Top Books of 2024
ALLO, FOOLS! So I didn’t read a whole ton of books last year because we actually didn’t get too much bad weather (and the only chance I get to read is when I’m walking inside on the treadmill), but I figured I’d give you a “top five” book list nonetheless. Though I sorta cheated, as you’ll see. From fifth best to best:
FIVE: Don Quixote (de Cervantes)
This book was a wild ride. Apart from knowing what the word quixotic means and a little bit about the “tilting at windmills” thing, I didn’t really know what to expect from this book. And I was certainly NOT expecting anything that I got, haha. But it was highly entertaining and very funny at parts.
FOUR: The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald)
The only reason this is in fourth place is because it was left unfinished (Fitzgerald died before completing it) and I WANTED MORE. I really love Fitzgerald’s writing style and how he can portray the essence of a character in a single line, even before we actually meet the character. His style always makes me want to keep reading.
THREE: Holes (Sachar)
LOOK I’M CHEATING! This is not on my book list, but as you may have seen from previous blogs, I’ve also been re-reading some of the books I remember reading as a kid. I guess I didn’t technically read this one – our sixth grade teacher read it aloud to us – but I remember really liking it, so I decided to re-read it. It definitely lived up to my memory. Holes is a really, really, really good book. If you never read it before, check it out.
TWO: Twelve Angry Men (Rose)
We read this in…eighth grade I think? We read it aloud and each had to pick a part to read (I was the Foreman). But even without getting to “act” it out by reading it aloud, it was still very good. I love the building of tension and how (most of) the men are slowly convinced to change their minds about the trial and circumstances.
ONE: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk)
LOOK I’M CHEATING AGAIN! I read this a month or so ago because I finally bought a Kindle version of it and it still stands as my absolute favorite book ever. I don’t know what it is about this story, but I loved it the very first time I read it (seventh grade?) and I love it still. I don’t know if it’s ever going to get dethroned as my favorite book. If you still haven’t read it (even after all my raving on this blog), DO IT NOW!
Oh god, here we go again
It’s the annual walking/running stats blog! That nobody cares about!
JOY!!!!
Here are my walking stats for January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024.
Total number of days walked/ran: 366
Total mileage: 6,620
Total number of steps: 14,554,171
Total calories burned: 475,620
Total walking/running time (minutes): 97,325.05 [that’s about 67.59 days]
Average speed (mph) per walk/run: 4.25
6,620 miles is approximately the great circle distance between Calgary, AB and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or between Mexico City, Mexico and Moscow, Russia.
2024 Music Wrap-Up
If I could sum up this year’s music downloads in one word, it would be: meh.
There were no real standouts this year. There were good songs, yes, but nothing that really, really took the top as far as my absolute favorites.
No Five-Stars, is what I’m saying.
But tradition is tradition, so let’s do it.
Here are my top five!
Sandstorm (Darude) performed by SYNTHONY
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: orchestral covers of pretty much anything are amazing, but orchestral covers of techno songs are on another level. The brass carries this one and there is SO MUCH ENERGY throughout the whole song.
Levels (Avicii) performed by SYNTHONY
That saxophone solo adds so much joy and life to this song, yo. I think Avicii would have loved this version of what is probably his most famous song.
Feelslikeimfallinginlove by Coldplay
Easily my favorite song from their newest album. This one has a good mix of “old” Coldplay and “new” Coldplay in my opinion. Also, it’s super fun to sing.
Stay by Hans Zimmer
Like many of Zimmer’s songs, this builds up to a beautiful, chaotic crescendo that destroys your soul in the best way (5:36). I like to crank this on my Sennheisers so I can feel it in my chest.
Jupiter (Holst) performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
I already had like three different versions of this song, so why is this one on here? Because of 1:53-2:00. I mentioned this in the blog post I did on this song a while ago, but I have never heard another performance of this song where you can hear those French horns play so clearly in that section, and I freaking love it.
Edit: where is the new Civ VII main theme, you ask? Well, I haven’t actually downloaded the song yet. It’s not available on iTunes because it hasn’t officially been released, but I’m sure it will be on next year’s top music list once I can get ahold of it.
Another Revolution? MORE RESOLUTIONS!
How did I fail this year? Let me count the ways…
The 2024 resolutions:
- ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. I’m pretty sure I’ll accomplish this one for the next several years at least.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Walk/run at least 5,000 miles. I did (am doing?) at least 1,000 miles more than that.
