2020 Year In Review

What a year. I feel incredibly fortunate that the destruction wrought by COVID didn’t touch myself or friends and family as closely as many. Living in Vermont often allowed me to forget, and just continue my life.

2020 began with a birthday trip to Harry Potter World for Nicole and I, for what would end up becoming our first and last flights of 2020. Even as news of the novel coronavirus started coming, I did not realize what it would mean for the year. I went with friends to pub trivia where we failed to correctly answer questions such as “The WHO just gave what name (letters and numbers) to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus?” Never again will we not remember “COVID-19”. Things started to shut down and ramp up as we had a fun weekend away with friends in Maine in March. As we returned to NYC, Nicole packed up a few weeks of clothes so we could hopefully ride out the pandemic in Vermont.

It is odd now to think back and realize just how hopeful we were at the beginning that this pandemic would be short-lived. Flatten the curve had us hoping that after a few weeks we would be able to resume some level of normalcy; who knows if this would have been true had everyone flattened the curve, but sadly we never did.

Spring turned to summer and Nicole’s “two weeks in Vermont in March” packing became inadequate, so we returned to NYC for a day trip to get more clothes, clean out the fridge and freezer, and unplug everything. It was an exhausting day to travel there and back, and eerie to see the streets of midtown so empty. We had heard about the odd quiet of the city from friends and the news, but that didn’t make it feel any less weird to see ourselves.

I taught remotely over the summer, as Dartmouth students and faculty transitioned to the new circumstances. My class was asynchronous, meaning I put up recorded lectures the students could watch at their own pace. There were definitely some roadbumps, but by the end of the term we had a system down that worked for most students, I think. It was meaningfully more work than an in-person class, but like many things, the second time would be better.

Fall started with a little break, as we packed up Nicole’s apartment and had two weeks off between her jobs. We were lucky to be able to safely visit her family, and take a quiet beach vacation interacting with no one. We quickly resumed work and plugged away until the New Year, which we rang in with my family after a quarantine. We missed lots in 2020, from the small moments shared with friends over a meal to the events I usually mark my year by: our birthday bash and the Living Nativity at Mesa, to name a couple.

I wanted to walk and run 2020 miles in 2020, which I did. I was behind pace before the start of the pandemic, but when Nicole and Oliver came to Vermont I quickly caught up. Three walks a day for Oliver and the kick in the pants to run more with Nicole add up. I finished this goal on December 3rd, and will total around 2200 miles by the end of the year. I would like to achieve this again in 2021.

My reading goals were also accomplished. I finished 53 books this year, including one brick (over 1,000 pages). My average book length was 336 pages, which is pretty good. You can read about my reading here.

I also wanted to spend more time connecting to nature this year, which I achieved. Working from home in Vermont and being prohibited from traveling meant that we walked the same woods every day through all four seasons now. Combining this with hikes with my naturalist friends meant I learned a ton about plants and animals, and the more I learn the more interested I get. I would like to identify 221 species for 2021; presumably mostly of plants but also of birds, other animals, and fungi.