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2020 has been a bad year for me, the worst thing that has happened to me happened this year. It had nothing to do with covid which i have avoided.

I've tried to think of anything good about 2020. It's hard. There was no convention this year for me, my area is home to Archon, the biggest SF convention in the midwest and a true fhan effort, not a commercial money hoover like comiccon. It was cancelled thanks to covid.

We didn't get Sealab.

i saw people losing their businesses, their homes, their life savings and loved ones en masse while the already rich got richer and richer

As to anything good, i won't get into politics so i won't discuss the election.

Honestly, the only good thing I can think of this year is that 2020 was the first year in well over a decade I have not had 2-3 superhero movies forced on me thru saturation bombing advertising campaigns. I have literally come to hate SHMs and get overwhelmed with hate and disgust every time i cannot avoid an ad for them, including product ads at every store i go to, ads on tv, ads on every net site and page i go to, ads in the mail, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Yes, I can honestly say i hate SHMs for no other reason than unless you're willing to utterly disconnected and live in a cave somewhere in the remote amazon jungle you are constantly assaulted with ads for them for months. Yes, I was glad to have a year where i was not struggling to avoid ads and having them slammed into my eyes and ears daily regardless.

So, the economy crashed and burned, i lost my mother, i'm facing an uncertain future and every few weeks i get to worry about a friend or family member being exposed to covid.

But at least an election went middling well and I wasn't having ads for movies that made me nauseated forced on my numerous times a day every day for months.

Yeah, doesn't really balance out the bad side at all.

Anyone here have any good things happen this year?

Only in terms of lack of negatives - haven't got Covid, haven't lost anyone near to me, haven't lost my job...

I did technically get promoted but that just seems to have meant more responsibility and pressure, with a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' pay rise only just hitting the rate of inflation.

I got engaged, my Fiance and I got a place together, and we got a puppy. Pretty thankful for those things. My fiance works in the schools though, and is almost convinced she is going to get it eventually due to that.

In my region, Covid hasn't hit as too bad (currently 30 active cases), but nearby big cities and regions are hit pretty hard. We are worried about tourists coming out and spreading it to us. We had almost none for months, until an outbreak at a LTC facility in town.

I moved to a better house, and sold the old one for 60k more than we paid for it.

The lock down forced my wife and I to confront a few issues in our relationship and saved our marriage.

My wife had surgery that has corrected her medical issues.

 jaredb wrote:
My fiance works in the schools though, and is almost convinced she is going to get it eventually due to that.

Yeah, my wife is a classroom support assistant and I've got 2 school-age kids. We've had three spells of isolation while waiting for covid test results so far. Fortunately all negative till now, but does feel a bit like it's just a matter of time...

The day before the start of half term holiday it turned out she had been exposed to a kid with Covid (but no symptoms), so she had to spend the half term holiday in isolation. :(

I'm pretty drunk right now, so that's pretty great?

I got stuck in Angola for 4 months earlier this year due to covid, and now again for 3 months and counting (this time offshore). On the bright side, due to the way my pay scales, the longer I work abroad, the more money I earn, so financially it's been a pretty good year.
Next year will be pretty good too due to spending more than half the year abroad in a country mine doesn't have a tax treaty with, so I'm expecting a pretty big return then.

 jaredb wrote:
I got engaged, my Fiance and I got a place together, and we got a puppy.

This seems like a thread for pictures of the puppy - just sayin'...

* * *

Assuming I haven't screwed up the numbers, I've paid off two credit cards in full this year - I'm not going to say how much the total was, aside from "more than I should've been comfortable with, " and leave it at that. Still, nice to get it all sorted out.

Worst case, I may have less than £1 in interest left on one of them.

For me personally, I have done well in investing and has changed my life so to speak. Its been hard to learn and still have a long way to go, but its now the first significant step to financial independence.

I was going to jack in the retail job to pursue a digital content career( programming, art, VR, that kind of thing ) but covid put an end that. That said, between part time hours and investing its a good balance and given the current situation I am grateful to not be in any kind of real hardship. I'm making money but just not the way I expected to.

That said, my colleagues at work have gone through a hard time and live far more vulnerable lives. Some have lost family members - as we do in life - while some have been diagnosed with cancer. From my narrow vision it seems to happen to the nice people in life. Home life is like a mine field and even with a strong mental attitude, broke down in tears the other morning. Where this hobby is concerned I'm finding it to be more work than fun and now easing up a bit with models that need assembling and painting.

I was looking forward to 2020 but instead its been a painful year of personal growth. To get through each day I've kept my focus on this hobby and put aside the rest. Oh, I discovered The Owl House which has not only made me laugh hard but also inspired me to give animation another look - something I abandoned in my late 20s due to the usual "you need to stop dreaming and get a real job" mantra which most of us fall prey to. Not sure where that will lead, but its looking fun so far...

