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2021, in conclusion/memoriam

We're all just ignoring any and all goals we set during the pandemic, right? Right. After the nightmare that was 2020, 2021 wasn't so bad. I submitted my first first-author publication  that uncovered a long-standing misconception about airborne transmission of disease, and it got me featured in WIRED magazine . I successfully defended and submitted my dissertation about volunteer health communication in US refugee resettlement. (Those two projects sound very unrelated, but medical rhetoric is the key there :) :))  After 2 years of doctoral coursework and 3 (soul-sucking) years of dissertating, I graduated with a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from Virginia Tech. My mental health immediately   improved. While I was finishing my dissertation, we sold our townhouse in Blacksburg and moved to a 1910s-era bungalow in coastal North Carolina. My daughter started 1st grade (!) in a Spanish immersion program. We all got vaccinated. I was on set as an extra in a Simu Liu/Phillipa Soo movi
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#16 - go to Claytor Lake

Yes, it is mid-January, and yes, I did decide this was a good time to visit a lake. Claytor Lake has free admission if you bring your Christmas tree for them to submerge as a reef for the fish, so off we went! It was a balmy 60 degrees with some pretty good wind, so not too terrible overall for a go-outside-in-the-dead-of-winter activity. We had fun throwing rocks in the water (B) and walking the trails (decidedly not B, who announced "I'm bored of walking!"). But hey, we did the thing.  (Currently making plans to come back in the summer when we can actually go in the water!)

2014 roundup

One of the perks of being pregnant is that you can do all the lazy, procrastinaty things you would normally be doing, and everyone gives you a pass because your body is growing another body with no conscious effort on your part. (The perks of pregnancy end there, very abruptly. Everything else is the worst.) So with that in mind, I'm off the hook for not updating my blog ever, right? The important thing is that I'm still checking things off my list--more slowly than I would be if I could still see my feet, probably--but checking them off nonetheless. Here's 2014 in review: #2. run a 5K Most people (read: sane people) prepare for a 5K by doing logical things like actual running. I prepared for my 5K by saying "Hey! A 5K! I should do that!" and paying the registration fee for my free t-shirt. I'm almost positive I put this goal on my list initially to make myself run more regularly, which means I completed this goal while also laughing in the face of my

#33 - do something fun outside at least once a month - March 2014

Usually the "fun outside activities" that Ricky and I force ourselves to do each month are pretty regular: beach days, etc. Nothing particularly worthy of photo documentation, which is why I haven't devoted any specific posts to them...until NOW. Get ready. Back in November 2013, I discovered that Sirs Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart were going to be co-starring on Broadway in Waiting for Godot , an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett that I love. The run of the show was supposed to end in January, and because Christmas and holiday travel was coming up, we knew we couldn't justify the expensive of a last-minute NYC adventure. So instead we lamented loudly every time we saw an adorable tweet of the two great actors touring the city: For example. Then the run was extended! But only to the end of February. After more lamenting, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we still wouldn't be able to swing the trip. BUT THEN--miracle of wanderlust miracles!--the run

new year update!

One good thing about having a 99 in 999 list is that it absolves you of any guilt over not making resolutions for the new year. Instead, you're just reminded of all the times you haven't blogged about said list for most of 2013. Since I've spent most of New Year's Day playing board games and watching Miyazaki movies with Ricky (BEST DAY), I squeezed it some time for an update on how my list is looking so far: 9. visit another foreign country I've been meaning to blog about our Portugal trip for FOR. EV. ER. I kept a travel journal (good choice, past self!), and took lots of pictures, so I figure that's good enough. It was awesome to get back to the place where Ricky lived for two years while on a church mission. We went to his old apartments, visited some new cities, and spoke a lot of Portuguese. (Everyone was really impressed at how good Ricky's Portuguese is after being away for 7 years! The only word that stumped him was "olive," of all