2022: Year in Review

Resisting the urge to join the latest social media craze of BeReal, I have continued taking mini videos every day to compile into a 'one second a day' thing at the end of the year. Feel free to watch it here. However, these little snippets of each day don’t tell the whole story so here’s a little overview of my year.

This year gets cut into three main periods:

1. Edinburgh (finishing degree)

2. Summer (travelling around)

3. London (starting PhD)

Some ups and downs, especially in terms of illnesses (Covid, (chronic) tonsillitis, many many colds - yes my immune system is sometimes a bit useless; see stats below…) compared to the relative shortage of illnesses going around in previous years due to restrictions.

However, after a fairly static 2020 and 2021, I managed to do a fair bit of moving around this year and have learnt more about the world and myself.

Edinburgh

This seems like a long time ago now but I started off the year by completing the final semester of my integrated masters at the University of Edinburgh. I did spend a fair bit of time concentrating on academic work, but it was pretty chilled from March onwards after I submitted my dissertation report. As spring emerged, I took advantage of this time to enjoy my final few months in Edinburgh. I was pleased to top off my time at the karate club by winning a bronze medal in the novice kata category at the British Uni Champs. What followed were celebrations at the sports ball + clubbing… inevitably followed by my first Covid infection… After a careful month of recovery and getting through the final couple of exams I was straight off onto my summer travel! I was very pleased to graduate with a First from my degree that I've worked hard on over the past 4 years (although I did miss the in-person ceremony as I was visiting the Italian lakes instead... I'll wait for the Imperial graduation at the Royal Albert Hall).

Summer

My last long summer off from university..! I'd been dreaming of this holiday for a while. To begin this summer of freedom I jetted straight off to Italy. I managed to find myself a host family to stay with for a couple weeks in Naples through Workaway. This was definitely a great experience and would recommend to get more of a local's perspective of a place. Plus a very budget friendly way to travel. I then spent 3.5 weeks backpacking in Italy and staying in hostels with my friend. We were super organised with all the accommodation booked a few months in advance, which made this trip pretty cheap despite being in a more expensive part of Europe in peak season. This was a really fun trip but pretty tiring by the end of a month of travelling and bunking it out in hostels. I decided to document my time there by becoming a travel vlogger and making a series of YouTube videos. I spent a while in July/ August editing these videos which was a fun learning experience and gave me something to do in the post-travel lull.

My energy levels crashed heavily on return from travelling and came down with a bad tonsilitis infection. But after a slow recovery, I made it out to Uppsala, Sweden (new country for me!) with my mum to make her dream come true of attending O-Ringen again (the biggest multi-day orienteering event in the world). We were careful with pacing but I managed to complete all five days of competition on my course AND found all the controls – big success. With difficult Swedish orienteering & terrain, an indoor event round Ikea, and relaxing on our houseboat while watching the world go by, it was a fun week all in all.

I had another couple weeks back at home with my parents to soak up the Scottish summer and laze about before we headed off as a family in the car to France (all a bit déjà vu after doing the same trip at new year in 2021/22 and now again in 2022/23, but sans dog this time as it would be too hot for him). This French road trip included: Orléans to visit cousin Juliette and visit my parents' old haunts from when they lived there for 5 years; Grandmother's house in the Rhône region for her birthday; 10 days in the southern French Alps with French family including participating in the French Orienteering Champs; quick visit to Grenoble where my parents met.

By the end of the summer I had an impressive sun tan - I don't think my legs have ever been so tanned in my life!

London

After being dropped off in London, what followed was a month long transition period before my official move down to London. During this time I was up and down between Edinburgh and London a few times so got to know the LNER trains quite well (almost too well when the train arrived 4 hours late at 10pm the night before my brithday...). The London rental market is crazy, especially during the month of September when I was looking, as lots of students are moving back in, graduate jobs are starting etc. making this a proper part-time job. This period was rather stressful but I was persistent and organised, and crucially spent a few weeks on location in London to be able to view places quickly (thanks to cousin Lucy for letting me stay in her house again!). However, I eventually got somewhere for the week I was starting my PhD in the first week of October so I could properly concentrate on settling in and beginning research. I’m glad I didn’t have to compromise on flatmates in the end as we get on really well (even if I met them on Facebook and didn’t know them very well before moving in) and I enjoy our almost weekly flat dinners together :).

