Asian American history, which was super fun! I hope to be able to do it again next year.
Anyways, year in review time!
This year really passed in a blur. I can't believe that back in January, we were just starting the Winter Term where I was teaching 2 classes on campus on Mondays and Wednesdays, socially distanced and masked, with the windows open so that the room was 40 degrees. And that mid-April was when I heard back from the 3 schools that Miss Rutabaga applied to, where we got wait-listed at all three. And was it only four months ago that I started full time teaching on campus and being out of the house from 7am-6pm? In the middle I did STS in the summer, and I sold some comics in Oct/Dec.
Right now, even with omicron raging, I feel like ... life has returned to 80% normal? I went from being on Zoom pretty much every day to not being on Zoom at all. Restaurants are open and we usually get something to go. Comickers have resumed meeting on Thursday night. We live in an area that is very highly vaccinated and highly masked, so our infection rates haven't been that high. Miss Rutabaga got her second shot on Dec 8, which was super exciting! And Spouse finally got his booster a few days ago. Honestly, masking isn't horribly onerous for me -- the normal surgical mask fits my face very well, and doesn't bother me as long as I breathe normally. Omicron also seems to be much milder than expected??? (At first they thought it was 40% less severe but 3x more transmissible, but now they think it's 80% less severe? I haven't been keeping a super close eye.)
Anyway, Miss Rutabaga has really come into her own this year. She started reading last summer, but it's really grown by leaps and bounds since then. She's also gotten much more confident in writing since starting Kindergarten. The school has been really good for her -- she is confident with a hot glue gun, knows about "upstairs brain" and "downstairs brain", and when she has a project in mind, she is very good at pursuing it. On the other hand, she has joined the Silly Club at school and has grown more bratty and rambunctious. I think one thing that I'd like to do is play with her more, and not just be the Mean Parent. Do more of the bedtimes, maybe. Read with her more. She just made a super thoughtful birthday present for me (she remembered that I wasn't happy with the nose of the red pikmin plushie that I got from ECCC, and worked with Spouse to fix it).
In terms of creativity, this has been an odd year. I did a spate of fandom stuff in February and June/July, then school started for realz and between the mid-Oct show and ECCC, I focused more on getting Wong Kim Ark and Climate Hope done in-between all the grading and everything else. Falcon and the Winter Soldier came out in... April?? and it added a lot of good Sam and Bucky stuff, but also Steve's absence is... sigh. I don't think I can create in a world where Steve isn't there. So I'm blissfully pretending that he's still around, but that doesn't seem to be where a lot of the fandom energy is directed. I'm also at this weird slump after ECCC, where I'm not sure what direction I want to take my original work -- more shows? try to get published? just post online and share widely? I think I need to commit to one
- More shows: tiring, there's a lot of logistics and hustle, since you have to apply to each individual show well in advance, and you might not even get in, and there's really not money to be made there for my sort of work. They're all on weekends, and my weekends are busy enough as-is. There's also a sense of "that's it?" that I got from ECCC -- I've been tabling at shows for the past 7 years and it feels... samey, like I hit a personal maximum
- Trying to get published: daunting. I don't think there's an easy market for my kind of stuff, I don't even know where to start looking. Did I screw myself by printing and selling and putting it online? I think.... I also need someone to give me permission? Like, someone with experience in the field to say "go do it, this is what it's like, and you should try it."
- Posting online and sharing widely: dissatisfying. I want a wider audience, I think. But then again, maybe I can do it in a way that makes it feel more satisfying. Actually get an instagram, and spend time doing promo. Or just feel less invested in printed matter.
Anyway, I think this is something I'd like to come to a decision on for the next year.
Spouse has been.... doing mostly okay? He went to a series of anxiety workshops in Jan/Feb and saw a therapist twice. He had major "all life is ending and we must move the Canada to be subsistence farmers" episodes in June, August, and September. And possibly since then, but I think... this is now just a thing that we've agreed to not talk about? I'm just going to assume that he is constantly thinking that the world will end (but I can't think about it too hard because then I get really upset.) I think the core problem is that in order to accept his beliefs to be true, I'd have to believe that humans a fundamentally evil and hopeless, and my entire worldview is built on believing that humanity, despite all the ridiculous and selfish things that we do, is capable of generosity and art and community. So whenever he mentions his beliefs, I react very viscerally. (Whereas I think if I ask him to accept my beliefs as true, he would have to give up his trust in his own ability to extrapolate from current data trends.)
Last but not least, Work. It's been really good to go back to teaching in person. There's definitely a lot more workplace drama now that hallway conversations are back. And also, overwork, wow did I not miss you during COVID. I miss being able to turn off Zoom and take a nap. I miss being able to have lunch with Spouse. I miss being able to work in the quiet of my own house. I got voluntold into an extra work thing this past semester that really threw off my grading rhythm, which -- bleh. I'm trying to make that less work for the next semester. I did get a chance to teach a new elective on Asian American history, which was super fun! I hope to be able to do it again next year.
no subject
I wish you luck on your journey with your original work! In my own creative work (which is writing, so very different in some ways) I've found my self-publishing group SO helpful in modeling directions for my career that I might never have come up with on my own. Are there comics-creating/self-publishing groups out there that might help you shape your path forward?
no subject
Thank you for the comment about original work stuff! Is your self-publishing group a... Discord?? I feel like the stuff I make is like, niche of niche (alternative comics, but not longform enough to count as "graphic novel"), which makes it really hard to find support groups. (But also -- I haven't really been looking.)
no subject
My self-publishing book is actually an google email group that also has a DW, which tells you how long it's been around! (There is a side discord, but I don't really discord and I've gotten along fine without it.) I sort of fell into it through a friend; I'm not sure how you'd go about finding one for comics, but it is the sort of thing where if you put out feelers to comics friends, someone might chime in, "Hey! I'm part of this amazing group!" Or not, but other good things might result.
no subject
no subject
SOmetimes optimism requires a big blob of unwarranted faith, but if we crumple into unmoving blobs we have no chance. (I fight with myself on this a lot.) Pessimism is more logical, looking at nothing but the facts, but we need hope to live, and sometimes we can even fulfil that hope.
*hugs you sustainingly*
no subject