Maybe for posterity, I wanted to talk about some of my accomplishments, failures, and life events that occurred in 2021. Honestly, I didn’t think a lot had happened this year until I started looking at my archived Instagram stories LOL.
A few particular events are bound together with the strings of fate (read: the pandemic). Because I was languishing along with everyone else, I fell behind schedule in terms of my degree timeline. Initially I was hellbent on finishing the degree in 5 years, something that hadn’t happened for the theory and cognition track in quite a while. But then everything changed when the pandemic started last year. Not only was I separated from much of my research materials for a few months, I was emotionally distraught and found it super difficult to focus. Though it wasn’t quite as bad this year as last, this malaise did carry over. So, while I was initially planning on defending my dissertation prospectus in the Fall of last year, I didn’t end up defending it until October of this year. It was a successful defense (i.e., I’m now ABD), but I was dwelling so long on the prospectus that I “lost” a year of writing the dissertation proper.
While I probably would have done this regardless, because of this year-long delay, I ended up applying for some fellowships in hopes of securing funding for a sixth year. Though I made it to the interview round for one, I didn’t get any of the fellowships. So. Because of that, I ended up making the decision to move back to SA to save money since I have no idea what my funding situation will be like next academic year. The move back was almost definitely the biggest life event of the year and more than a few people have commented on how much happier I seem here than in Chicago.
But life hasn’t been all failures. Outside of the academy, I’ve met a few of my collecting goals, including purchasing an original work by David Heo and finally tracking down a Japanese print I’ve been hunting for since 2013.
I also wrote what will probably be my most read piece ever, an analytical YouTube comment that garnered 1700+ likes on a music video (I wrote about this previously). And I placed first in the Diamond League in Duo one week. Nice.
Back to the academy, I presented “internationally” (in a virtual manner) at the meetings of three different organizations: the International Musicological Society’s Music and Media Study Group, the British Audiovisual Research Network, and Ludomusicology. Ironically enough, even though some version of that paper was accepted at a ton of conferences, it didn’t make it into MaMI this year. But c’est la vie. I also received a research grant to purchase a bunch of video game music (after failing in my first attempt last year), both in the form of scores and CDs. The CDs have been especially useful/interesting with the liner notes they include. And then mayhaps my biggest highlight of the year was getting to interview Mariam Abounassr for my dissertation research on my birthday (the date being entirely coincidental, as she had to reschedule last minute).
A few other things. This year was Pokémon’s 25th anniversary, so I’ve been trying to be “the very best, like no one ever was” by hunting down as much of the anniversary goods as I can. Gotta catch’em all, amirite? Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time also finally premiered almost a decade after the penultimate movie in the Rebuild Series, and with the (true) End of EVA, I definitely felt a sense of closure I wasn’t really expecting. I still want to write something about that, but I’m not sure where I want it to end up… On a similar note, I got into watches and kinda want to write something about that as well. Though I’m not going to get into it too much here, my short-term horological collecting goals (the CasiOak and Seiko Flighty) were met this year, so that’s cool. And then, finally, I started regularly going to the gym with some friends. I’ve been somewhat stagnant these last few years, so, as much as I gripe about it, it’s been good for me.
Again, I write this in large part for posterity's sake. But I also think it's healthy to talk about failures as much as successes. "You miss every shot you don't take," as that olde maxim goes. "Try—what's the worst that can happen?" “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” Cheesy as the lines have become, they're valuable when taken seriously. Did I succeed in everything I tried this year? No, not at all. Was I pleasantly surprised by a lot of what occurred when I set definite goals and actively pursued them? Big yes. As we enter the third calendar year of the pandemic (let that sink in), I urge anyone who's reading this to slow down and meditate on what they want in life, whether big or small. Failure can be hard to accept, but the quicker you can become comfortable with it—and with learning from it—the quicker new possibilities open up.