Another lap completed

[oloriel]

I didn't manage to do the end-of-the-year meme "between years" because I was grading papers instead, and then I was on vacation, so I'm doing it a week late. The new year is so young that it's still fair game, I think. As usual, this is probably going to be full of moping and melancholy! Ye have been warned!



1. What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?
Joined the SWG mod team. Thanks for having me! - Started teaching. Like, officially, not just tutoring. It's going OK, for the first attempt. I think. - Went to Oxford!

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for this year?

Uuuh... possibly my lesson plans for the next weeks count as resolutions? I probably won't keep them entirely, but close enough. I mean, they're based on the curriculum so I must more or less follow them. Not, perhaps, on the exact day and in the exact way as planned, but on the whole... yeah.
I stuck with the adulting stuff I signed up for in 2017, but I'm planning to drop one (possibly two) this year. They're incredible time sinks and - worse - one of them is a terrible energy drain that leaves me in a bad mood for days. Let me be strong tomorrow.
Of my fannish resolutions... I kept some of them. I did write some articles for the DTG site. I participated (just barely) in B2MeM. Didn't manage to complete all SWG challenges but most of them? Fair enough. I didn't start the sequel to The Tempered Steel but I managed to continue one of my major WiPs. I produced some (very little) fanart, including one piece for Imperium.
In conclusion: Not as much as I hoped, but it's not too bad. I suppose the leftovers from 2018 will become the resolutions for 2019. XD

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
One friend had a baby boy in April, and a substitute teacher at my school had a baby girl on December 31st. I'm happy for her but I'll miss her. She's an absolute ray of sunshine.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandfather. Felix' best friend (close by association). A friend's father. And the husband of my husband's aunt - not all that close, but close enough to hurt. It's been a bad year in that respect.

5. What countries did you visit?
Austria and the UK.

6. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?
More chill in the classroom, above all! - And more 'spoons' to deal with paperwork within a reasonable time frame? Please?

7. What date from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
March 13, my grandfather's funeral. The husband didn't come along because, after a routine visit to his general practitioner, he was hospitalised with what looked like a heart attack at the time.
September 22, the news of L.'s death.

On a more positive note:
The first week of September - the first week of school. Emotional rollercoaster. Followed by the second weekend in September, my trip to Oxford and London for the Tolkien exhibition and the Imperium plays. Complete madness but absolutely worth it!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Starting my teaching job. Sticking with (most of) my commitments, though it was a mistake in one case :P

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not throwing in the towel with the Kindergarten board sooner. Lots of heartbreak that ultimately achieved nothing. I didn't want to be a quitter. Much good did it do. (Not.)
And, as always, paperwork (TM).

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Laryngitis and bronchitis (the latter is starting to be a theme :P) towards the end of the year. And then I sprained my ankle on Boxing Day. Still hasn't fully recovered. But then, it's only been two weeks.

11. What were the best things you bought?
The plane tickets to Heathrow and back, and the theatre tickets for Imperium? :D

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Felix' teacher still rocks. I want to be her when I grow up.

13. Whose behaviour appalled you?
Some of the husband's co-workers and his boss. In a very selfish way, the chairwoman of the board of managers in the Kindergarten. I hate people who just look sad during discussions and "abstain" during votes, and then later write sad WhatsApp messages in which they demand that decisions are changed because she ~can't stand in for that decision as chairwoman~ and then whine that she can never convince anyone WHEN SHE DIDN'T EVEN TRY IN THE ACTUAL DISCUSSION because she was just sitting there making sad eyes and evidently thinking that making Bambi eyes substituted actually arguing her point. AND THEN she has the nerve to complain that decisions are getting postponed. NEWS FLASH BITCH they're getting turned around BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS DECIDE THAT YOU DIDN'T MEAN TO ABSTAIN A DAY LATER. (Not that it actually changes a thing when it's a 4 yes, 1 abstention vote? But if I'm firmly set against something, shouldn't I actually vote NO? I always thought that abstention meant "I don't care either way", not "I actually very strongly am AGAINST this but I can't bother to actually open my mouth" and ARGH. By now, my resentment has actually turned into hostility, and it's not healthy.
Lord, give me the strength to not stand for re-election tomorrow. That woman is quitting for good, but a repetition with a different person is likely, and I just don't. Have. The strength.

Ok I'm done now.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Same as always. Yes, really! In spite of the flight.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
OXFORD. My precious, precious escapist weekend. Wish I could do that more often.

16. What song will always remind you of 2018?
"The Tides of War" by Blind Guardian. Nothing like driving to work at the crack of sparrowshit while singing THE TIDES OF WAR! THE TIDES OF WAR! WE'VE COME TO FACE IT IN THESE LANDS! at the top of my lungs...
And then, "Zu Asche, zu Staub" by Severija Janušauskaitė. More on that later.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier? I nearly listed myself as someone whose behaviour merited celebration before I remembered some of my worse fuck-ups, so that probably counts as happier!
ii. thinner or fatter? I've gained some weight but it hardly merits the word "fat".
iii. richer or poorer? Roughly the same.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Paperwork. Not because I enjoy doing it but because it would've been nice to be done with it. :P
I also wish I'd done more fanart!