- ACCOMPLISHED?: Run at least five (official) marathons. I think I did this? I actually didn’t really keep track of the marathons I signed up for. But I definitely ran more than five unofficial marathons, so…
- ACCOMPLISHED: Run at least one (official) ultramarathon. Minimum distance: 60 km. The Calgary (virtual) Ultramarathon! I did this in…April? *checks* Yup. April 21.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Run a sub-4-hour marathon. I did this like right at the start of the year, haha. I don’t know what drugs I was on, but I booked it like all hell and ran it in like 3:55-something. I know that’s not very fast at all compared to people who can, y’know, run run, but it’s fast for me.
- FAILED: Do something with my 2020 NaNo story. Hopefully more than just another draft. I just did another draft.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Do some non-writing creative stuff. I picked up watercoloring! And I watercolored quite a bit.
- FAILED: Buy fewer frivolous/unnecessary things. HAHAHAHA NOPE shopping = what I do when I’m stressed. And this year was Stress Party 2024.
- FAILED: Take at least two French classes in my progression towards the certificate. I only did one class in Winter. I’ve learned that trying to take a class in Fall is setting everything up for failure, because Fall semester is ALWAYS insanely busy.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Get the DAMN BLOGS POSTED. I ACTUALLY DID THIS HOLY SHIT
- FAILED: Limit my “down time” screen time. I reiterate: Stress Party 2024. Sometimes obscenely long TikTok binges were the only thing keeping me from jumping into traffic.
ALRIGHT, so let’s set some for 2025.
- Blog daily.
- Walk/run at least…let’s say 6,500 miles. Surely that’s do-able, huh?
- Run at least five (official) marathons and actually KEEP TRACK OF THEM THIS TIME.
- Do something with my 2020 NaNo story that is more than another draft. I really take the next step with that thing and I’m sick of being afraid to take that step.
- Finish and print all my old blog archives. I think I have up through Year 15 formatted and printed, so I need to get the rest of those done. I hate not having physical copies of all of those blog posts. Those represent my life, man.
- Take at least one French class in my progression towards the certificate. Hopefully in this upcoming semester, because we all know it isn’t happening in Fall.
- Do a 50-mile run. My record right now is 60 k (37 miles); surely I can add 13 miles to that, right? Even if I just have to ping back and forth for 13 hours on that street at the bottom of our hill?
- Do some sort of writing that’s NOT an edit of my 2020 NaNo story. I’ve actually been wanting to try writing a story by hand (like, not typing it out but writing it in a notebook). So let’s say that. Write a story by hand.
- Be more careful with my money. Last year ended up being REALLY bad for this. I need to do better. Especially in terms of buying new clothes. I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE CLOTHES.
- Be more careful with “mindless” screentime. I’m not going to say screentime in general because I do a lot of productive stuff on my computer and don’t want to limit that (also, I feel like I’m the one person on this planet who does not get eye strain/eye fatigue from staring at a computer screen for like 7 hours straight). But I want to spend less time on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube (unless YouTube is just on in the background when I’m doing other stuff). I’m not quite sure how I’ll measure and keep track of this just yet, but it’s definitely something worth watching.
That’s all I can think of for now, but if I come up with any more, they’ll be added here!
Let’s Leave 2024 in 2024
Today is the darkest day of the year, which is fitting for reflecting on this garbage can of a year.
Like, on a surface level, it wasn’t bad. It was good, actually. Tenure, ultramarathons, record walking distance (or at least I’m assuming I’ll hit it unless my legs fall off in the next few days), discovering a love of watercoloring, seeing a ridiculous aurora borealis show in May, getting to teach my ASHA semester, all that jazz.
Good stuff.
But the bad stuff? There was so much more bad stuff; it just wasn’t as…visible.
I don’t want to talk in as much detail about it because it’s all I’ve been thinking about today and I’m already all worked up about it, but let’s just say that this year was defined by failure.
Failure after failure after failure after failure.
It was very hard to get through parts of this year, in part because I couldn’t really talk about half this crap and in part because it sounds so stupid when I did talk about it that it just made everything worse.
So yeah. Surface level, 2024 was great. Below-surface, 2024 rivals 2011, which was probably the worst year I’ve ever had.
Fun times.
Let’s leave it behind, huh?
So, what drugs are y’all on?
You know, the ones that make you feel like this year has gone by quickly.
Because for me, this has been the LONGEST FREAKING YEAR EVER.
I don’t know if it’s my brain finally remembering how time works after these past three-ish COVID years or what, but OH MY GOD this year seems like it’s been dragging on for so long.
Like, remember the Paris Olympics? Don’t those seem like they were like three years ago?
Or those amazing auroras in May? That doesn’t seem like it happened in the same year we’re currently in.
I don’t know if every year is going to go back to feeling this slow or if it’ll start feeling more normal. Hell, maybe it seems so slow because 2021-2023 felt like one huge blur of…man, I don’t even know. Unhealthy coping mechanisms, maybe?
Peh.
