forgotten_aria

Before I get into my thoughts on where I am right now, I want to note that the posted online photos of my CrossFit box's (gym) holiday party made me realize that I do have to stop going in person for a little bit. I had been going because it was a small number of the same people in a large space with distancing (I'm not sure about the ventilation during winter.) I'm still waffling about if I should also skip taekwondo, since they are required to be vaccinated (but not boosted.) NH new cases are in the 1000s (90 per 100,000.)

I just want some thoughts on 2021 and where I am right now.

I am super happy with my progress physically this year. I am up to comfortably doing CrossFit WODs at least 4 days a week, and then another 3 hours of TKD a week. I did a hoop class this week instead of TKD and it hurt, but mostly because I was sloppy and did things like bruise the top of my foot with bad technique. I'm also super pleased to have checked things off my "things I couldn't do as a kid" check list and I hope to continue to check many more off (rope climb, I'm coming for you!)

My knees are so much better. I can't ignore my bad knee completely, but my quality of life there is much better. My back being stronger has been super nice too.

Mentally, I definitely have fewer depression days, but I think there is an overlying haze of "not useful," that is still a problem. And general pandemic stress and malaise.

I am getting much stronger while fighting against fatphobia, even though I still wish I were thinner, but the wish is coming from a much better place of "pull ups would be easier" and "if I were lighter, I could jump higher and maybe do trick kicks," rather than the self-loathing that it used to me. My IG isn't really helping many people, but it is helping me. (My niece blew up on tic tok, so I know just how sad my IG and youtube followings are, but I still help a few people.)

I think one of the things I hate about humanity is that most people will not change their world view when presented with new information. In fact, the research shows that they will usually entrench harder. That (along with many other reasons) is why getting our society to change is so hard.

I was super happy making my costumes (even if I only finished one.) I hope to get back to them after I've cleared my "todo" backlog. I've dipped my foot into the online cosplay community and once it's safe to do so, I think I want to wear my GLaDOS at a con and test the waters for going to cons just for cosplay. If that goes well, I really really want to wear B. Zarya out sometime.

I really want to get back to music, but the little voice in the back of my head that I've always been "not good enough" at music for anyone to actually want to listen to me always makes practice and composing really hard. I do want to write and sequence a song for my creative poomsae for my next black belt test and I should get started on that so I can give it the time it needs.

I don't think I've really processed the people I've lost recently. I keep bumping into their photos and knowing I haven't properly mourned them. I think because I'm still isolated means that it won't be "real" until other things stop being surreal.

I'm trying a new mattress because my hands have been going numb almost ever night and I've been getting an "electric shock" feeling in my left ulnar nerve during the day, so I am really afraid I'm doing some real damage. The new mattress hasn't solved the problem, but it's very slightly better, so I have to decide if that slightly better is worth the ~$1000 that the mattress costs.

I've been playing with duolingo. I feel like it's only good at training me to get better at duolingo. I decided, for fun, to take their placement test for French (my French is horrible) and I could pretty much ace it. I got one question just wrong because of a typo and one actually wrong. I was highly amused that I didn't know the French word for "cell phone" because I last studied french before there were cell phones.

G continues to be awesome.

2021

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