Time flies; the year 2021 is now here. 2020 was an unforgettable year yet everyone wants to forget all about it. I know I do. It was a mental rollercoaster of a year. I am so proud of myself for persevering and making it to 2021. To commemorate surviving 2020, here is my personal recap on what I did during the year no one wants to repeat.
March 13th, 2020 was a strange day for all of us. Trump declared COVID-19 to be a national emergency. People started hoarding essentials from grocery stores, schools and businesses started shutting down and transferring online, and a stay at home order was initiated. It was pure chaos and I couldn’t seem to catch up. Everything was happening all at once which intensified my anxiety. What was going to happen? How will things change? Will all of us be okay?
What hit me the most as things were changing for the worst was having to move back home from Irvine. I was living at one of the on campus apartments at UCI. Due to the increased caution concerning the virus, residents were given the chance to move out without charge. With the following Spring quarter transferring online, there was no point in staying so I moved out. It was a difficult decision because I absolutely loved living in Irvine. I felt so free and had a taste of what it’s like to live on my own. COVID-19 took that away from me. I am currently still living back home. The only times I go out are for essential needs like grocery shopping.
Thanks to the stay-at-home order keeping me confined in my house, I figured why not spend my days working on myself. At this time, Chloe Ting workouts were trending. From what I saw, everyone who tried it achieved amazing results. I’ve tried intense workouts similar to hers before so I was confident in starting the “Two Week Shred”. I heavily enjoyed it. I felt stronger and saw my body changing. I also felt more energetic! I felt comfortable sticking to the two week shred so I did not try any of Chloe Ting’s other workouts. Over time, I grew bored and exercising became tedious. My motivation disappeared and I stopped exercising. Reasons were because of school and life becoming more mundane; it was difficult to keep going and I lost any sight of hope as 2020 kept getting worse.
Despite 2020 being a terrible year, I was able to make achievements. First off, I got a new laptop! I’ve been meaning to buy a new laptop since Fall 2019 Quarter when I broke it to the point where it was incapable of repair. The first thing I did was personalize it! I bought a clear case to protect the laptop and stickers from Etsy. I also bought Korean 한글 (hangul, or Korean alphabet) keyboard stickers; since I am taking Korean, it was highly recommended by my 선생님 (seonsaengnim, or teacher) to get them in order to type for quizzes and tests. I’m thoroughly satisfied with the needed purchase of my laptop.
Another achievement I made was finally catching up to “One Piece”! I started watching the anime back in the summer of 2016. Since then, I’ve had on and off phases with catching up. I absolutely enjoy “One Piece” so much so watching it made me realize why it’s so popular and why it hasn’t ended yet; there’s still so much mystery to certain parts of the story that has yet to be explained or revealed further in detail. But as I continued to watch it, my purpose shifted from watching it out of entertainment to watching it because I had to catch up. To avoid “One Piece” from becoming a drag for me, I took a break from watching and hoped that I would regain the determination to watch it again. This became an ongoing pattern until April 2020 during quarantine. I figured this should be my best chance to catch up once and for all. June 24, 2020 was when I officially caught up to the anime. Next up: the manga!
To help myself get back on track, I sought to prioritize my self-care once again. One of the main solutions was joining Her Campus at UCI! When I saw them at the Fall Anteater Involvement Fair, I saw they had a photography/videography position which was the initial reason why I wanted to join. But before signing up for that, I had to be a Chapter Member and write articles first. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be any good enough since writing is challenging for me. But as time went on with the more articles I wrote, my writing skills improved along with my creativity. Joining the club allowed me to meet and interact with amazing new friends with whom I share common interests.
2020 was a rough year thanks to the wrath of COVID-19. It was nearly impossible to focus on the positive when the negative events had the biggest impact. Everyone fought their own battles, including me. I am glad 2020 is over and 2021 is finally here among us. With the vaccine and the inauguration of President Joe Biden, there is again that sense of hope I lost sight of. Hopefully this is one step further into breaking out of the “new” normal and the reunion of the normal we were used to long before.
