This is the last weekend of the year, which means it marks another complete year of doing these weeknotes! I wrote a short review at the end of last season as well, and the same things still apply. It's nice that the blog has a weekly "heartbeat" post and it also gives future me a good insight as to what I was doing at a particular week in time. I've considered changing the frequency to be every two weeks or monthly to ease the need to be posting all the time, but I feel like that's too much time spent in between and I'm just liable to forget things.

This year I tried spicing up the weeknotes format by adding stuff like quotes, an "on this day" section (which I have yet to resume after the whole Covid thing interrupted my regular format). I like this more structured format, but we'll see how it evolves next year!

A Quote

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." - Desmond Tutu (RIP)

The World

• Covid cases in Metro Manila continue to stay low, though OCTA research is seeing a slight uptick, possibly due to the holiday season. This means we still haven't been hit by an Omicron wave, which hopefully holds out.
• Yesterday, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope! The new mission, a joint effort with the European and Canadian space agencies, is a successor for the very old Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990. Unlike Hubble which is in Earth Orbit, the JWST will be travelling to a point around a million miles away from Earth, at a Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun. The more powerful telescope is expected to fuel scientific discoveries about the universe for decades to come!

Links of Interest

• Escaping the Trap of Efficiency: The Counterintuitive Antidote to the Time-Anxiety That Haunts and Hampers Our Search for Meaning

  • “Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster… Since finitude defines our lives… living a truly authentic life — becoming fully human — means facing up to that fact.”

• Paste Magazine: What to Watch If You Like the MCU
• Be Prepared for Failure and Handle it Gracefully. Please avoid bloated and over-engineered websites; have mercy on those of us who don't always have access to fast broadband.
• (YouTube) I don't really know her, but I found this Vanity Fair interview with Billie Eilish interesting to watch. The format of asking the same person the same set of interview questions over time is a great way to see one's personal growth.
• (YouTube) The 2021 Sleepy Skunk Movie Trailers Mashup via MeFi (click the last link for a list of previous year mashups). I love this kind of thing.

Visit the Links page for more links of interest.

My Stuff

• Yesterday was Christmas Day of course. This time we managed to have an actual family celebration at home, though most of it was held outdoors in the garage area and everyone was masked. The nieces and nephews saw each other again for the first time in two years!
• We had the traditional noche buena the day before Christmas.
• Still a bit behind on the daily sketching, though I did do some Christmas-themed doodles last night to catch up. Here's one of a fireplace:

Fireplace

Dec. 26, 2021, 1:44 a.m. View post Close

• Gaming:
  • I finished Blasphemous yesterday! Still probably going to play it a bit this week to maybe get some achievements, but I am more or less done with the game I think. I expect to write a review this week.
  • Skipped the fighting games this past week. Card games still ongoing. Hit Expedition Master in Eternal for the first time. And currently trying to complete the Decathlon events on Magic Arena!
• Watching:
  • Movies: No movies watched this week!
  • TV:
    • Caught up: Flash, The Expanse.
    • Behind: Star Trek Discovery, Legends of Tomorrow
    • Yet to start: The Witcher season 2.
    • Finished watching: Hawkeye, Wheel of Time and Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Reading: Finished reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. That was my last book for the year, will pick up some more books next year!
• Trivia: Still doing a lot of our crossword sessions over Discord.

This coming week:

• The Book of Boba Fett, spin-off from the Mandalorian, launches on Disney+ this week!
• 2 more weeks before I can watch Spider-Man!
• Will probably spend most of this week chilling and also prepping for my annual review posts.
• See you all next year!