Another year, same old plague as we move into Year Three. I remember talking to a librarian back in 2020 and I mentioned how the pandemic was going to last at least 2 years and her response was ‘no its not.’ She has since left the library – its been interesting to see people leave the library during a pandemic and a reorganization, but that’s a post for another time, but I was right. Read John Barry’s amazing The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History about the 1918 pandemic and the many parallels between the two pandemics. History repeats and we don’t seem to learn.
So 2021 was horrible or as QEII would say an annus horribilis. Yes, there were a few good things, but overall not the best year. My only goals were to finish the PhD and read 100 books. I did finish the PhD, but I only read 90 books.
Here are the stats, just to break things down for 2021:
Good
PhD – ten years in the making! Finally finished!
Published – 3 publications
Bad
Mom’s hospitalizations – 3 of them this year. Three. Luckily she is doing a lot better, but it was a very long stressful spring and summer.
My hospitalization – I had a Spigelian hernia which is basically a grapefruit size of my intestines going through a rip in my abdominal wall. Not fun and not something I would recommend.
Work – force to return fulltime (my department was one of the few that had to return fulltime) and still dealing with students, faculty, and staff not masking.
Books Read
90 books read this year. Sadly not the 100 I was going for, but its still a good number. I did not keep track of the books that I purchased, as that list would be a bit scary and I did not keep track of the books that I started and did not finish or only read part of. Some I might finish, but others are dead to me. I don’t believe in reading books that you don’t enjoy reading.
81 – Fiction
10 – Non-Fiction
17 – Sherlock Holmes related books
4 – History books
4 – Poetry books
1- Dissertation read, probably multiple times, but I am only listing it once
Best Books Read in 2021
Tales from the Life of Bruce Wannell: Adventurer, Linguist, Orientalist edited by Barnaby Rogerson and Rose Baring
A Master of Djinn: Dead Djinn Universe Book 1 by P. Djeli Clark
Murder and Mendelssohn: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Book 20 by Kerry Greenwood
Goals for 2022
Should you have New Years resolutions? You know, those things that you promise on January 1st and stop thinking about on January 15th? Two weeks, maybe a bit less. So instead of resolutions, how about some goals for the year instead? I do not make yearly resolutions, so this year I thought maybe a few goals would be good. 10 easy things to do in 2022. And yes, a few things I am already working on, but that’s no reason not to list them.
So here are Melissa’s Goals for 2022!
1. Read 100 books
2. Publish the dissertation
3. Publish 1 non-fiction book
4. Publish 1 fiction book
5. Publish 50 YouTube videos
6. Publish 1 Sherlock Holmes item
7. Finish my Drone Part 107 license
8. Work on my Private Pilot’s license
9. Publish 10 podcasts on the book podcast
10. My list of 50 things to do starting in April, but more on this later