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Although 2020 and 2021 felt together like one ongoing year in some ways, 2021 alone was a year of high highs and low lows for me, unlike 2020 when everything felt the same. This past year I delved deeper into my favorite hobbies and in some cases improved more than I thought I did; I even dabbled in some new ones. I want to do more of those highs in 2022. I consider this notion not a resolution but rather a way to think about where I was last year and what is on the horizon for the next.

Many focus on things they want to do less in the new year, but here are the hobbies and activities from which I seek more:

Writing

I started blogging early last year, and while I am glad that I have somewhat regularly written new posts, I want to write more. It is good practice for me because I want to write something more substantial someday, and even if that does not work out, writing is sometimes cathartic to me. If nothing else, it offers an opportunity to ramble about niche topics that interest me. There were some weekends last year when the thought of writing drained me, which I attribute mostly to feeling like each blog post needs to be something substantial. That kind of pressure sounds silly because this is a blog that almost no one reads. I appreciate when other bloggers share shorter thoughts more frequently, so why can’t I? I might try to link this blog to a microblog this year because I appreciate the concept and community over there.

Reading

This is pretty straightforward. I read a decent number of books in 2020, but I crushed that number in 2021. I want to read more this year, even if only one book more than last – 85. Numbers aside, I also want to read more types of content. I more or less stick to the same genres, and while I admire my own taste in books, I want to branch out more. I especially want to read a few works of poetry this year.

Foreign language

I spent much of 2021 wrestling between my two languages of choice, and I expect 2022 will be no different in this sense. I think I did a good job balancing these interests, though I confess that I defaulted to German when I felt less motivated; listening to Deutschlandfunk is a breeze compared to forcing myself to sit down and practice Russian. Plus speaking a foreign language is way more fun when you can actually have a genuine, limitless conversation with someone else. So, speaking German with others feels more like a social activity than a formal practice session.

I am at the point where I do not know how much my German improves year by year. My confidence in my speaking skills grew in 2021 thanks to all of the conversations I had with my language partners who live in Germany. While I mostly digest German content in the form of podcasts, I learned that my university’s library has many German titles. I took advantage of the later in the year and will continue to do so because few other libraries carry some German books if any. September marked eleven years since I started seriously studying German, yet I still have not visited. That I can express myself so clearly yet still feel like a stranger to Germany is an enigma. Realistically, any significant improvement will result from spending time in the country.

Russian is another story. I made a lot more progress in 2021 than I thought. Firstly, I finished the second installment of the Russian Accelerator course I initially started the previous year. I cannot recommend Mark’s resources enough; they were worth every penny. After those early months of 2021 I started feeling a bit lost. A few people recommended that I watch Peppa Pig, so I resorted to that as well as repeating many of the Russian Accelerator lessons. Progress felt stagnant.

Later in the year I decided to dive into a different but much more beloved resource in the Russian language learning community – Russian With Max. Max offers hundreds of videos on his YouTube channel for intermediate Russian language learners. His character and devotion distinguish him from other online teachers of any foreign language. I was nowhere near exhausting his videos, but I enjoy having some sort of structure as a beginner, so I ventured to his website and purchased the first set of his lesson packs. I am still not even halfway finished with the lessons. I was nervous that they might be too much for me, as I was only an A2 level speaker, but these have been great. In fact, my confidence grew so much that I developed the courage to start talking with native speakers, which I did not expect so soon. I am keen to see where these lessons take me next year. My command over the language improves every week, even if only a little bit. The difference between January and December 2021 was substantial.

Again, it is difficult for me to balance competing interests. I feel I prioritized Russian in the final months of 2021, but I never neglected German. German is comforting for me, and I could never go more than a day or two without it. It feels like home. So, while I could reap greater gains by devoting every day to Russian, I do not envision myself changing my current strategy. I believe in little by little over the long haul, and it works for me in this case.