2024: The Year of “All of Your Insecurities are Valid and Here’s Why”
Also:
- 2024: The Year of “Your Best Isn’t Good Enough”
- 2024: The Year of “All That Hard Work and Nobody Cares”
- 2024: The Year of “Are You Feeling Inadequate? You Should Be!”
- 2024: The Year of “I’m Sorry I’m Human and Want a Little External Validation”
- 2024: The Year of “Getting That Thing You’ve Been Working Towards for Eight Years Isn’t Going to Make You Happy”
- 2024: “It’s Not Imposter Syndrome If You’re Actually an Imposter”
But, y’know, don’t tell anybody any of this stuff. ‘Cause then they’ll just get upset with you because you’re not feeling the way they think you should feel.
Are we at the end? ARE WE AT THE END????
Yes, we are. So it’s time for some res-res-resolutions!!!!
(I had sugar before this, so beware)
Let’s review the 2023 resolutions and see what a disaster life has been this year, shall we?
- ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. As always. Done. As always.
- FAILED: Post all backlogged blogs. Yeah, they’re still in the Word document. There are like 340 pages now, hahaha. I’m really going to try to get them posted in the next few weeks, though.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Walk/run 5,000+ miles. Yup! A blog on this will come soon.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Run a marathon. I finally did it, yo! I’ve actually run…15 of them? 16? Something like that now.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Complete another complete draft of my 2020 NaNoWriMo. Yes! I completed a new draft in May and I’m almost done with an edit of that draft. I should hopefully have another one by the end of the year.
- FAILED: Write more in general. I did not. I just worked on my 2020 NaNo.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Draw. Technically I drew something this year. It was just one thing, but hey, you make a vague resolution, you can meet it in a vague way.
Let’s see what we can do in 2024.
- Blog daily. Ye olde standard.
- Walk/run at least 5,000 miles. I’ll hopefully do more than this, but this is always a good baseline goal.
- Run at least five (official) marathons. I plan on doing more than five marathon distances, but let’s try signing up for at least five official marathon events. They can be virtual.
- Run at least one (official) ultramarathon. Minimum distance: 60 km. This can be virtual.
- Run a sub-4-hour marathon. I know that’s a low bar, but I’m slow.
- Do something with my 2020 NaNo story. Hopefully more than just another draft. I’d like to take the next steps in getting this story out into the ether.
- Do some non-writing creative stuff. I realized earlier that while I have been doing “creative stuff” in the form of writing, I haven’t done much in any other way. I’d love to be able to do some drawing or painting or something this year, so let’s put it in stone in the form of a resolution. Let’s say…three drawings/paintings minimum.
- Buy fewer frivolous/unnecessary things. Basically, I want to be more careful with my money. More conscientious of my spending. This is a hard one to quantify, so let’s say (as at least something to track) I can only buy a “frivolous treat object” once every two months.
- Take at least two French classes in my progression towards the certificate. This one is pretty self-explanatory.
- Get the DAMN BLOGS POSTED
- Limit my “down time” screen time. I’m good at losing way too much time to Twitter and/or TikTok. I don’t want to completely remove these sites from my use, but I do want to limit my time on them. So let’s say…I can have three 15-minute intervals of “down time” screen time over the course of the day.
I’ll add more if I think of more!
Color Palette
Y’know what? I’m not mad at it.
I still have my standard favorites when it comes to colors (orange, lime green, yellow, red, mainly), but I think my enjoyment of non-standards has broadened over the past several years.
Like…I used to really dislike neon. I like bright colors and always have, but bright rich colors, not neon. But I really started to dig neon around the end of 2019 or so.
Same thing with pastels. I’m still not a huge fan, but I’ve grown very fond of mint and lavender (that’s why I wanted an iPhone 12 – I wanted that lavender color!).
So peach fuzz? Definitely not a color I would choose as a favorite or to wear, but I appreciate it.
The end.
New goal!
SO.
Running.
It’s basically my personality now, so of course I’ve already looked up if I can register for next year’s Calgary Marathon.
When I was reading about the ultra marathon earlier this year, I saw that the ultra marathon distance (50k) was being retired this year (I mentioned this a few days ago). That sucked, since I was going to make it my goal for next year.
HOWEVER.
Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the Calgary Marathon, and they’ve added a special 60k ultra marathon for next year only.
So THAT is going to be my goal.
60 kilometers is approximately 37 miles, which is quite a big step up from 26.2 miles. But if I approach it the same way I approached training for the marathon this year (26.2 miles is about 10 miles more than my typical run distance, so I just needed to add 10 miles to my usual run), maybe I can psych myself up for it.
It’s all much more mental than physical, anyway.
LET’S DO IT!
Eigenblogger 