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TLDR: 2019 was okay. It could have gone better, but I’ve taken steps to trying to enjoy myself.
Work/Jobs
So I’ve been working at my job for a little over a year now, and I’m starting to get an idea of how things work. The people who I’m closest to are on the Creative Team with me. I’ve talked to each of them at least once, and I’m starting to get a feel on their personalities and interests, and I’m also getting a feeling about their favorability of certain people, and I must say, I’ve felt the tension!
My job gets extremely stressful on 2 occasions: 1.) During what’s called “Partner Week” in October. A lot of design requests come in from attorneys for us to design materials that they can use to present with. Despite the creative team providing several options by default, we still get requests. My boss also gets stressed out at this time, and she has ordered us designers to not take any time off during October. 2.) Before the winter holidays. This is because attorneys and their contacts are submitting their requests at the absolute last minute just before they go on vacation, and this is also the time when designers on our team take vacations, so it creates a massive workload for the designers who are on duty.
Natural Occurrences
I do remember it raining a lot this year. It rained so much that my work clothes ended up being soaking wet when I came into my office one day. It also snowed, but we got more freezing rain than anything. Navigating was pretty difficult, and apparently the freezing rain wasn’t enough to warrant a 2 hour delay from the office.
Things could’ve gone better…
- Honestly, I think my mother’s getting worse when it comes to her attitude. She’s still at odds with my aunt. There are times when she tells me that my aunt betrayed her, and there are other times when she says that my aunt is ignoring her and is wondering why she won’t talk to her. With those kinds of excuses, I’m not buying any of them. She’s just hating for the sake of hating now, and I feel like it’s too late to get to her, so I won’t even try anymore.
- In January of this year, I have been assigned what I like to call the “Project from Hell.” I was designing an internal invitation for a fireside chat with the CEO of my company and the CEO from Uber. Unfortunately, the people who requested this clearly didn’t know what they wanted in the invitation, nor did they know what they wanted it to look like, so I kept getting emails with several revisions to change sentences, time and date, names, colors, images, even layouts. Not to mention, they suddenly decided that they wanted an external version of this as well, so I had to do twice as much work. In the end, throughout a span of 2 weeks, I have gotten over 20 revision requests…6 of them being major layout changes. At the end of it, the designers on my team did end up using the theme I used for other materials related to this fireside chat, and yet, I felt so emotionally abused and tired.
- I got 2 colds this year. The second one I got was during Partner Week, which was the time when every designer had to be present at the office, no exceptions. That cold was so bad, that no medicine or remedy I took helped to alleviate the symptoms, and I could hardly breathe.
Entertainment
- In addition to watching a bunch of shit on YouTube, I actually managed to see quite a few movies in the theater this time. I even got opportunities to watch older movies that were considered hits, and I enjoyed those.
I think the best one I saw in theaters was Us. It’s a good movie that’s more entertaining than scary, honestly, and it really teaches you to be grateful for what you have.
The worst one I saw in theaters was the 2019 remake of Aladdin. Half the actors couldn’t act, and the elements that the remake changed were either unnecessary or didn’t make any sense.
- I saw a few stage productions as well this year. I saw Falsettos and recently (as of this post), A Chorus Line. I really liked both of them. I also got to see Arin and Dan in “Game Grumps: The Final Party” when their tour came to DC. It was kind of strange, because it mostly featured them playing games with the audience members.
Vacation
My mother and I went to Cancun earlier this December. It was a much-needed vacation, and it was very nice. We sat on the beach sipping cocktails, tried all different kinds of food, went to the Xcaret park, and saw some architecture in Chichen Itza. The only thing that kind of annoyed us was the abundance of crying and screaming children. They were EVERYWHERE. They were on the beach, on the buses, in the restaurants, in the places we visited, even near our hotel room! It didn’t stop me from enjoying the vacation though. I should note because of this, I’ve developed a small addiction to cocktails…Don’t worry, I’ll drink responsibly. XD
Art
Because I’ve been focusing on my job and real-life matters, I haven’t been able to work on any art at all. If I ever do decide to make a new year’s resolution, it’s to get back into it. Sometimes I feel so drained from my IRL problems and job that I completely forget about the hobbies that I loved.