2020 is the year we will all remember as one of the most difficult years in living memory. It seems the popular opinion of this whole situation is that of 1984, but while its understandable I however see it as The War of the Worlds. Every country in the world - the global economy, travel and our very lives - has been bought to heel...and it was not done by the mightest weapons of mankind, but the smallest of nature's creations. Maybe one day this virus will simply disappear, and together we will emerge with a new perspective and understanding of life and change for the better.

I've found comfort in nature walks, visiting a local lake, eating a banana for breakfast, exercising. Boring and frustating for the left side of the brain, but calming and peaceful for the right side. This might help others finding it hard to cope.

It's been an alright year, COVID aside.

Doing pretty well financially, due to COVID creating opportunities that wouldn't usually exist.

Stopped talking about it, and finally bought a boat, and have been having a blast with it.

Been training heaps, and finally ran a sub-9-minute 2.4km, which has been an aspiration for about 18months.

This year hasn't sucked, TBH, although Western Australia is definitely less effected than most.

 Dysartes wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I got engaged, my Fiance and I got a place together, and we got a puppy.

This seems like a thread for pictures of the puppy - just sayin'...

.

This is our litte guy, Orson.

That's a good point.

I did take part in a charity trek back in September, after a lot of training through the year. Walked 26 miles and raised £800 for the Alzheimers Society.

No one in my family has gotten sick despite having 3 nurses in my family. Being in I.T means I didn't lose my job over the course of the year. Confirmed that the pain in my tooth was not a cavity, just a product of not having had a teeth cleaning in 4 years. That means my streak of never having a cavity continues.

Oh, and I finished paying off my student loan this year. So overall while things didn't go as planned, nothing super bad happened to me or my direct family/friends. So a solid 7/10 for me this year. Good, but not great.

Good things:

My wife had brain surgery this year and recovered nicely and is doing great!

I was able to sell 2 wargame books this year, so that is good.

My wife had been helping digitize our Church services and getting paid for it. That is nice.

I cleared my pile of shame twice this year.

My family started our little farmstead with a COVID garden and 11 goats this year.

It’s nice to hear how some folks managed to find some good in this year, despite the pandemic. I hope the next year is a bit better for all of us.

On my end, 2020 has lead to a lot of personal reflection, which I hope can translate to personal development. Spent the last while finding a purpose for kindness, and the process has been an exploration in adopting varrying amounts of selfishness at different periods of the year. Some of that selfishness must have accidentally translated to self-compassion, since I recently encountered a bit of a boost in self-confidence. I’ve never felt this comfortable in my own skin before. The pandemic has also helped me revise a couple of flaws in my thinking, in which I assumed that one person can solve all of the world’s problems and that all problems are fully within our control with enough effort. Not so much a sense of helplessness, but rather a revision and reframing of this perspective to account for the limits in which one can contribute to a problem such as this. The pandemic was a humbling experience, but I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit over the year.

I was made redundant in February, but got a new job in the same industry with better pay, better team, much better pension, practically better in every way.

I also was able to book a wedding venue and date, 7/7/22! Bit of a wait but it means we won't have to worry about the backlog of Covid-delayed weddings.

I started a new army recently, Thousand Sons. Never really painted them before so it's a nice new change considering I haven't played Chaos since 5th Edition. The blog in my sig contains my latest work if anyone fancies a look.

Honestly? On a purely personal level, ignoring the obvious societal troubles and everything falling apart, it's been fantastic.

I lost weight, did some serious personal growth, and thanks to working from home finally felt energetic, rested and optimistic. Not having to waste 2hrs on commute every day and not having to engage in useless small talk with people I at best tolerate at work made me happier and more ready to engage socially (even if online for now) with people i actually want to talk to.

It's been a year.

My father passed away, I had to close a business, a condo I owned was destroyed, my basement flooded, and my daughter had a severe adverse reaction to virtual learning.

There's always an upside.

Getting over my father's passing was an opportunity for personal and spiritual growth. I learned a lot about myself and discovered some strengths I did not know I possess.

The business closing left me in serious debt. Early on in the pandemic, I made some smart decisions that put me in a very comfortable position. I now have capital to restart the business if I choose.

The condo was in a building that the city demolished with no notice. My lawyer was able to get them to settle right away. Very grateful to have avoided what could have been a long, drawn out battle.

The flooding lead me to learn carpentry. I was able to clean up gunk, remove a wall, restore that wall, put in new carpet, and acquire a ton of new tools along the way. Glad to have learned new skills and have my basement back.