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Invested time and energy into the board of managers, ARGH. And generally gotten angry about things I don't have the power to change.

20. How did you spend Christmas and/or New Year's?
Christmas: Christmas Eve at home, Christmas Day at the mother-in-law's, and Boxing Day/Feast of Stephen at my parents'. See Christmas post.
New Year's: At a friend of my husband's on the Swabian Jura, which was reasonably nice.

21. Did you fall in love in 2018?
With Oxford, predictably.

22. How many one-night stands?
Sex continues to be overrated and I still don't know how people can get so invested in it that they'd consider having it outside of a long-running relationship.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
To my surprise, Babylon Berlin! A gripping police drama about sex, drugs and PTSD in 1929 Berlin. Really well done (for a German production), except for the final (for the time being) episode, which was desperately trying to wrap up at least some open ends in a not particularly convincing manner. Other than that, painful yet satisfying.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Hate leads to the dark side, but as my ramble above suggests, it's hard to resist its temptation w/ regard to one of my co-volunteers at the Kindergarten...

25. What was the best book you read?
Uuuh. A tie between Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage and Bernard Cornwell's Fools and Mortals, I'd say. Both were un-put-downable. Actually, I read a lot of good (for my tastes, anyway) books this year, but these two, I re-read as soon as I'd finished them.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The terrifyingly brilliant "Zu Asche, zu Staub" I mentioned above! It's the theme song to Babylon Berlin and possibly one of the reasons for the show's success. Here, have a YouTube link to the official video. Probably NSFW in an American setting. Warning for some more or less tasteless (1929 tastes) semi-nudity and just barely covered female-presenting nipples.
It's very intense even if you don't understand the lyrics, bringing across the sense of dancing on the edge of an abyss that you (as the viewer) know the characters are. (Does that even make sense?) Especially powerful because it's too easy to see the parallels to today's social and political developments. >_>
In a less adult vein, I feel a mighty need for an Akallabêth fanvid to this song, but we can't always have what we want, I guess.

27. What did you want and get?
A decent job in a good (so far...) team, a trip to the Tolkien exhibition, and a food dehydrator for Christmas! Good things come in threes...

28. What did you want and not get?
Enough money for the teaching job to be less worried about the damn stuff. I also failed to buy a copy of The Fall of Gondolin because I was already pushing my luck with the trip to Oxford...

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
As usual, I didn't see any of the movies that came out last year. The best mostly recent film I recall seeing was the BBC dramatisation of King Charles III, a speculative future history play in the best Shakespearean tradition.
Speaking if plays, not (yet?) on film but absolutely excellent on stage: Imperium: Conspirator and Imperium: Dictator. *goosebumps*

30. What did you do on your birthday?
I... don't actually remember. Must have been a wild party. :P Oh, I think my parents and my brother and his girlfriend dropped by for a barbecue. Yes, that sounds about right.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Jörg not suffering from burn-out? On the other hand, he definitely profited from the break. We dearly miss the money, though. Neither my part-time teaching nor his sickness benefits could make up for his normal income (and we barely get by on that).

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?
One of my 9th graders (who otherwise doesn't have many nice things to say about teachers) said "You're really rocking that Hippie chic" so... I'll go with that?

33. What kept you sane?
Bold of you to assume that I was ever sane. (Fandom and, on occasion, stupid-ass memes.)

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I'm absolutely certain that there must have been someone, but I can't remember who right now. Maybe I'll edit later if I remember. (If there's anyone to remember.)

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Internal Kindergarten politics. Beyond (and possibly because of) that, I'm suffering from (or possibly enjoying) outrage fatigue. I mean, there are lots of issues that I got angry about but the mere thought of listing any single one of them makes my blood pressure go up again so I won't do it.

36. Who did you miss?
Meeting fannish friends in the flesh, as ever.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Several of my fellow (haha I can't believe I can say that) teachers are pretty cool people. Haven't yet detected the nerds among them but hey, it's still early days.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018.
After a couple of weeks in the classroom, you regain your ability to perform in public view. More or less. Enough to fool the students. Most of the time.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Zu Asche, zu Staub/ Dem Licht geraubt/ Doch noch nicht jetzt.../ Wunder warten bis zuletzt
(To ashes, to dust/ bereft of light/ but not yet/ miracles wait until the last)

Also: WE'VE COME TO FACE IT... IN THESE LANDS.... WE'VE COME TO FACE IT IN THESE LANDS... THE CURSE OF FEEEEEANOR *aggressive metal guitar*


Well! This may actually have been the most... positive... of these memes that I've ever done! Uh-oh. Now I'm a bit worried. It won't last, will it?