Travel

Obviously the current situation has limited travel opportunities. However, I still snuck in some solo travel last year. I vacationed in Chicago and visited DC for the first time for my passport appointment. I was grateful to be able to get away after more than a year of feeling trapped in St. Louis. I did not take much of a winter break and feel more than due for another getaway. For all of 2021 I had soft plans to visit Germany in spring of 2022, but now I am not so sure about that. Sigh. I intend to on at least one domestic trip this year and will continue crossing my fingers for an international one. I am always eager to go back to Chicago, but I would love to check out a new city.

Lifting

One of my biggest hobbies that I have not discussed on this blog. Essentially, I made more progress in 2021 than all in the years since I started lifting combined, but I still want much more. I am most proud of my deadlift and weighted pullup personal records – 235 pounds and an additional 30 pounds added, respectively, for one rep, not to mention being in a caloric deficit for those efforts. I benched 115 pounds once. I rarely max out on lifts and err toward lifting programs that raise my floor rather than my ceiling while allowing me to push my conditioning levels, so I was not peaked for those attempts. So, it is safe to say that if I want to truly max out my strength, I have a lot more in me. I also achieved eleven bodyweight pullups.

Despite this progress, last year taught me that I should go “all-in” on hypertrophy, strength, and conditioning phases and, importantly, spend more time on each one. I plan to spend more time in hypertrophy phases this year because I suspect that more muscle mass will help me in all three pursuits. Working more on jumping over the “eating more” hurdle. It is difficult to juggle these training interests but more rewarding to me. For example, I ran a sub 6:50 mile this year; my best mile was ~6:20 in high school when I peaked during cross country, but I was terribly weak back then. I could not do a pushup. I did zero strength training. I like being strong and in good shape.

Music

Like travel, music has been squashed by the pandemic. Of course artists continue to release new music for fans to enjoy from home, but no longer regularly attending shows crushes me. Thankfully 2021 was not a total drought of concerts. I am grateful I got to see Foxing play an album release show for DDTM, which I still cannot stop streaming on repeat, as well as Bleachers. I am not optimistic that live music will inch back to normal this year given recent events. It breaks my heart. Will I attend a show this year? Probably. But nothing is the same, which increases my nostalgia for college times. I am trying to find other ways to engage with music, even though I know that they will pale in comparison to live experiences.

In the final weeks of 2021 I binged interviews with my favorite artists and also started listening to more music-related podcasts, which help a lot. I used to do this a lot in high school but fell out, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I also want to write more about music. It is easy to write about concerts I attended, especially because I do not want to forget any detail, but I hope to write about songs, albums, and artists on my blog, even if they are not new releases. I find music writing interesting, especially when it comes from an average enthusiast and not from music publications or influencers whose opinions often make me cringe.

Photography

I felt like I could take my camera with me everywhere, every day when I lived in Chicago and find something captivating to photograph. That has not been the case since I moved to St. Louis. I dusted off my camera probably only two times in the first two years that I lived here. But I picked it up again at the end of the summer, and I think that helped me break free from a brief depressive spell I was under. Looking back, I know that getting out and traveling a long way by foot or transit simply to photograph something would have given me a sense of purpose on the weekends when I had no reason to leave my apartment besides grocery shopping, stopping by the lab, or going for walks. I love staying home and doing nothing, which eventually gets old for someone even as introverted as me when there is nothing that makes me want to go home and do nothing. I might also set up a photo gallery on this blog, which might fill a void after having left Instagram a while ago.

St. Louis activities

I am still working on giving St. Louis a better chance instead of often dreaming I were back in Chicago or living somewhere else. Firstly, I want to visit more of St. Louis’s museums. Embarrassingly, I have only been to one (two if you count the City Museum). I visited tons of museums on my trips last year, but for some reason I hold myself back in my own city. Maybe I fear that they won’t live up to expectations. For now a lot of museums have closed again, but I plan to better appreciate the city’s offerings as soon as things calm down again. Secondly, I managed to go on a few hikes in 2021 – more than in 2020 – but there are still so many awesome trails left for me to try just outside of St. Louis. I found out that it is very cheap for me to rent a car here thanks to a university-affiliated discount, so I will take advantage of that as well.

I feel even more like I’ve kept busy outside of work after writing all of this, which is cool and much-needed.