But despite my best efforts to check any major issues while viewing, the flat has had various issues with damp and mould… that’s what you get in London it seems if you don’t want to spend a complete fortune on rent and don’t want to live in a box!

It always takes me a while to lay foundations in a new place, but I’ve got plenty of time left ahead of me to keep settling into the city. It’s such a big city with lots of people, but the busyness and distances between places can actually make it feel more lonely sometimes. I might make a whole other blog post about London life once I’ve lived here a bit longer as there’s plenty to say. But I've been trying hard to step outside of my comfort zone and try new things (including meeting various strangers from the internet; stories for another time). I’m hoping to try out a few other clubs next semester too. London’s an expensive place so my expenses have gone up quite a bit; however so has my income with a nice tax-free PhD stipend and I generally live pretty frugally so I do manage to save money. Maybe I should loosen up and allow myself to splurge and live the London life a bit more fully.

At the start of October I then embarked on the start of my PhD which will take up the next 4 years of my life. In the end, I returned to the research group and supervisor that I was with last summer in a similar research area. The PhD has been an adjustment so far but I’m happy with it for the most part. Who knew a PhD is actually kind of hard?? I mean it’s not that hard in terms of working hours and it’s super flexible. But it does require a lot of thinking alone and self-motivation. I am pleased about my research group though, they’re a friendly bunch and it’s nice to catch up with them a few times a week.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to be getting a certain number of hours in and making progress but I think I need to ease up this pressure and enjoy the flexibility of PhD while I still have it. It’s easy to make comparisons though when it seems like there are so many young professionals in this city working hard long hours, but I have to remember this isn’t sustainable and leads to burnout. I enjoy and strive for a healthy balance, especially paying attention to my overall energy levels. I’m still finding the best daily/ weekly routine that works for me but I’ll get there.

I should be proud of what I've acheived so far: settling into Imperial and the research group, learning lots of new maths/ physics/ coding stuff, attending my first conference (in Paris!) submitting my first report, and surviving the first two months.

Stats

Here are a selection of stats from my various tracking apps (yes it's a bit obsessive...).

9394 steps per day (source: Apple Health)

Quite happy with this. Much higher than last year (6916) and almost back to 2019 levels of over 10,000 average steps per day. The average went up to 21,299 per day during the month of June this year (I end up doing a LOT of wandering around cities when travelling...). Most steps was on 14th June with 38,048.

224km total run (source: Strava)

I ran average once per week. Not nearly as much as the last 2 years but hopefully I'll run more next year once I build back up from the barrage of illnesses I've had this winter.

7 hours 54 minutes sleep per night (source: manually inputting sleep times on Apple Health)

This average has increased by 7 minutes compared to last year.

Least sleep month: June (travelling, staying in hostels)

Most sleep month: July (recovering from travelling for 6 weeks)

According to my mood/activity tracker:

'Best' month: June (Italy travelling and feeling freee!)

'Worst' month: November (I was ill and so stuck inside for a lot of this month)

Days of illness

- 2022: 71 (oh dear)

- 2021: 25

- 2020: 19 (being locked away from others has its perks)

- 2019: ~40

6.5 Books read (source: Goodreads)

I normally set a goal of reading at least 12 books a year but I've just not been reading as much this year as I used to. I'd like to get back into the habit of reading every night for around half an hour again though.

(Been doing much more academic reading recently though... riveting stuff)

The best book was definitely "Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus. Great read. Read it in 11 days (it's a pretty big compliment for any book to be read in less than 2 weeks by me). It also won the Goodreads awards best debut novel this year so I'm not the only one who liked it.

42,000+ minutes of music (source: Spotify Wrapped, extrapolated to 12 months)

That's an average of about 2 hours per day (equivalent to listening to music for a whole month straight day and night...!). I'd say that I listen to more like 6 hours per day when I'm working now though but I probably barely listened to any music while travelling this summer so that brings the average down.

---

Thanks for reading this far. This was a nice way to reflect back on my year and I hope 2023 brings many more adventures. New year's resolution: write more than one blog post per year...!

P.S. My 2022 Christmas Puzzle Hunt is out now if you haven't tried it yet:

https://esl2434.wixsite.com/christmas-hunt-2022