My daughter hasn't learned much from virtual learning, but I was able to teach her to read by sitting down with her every night. There's a big stack of early reader books she completed that we're preparing to give away to another family. Home schooling means seeing her accomplishments first-hand and it's very rewarding.

So I had to work hard to make good things happen, but they did.

Promotion at work, leading to my first notable pay rise in about 4 years.

Permanently working from home, so no commute, and a £260ish saving each month.

Work issued laptop, so I can work from anywhere - this men’s no more spending annual leave just to see my Daddykins

Met my Lass, and the relationship is going swimmingly.

Despite the obvious drawbacks, this year is most definitely a win for me.

I saved hundreds of dollars on car insurance by switching to Geico.

Bad joke.

I did complete my hitherto not particularly important quest to beat every Halo game on Legendary difficulty. That was fun.

My fanfic got a TVTropes page, which is small and unimportant but hey it made me feel appreciated and I got an award for the story from the fandom's Reddit page too.

I finally have a stable job after years of instability and that's pretty dope.

I think the whole 2020 is just awful thing is just a somewhat fun meme. The world's not ending. It's just a time of high tensions and lots of uncertainty. It'll pass. Eventually.

Money wise, I've(and the company I work for) had the best year ever on record. Like record breaking month after record breaking month.

Powersports industry was booming with everyone having nothing to do.

But now, demand has exceeded the disrupted global supply chain and we're hurting for product while the manufacturers slowly catch up. It may well be a weak Christmas saleswise, but the previous months will cover that loss easily.

 jaredb wrote:
This is our litte guy, Orson.

Spoiler:

I hope Orson continues to do Welles.

Sorry, couldn't resist - give him a fuss and a "good boy" from me, would you?

yeah, I didn't get Covid, I was in China from Jan-Mar during all this, lucky to catch a flight just in time so I won't get evicted due to USPS failed to recognize my writing(returned envelope of rent to my mailbox). I was lucky to secure a standby flight from LAX back to DFW as my original returned date got moved. I was surprised how nonchalant most americans were once I landed. Everything considered, I count myself lucky, luckier than a lot of other people who lost much more.

 Matt Swain wrote:
I've tried to think of anything good about 2020. It's hard. There was no convention this year for me, my area is home to Archon, the biggest SF convention in the midwest and a true fhan effort, not a commercial money hoover like comiccon. It was cancelled thanks to covid.

I think you're overselling Archon. The con itself is pretty piddling, the drunken orgy afterwards is pretty decent tho.

Yearly rechecks for more cancer showed nothing new

Around feb I was getting super burned out in my job (I'm a highschool teacher), so going to working from home during lockdown was actually a godsend for me. It has been a tough couple of years and I was able to rest a bit.

This was good for my relationship with my wife, and she had an important surgery that we have been worried about for two years and finally managed to get done in the period when the covid cases were the lowest. I sorted out a car and got around to driving it enough to feel comfortable driving again.

Did my German citizenship stuff so I will hopefully be a dual citizen soon and will be able to vote.

Back to work now and it is worse than ever, but that also forced me to confront that it was unsustainable and I have begun to take slow steps to get myself out of that situation and into something better, I hope.

Oh and I got into Grimdark Future and started building loads of terrain, so when COVID is over I hope to get back into Wargaming for the first time in a long, long time.

Really sorry to hear about the losses of others in the thread. My wife lost her dad recently, and I think it is so rough to have to deal with. Condolences to you. And also to people suffering financially because of the pandemic, just a really rough year for people that way.

But I think for introverted nerds like me, being locked in my house where no one could bother me for months was actually pretty nice.

IDK if anyone remembers, but earlier this year I lamented not getting a promotion and getting passed over by someone with less education then me. It SUCKED
Well, Around summer i got selected to do an online summer camp for kids by my job, out of the roughly 200 people to Audition, i got it. Then, when that summer camp was over, I then got a call saying i was being promoted and being given more responsibilities because of my education. I didnt apply but it was handed to me. Now because im still doing that camp, i have yet to start those duties(They said i will someday) but i got a raise.
Coupled with the fact that my field is regulalry making peoplee go into peoples houses with no masks because "It might scare the kids" im lucky we are alll doing telehealth.
For alll the bad there is, im lucky for how well im doing.
Still lonely and drinking myself to sleep, but hey. I was doing that before the pandemic.

For the first time in about three years, I nailed the texture on my Christmas Fudge.

Edit: @hotsauceman, I remember you talking about that.

Glad you are not being forced into dangerous situations!

 Da Boss wrote:
Edit: @hotsauceman, I remember you talking about that.

Glad you are not being forced into dangerous situations!

Yeah, my cousin had to quit her job(She is in the same field but higher up and in a different company) because she was told she was going still go to houses. She has two girls who are so sickly they would die if they got it.
Some companies are so selfish.