Hey everybody! So I haven’t posted since last August… Woops! When I made my last post in 2019, I had a few posts ready to publish, but they all felt incomplete or boring. 2019 was just a so-so year for me, and I wasn’t about to front about my life for internet’s sake. To add insult to injury, I haven’t posted at all this year either! Obviously, I’ve been up to, well… nothing.

Anyways, without ado, here’s an update for you on how my year has been. From dying my hair to learning how to make video games– here’s how 2020 has been for me!

Lightning struck me twice! Just kidding. I dyed my hair!

My boyfriend is an essential worker, so with no one to talk to all day and a lack of self control, I decided to bleach a single blonde streak into the front of my hair, but the streak seemed asymmetrical, so I bleached the other side too just to even it out.

I was going for some sort of “Bride of Frankenstein” look. It took about a month or so to get it to the blonde level I desired! I love it and I regret nothing. (I’m not a professional, so seek one if you have financial accessibility and feel safe enough) You can see my hair evolution below. I haven’t been to a salon in over a year, so this is my life now.

Look at me, I’m a hiker now! (and amateur fossil excavator)

I stayed in my apartment aside from the biweekly grocery trip for like 90 days or so. But on Memorial Day I decided to go hike a trail. I was like, “Oh yeah. people walk in nature for like… exercise and fresh air, or whatever.” Usually, I don’t enjoy hiking much, but when you spend 90% of your time either sitting or lying for 90 days straight, you are suddenly up for hiking anywhere. My boyfriend and I chose to hike along the Mississippi River. I remember specifically, on the way to the hiking path, I turned to Eric and said, “… I’m going to find a fossil today. I can just feel it.”

After hiking the small path (and flipping many rocks with no results), I was bored of hiking. We made our way back up a long stone staircase. As we stepped upward, I marveled at the sandstone along the stairs, and I noticed a hand-sized chunk of sandstone on a very steep ridge of Earth, so I walked onto the ridge to touch it. It wiggled like a tooth, so I yanked, and it lifted out. Holding it, I just knew– I found a fossil. I flipped it over, and there was a hollow space where a spiral shell once existed! It was weird that I knew I would find a fossil, and then I actually found one. It was probably the best of the 5 or so hikes I went on this year.

Here are some photos of some nature and my fossil.

Painting!

I’m a casual artist, and before the pandemic, my main excuse for not painting was that I didn’t have the time. I worked full-time, and also went to college as well. Any free time I had went toward hanging out with friends. Now that I had nothing to stop me, I was like, “Heck yeah! I’m gonna make so much art.” and then after a month I had artist’s block! I felt like that episode of The Twilight Zone– “Time Enough At Last”. Finally I had the time to paint, and then I had no ideas. But you can’t beat yourself up for not being creative or productive at the moment, because that’s totally normal.

Playing video games and learning how to make them!

For the longest time I was over video games. I worked for a video game store(you know the one) for 2 years. I was burnt out from the video game industry for the longest time. To put it simply, after talking about gaming all day, I didn’t want to play videogames when I got home.

I learned to love gaming again in 2020, thanks to catching up on games I never got around to beating, along with online multiplayer with my friends (via Switch, PS4, and Oculus Rift). I was so inspired that I registered for a Video Game Writing course at my university. I literally only have the pandemic to thank for this, because a year ago I didn’t even have the mental energy to play Mario Kart.

I became a Ukulele Master!

Alright, so that may be an exaggeration. I once played a uke at my mom and stepdad’s wedding a few years back, very lackadaisically. Even back then I had no real intention of playing one for real. It was just there at the wedding for anyone to play. I played a little bit of acoustic guitar growing up, just playing some little ditties. I’m left handed, and I wasn’t interested in playing lefty, so my experience on the guitar was short lived, because I was bad at finger-picking with the right hand.

During the summer, I was laid off. Obviously that’s a common tale at this point, in the middle of this global pandemic and nation-wide recession. I was a manager in a store, and my store was looted. The corporate company chose to let us go instead of rebuild. I was devastated.

I borrowed my brother’s ukulele to pass the time, since I was suddenly lacking a full schedule of random zoom meetings. After learning a few songs and strumming patterns… I was hooked. I loved the ukulele so much, I decided to buy my own! My brother plays a Soprano Uke. I read somewhere online that serious players often upgrade to the Concert Uke, just because it’s a little larger for handling.

I saw this one online, and knew it was the uke for me. I did some research, and put myself on a wait list, because it was sold out across the web. Eventually, I found one on Sweetwater, and I bought it instantly! I learned to play probably 5-6 of my favorite songs, the basic chords, and some finger-picking patterns, and I haven’t looked back since. I love my little uke baby.

You can purchase the Kala Waterman Concert Ukulele here!

What I’ve learned in 2020

It’s easy to open an app and complain about how difficult life has been. We are all experiencing the same things. I’m not a person who always looks at the bright side of things. I often wake up and don’t get out of bed. It gets hard to feel like life is moving forward when everything is stuck in a standstill. In this time where it may feel like you lack total control of all of the elements around us, know that you can only control how you react to it all.

I can honestly say that 2020 was not my year, because it was nobody’s year. I sort of thought that if I’m gonna sit around like the “This is fine” dog in a burning world, the least I can do for myself is make a public list of all the small accomplishments I’ve made, in order to celebrate losing everything but myself.

I’m sure we can all relate to the bored feeling of being stuck in the house! Most of all, I’m curious what you’ve been up to during this time! Feel free to comment below so we can have a conversation about it!