Oookay, well, I’m not sure there’s much purpose to evaluating how “good” a year was anymore because, from what I’ve seen, the consensus is that if 2020 was a dumpster fire, 2021 was…a bigger dumpster fire? It got off to a strong start in my country with an insurrection in our nation’s capital right after the new year. On a brighter note, I am immensely grateful for effective vaccines and my ability to have access to them. They have made the pandemic somewhat less nerve-wracking, even as it wears on.

I said 2020 felt long; 2021 has also felt very long. But here are the highlights of my year:

• I finished my first new zine since 2019 about my experience flying out of Charles de Gaulle in a pandemic (it’s not really about the pandemic though)
• I learned how to grow microgreens in my nearly windowless apartment
• I sent my agent a draft of my hopefully-next novel (I’m now revising it again)!
• I visited Des Moines and its botanical garden
• Amazingly, I made it back to France to spend a week with Isabelle and Olivier in Meudon-la-Forêt!
• My parents and I canoed and camped in the Boundary Waters
• My family went on an amazing trip to Iceland, fulfilling a 7th grade travel wish of mine
• I taught a brand new course: Morphology!
• I returned to northern California for my friend Dustin’s wedding and visited my friends Katherine and Kaccāyana while I was there

I wish all three of my readers (:P) a safe and healthy 2022! May it be a year of progress and hope!

Fjallsárlón, Iceland