It probably says a lot that I wrote tomorrow’s post first, or that I was more excited to look forward to 2020 than to look through 2019. It’s not that I had a bad year (definitely not!) but December has been crazy and I haven’t had much time to comb through the books, podcasts, and other happening events of the year.

(Obviously I’m not even up to looking back at the decade. How do people do best of 2010s lists??)

So instead of doing a few separate posts like I did last year, I thought I’d just do one post covering a few subjects to remind me of what happened in 2019 and what I’m thankful/grateful for.

Warning: links galore in this post.

Mental Health

To be honest, I didn’t think there was much to report here because I’ve only been to one counselling session this year, but I looked back on my posts and it seems like I did learn a few things, such as:

• It may feel like a step back to have to go for a counselling session, but there’s no shame in that
• I’m still getting caught up in false narratives/thought cycles and breaking them is going to take time
• My fear of heights is very deep

A sort of sub-topic was on Christianity and mental health. I had one bad experience with material that my cell group was using, resulting in a very emotional session. But to balance that out, I went to a conference on mental wholeness and the Church later in the year which showed that the wider Church community in Singapore is waking up to the need to support those struggling with mental health problems. We also had a workshop on mental health in our youth group which I thought was pretty helpful. I hope to continue on learning/working in this area in the coming year.

As for books, I’ll talk more about that in the next section but I read two great books on mental health – How Not to Fall Apart and The Art of Not Falling Apart. I highly recommend them and as usual, if you know of any similar books, let me know!

Books

Some stats from Goodreads:

• Books read: 168 books (not my most, but not my least either)
• Longest book: The Tale of Genji (probably my achievement of the year because this book was so heavy to bring around)
• Average length of book: 302 pages

My favourite books of the year can be found here. How Not to Fall Apart, which I mentioned just now, is one of my favourites, as is The Weight of Our Sky, a moving work set in Malaysia that deals with racial tensions and mental illness.

Also on my favourites list for the year is Infused, a fantastic memoir and love story to tea and Unequal Affection, one of the best Pride & Prejudice fanfictions I’ve ever read.

SEA Reading Challenge

I’ve got a perpetual SEA Reading Challenge going on to remind myself to find stories from Singapore and the lands around her. But because I’m very picky about the types of stories I read (and because a lot of what gets translated is literary fiction, which I don’t read), I only managed to finish seven books for the challenge this year. It’s definitely not a lot (I think I was hoping for twelve at the start of the year?) so fingers crossed I find and finish more books in 2020.

World of Genji

This started out as a project as part of a study group I’m in and… I’m probably one of the slowest. Other members have already presented (super fascinating stuff, including on topics such as Slavery in the Tang Dynasty) and I’m definitely nowhere near there. This year, I managed to finish about eight books on the topic, ranging from unabridged version of The Tale of Genji itself to The Search for the Beautiful Woman, a comparative work on how beauty was defined in Japanese and Chinese cultures (this was fascinating and I’ll probably return to it next year).

I’ll be aiming to prop up my research by reading more Japanese-language books this year, and a side-aim is to read more Chinese and Japanese fiction so that I can better understand both cultures as well.

Podcasts

This might be the longest section of the post because I don’t talk about podcasts at all during the year. Maybe next year I can do a quarterly update so that the year-end post is on favourites rather than a more general update.

Finished Listening

Broken Harts: This podcast looked at the Hart tragedy. For the most part, I thought it was pretty good and I really liked the way they discussed larger issues such as inter-racial adoption. What it let down was the ending, which I felt excused the atrocities of Jen and Sarah. I get wanting to be balanced in reporting, but I felt they went way too easy on them and ascribed good motives that were not evident.

Death in Ice Valley: A production of BBC and NRK, this was an investigation into a mystery that has not been solved in half a century. It’s extremely atmospheric and very well-produced. The mystery is about the Isdal woman, an unidentified woman found in Isdalen. The reporters check down leads and work with the Norwegian police and scientists for this case. I found it to be a fascinating and well-researched podcast about this unsolved mystery.

The Dropout: Podcast about Elizabeth Holmes. The first few episodes have very similar content to Bad Blood (no surprise given Carreyrou was interviewed), but it does follow Holmes a little longer – last episode is about the trial and people who knew Elizabeth before Theranos, which is pretty interesting. You also get to hear Holme’s voice, which is something you don’t get if you only read the book. I definitely recommend this to people interested in business/tech, even if you’ve read Bad Blood

Magnus Archives: The podcast isn’t over but the latest season is!It was an amazing ending and I can’t wait for April 2020!

The Gateway – Teal Swan: This six-part series is on controversial influencer Teal Swan. It’s pretty harrowing to listen to what Teal Swan is teaching others, although I can’t decide if she’s malicious or misguided.

Stopped Listening

Disney Story Origins: The show went way too long in between episodes and the latest one (which just got released) is three hours long. That’s a bit too long for me so I decided to let it go. I still have Dis-Order for my Disney needs.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast: This podcast went on hiatus (or perhaps it was permanently stopped?). I think the hosts started something new, but I didn’t really feel the urge to follow their new show.

Restarted/Started

Well Read podcast: They are back!! So happy to be getting book recommendations in my podcast feed. If you have any more bookish podcasts (the only other one I’m listening to is Overdue), please let me know!

Solved: I started this last week and it’s pretty interesting! They bill themselves as an interactive podcast – while I don’t see the interactive aspect (it’s just a series of conversations on my feed), I really do enjoy listening to the interviews and trying to guess the murderer from the info gathered. At the end of each episode, they reveal the murderer and tell you which clues pointed to him/her. There’s quite a lot of cursing, so this isn’t for listening with kids (which was something I was thinking of at first).

Cults: This was a recommendation from a friend! I don’t really know how accurate the information is (I read a book that differed slightly from one of the podcast episodes), but the same-ness of the episodes make this easy background listening.

Con Artists: By the same producers as Cults, it’s the same easy background listening type of podcast. You can have these two podcasts on while doing work and dip in and out of it pretty easily.

Endless Thread: A podcast about reddit, this show covers a wide variety of topics, all interesting. I started listening to this about a month or two ago and so far, they’ve covered: Autism, Child Free, a 9/11 hoax/not hoax photo, Glitter, Loot Crates, and much more.

Tea

This was a pretty good year for tea! I managed to visit a tea farm and went for two workshops on oolong, which means that I know a bit more about oolong than I did when I started 2019. I also started drinking more oolongs and I’m really enjoying it – I’ve totally been missing out!

Another development was that I left my job at teapasar, which meant that I no longer work with tea. That had the unexpected benefit of getting me to enjoy tea even more. Now, when I drink tea at work, it’s really to relax and catch my breath rather than for work purposes.

All tea posts

Travel

This was a great travel year and I don’t really think 2020 can beat it. Not only did I manage to go to the UK, I also finally went back to Japan!! This was my first trip since I moved back to Singapore and I realised that I really missed the place. There are still a lot of places in Japan that I haven’t been to but I’m also really tempted to go back and visit my old haunts because I don’t live there anymore. I think the lesson is that I need to learn to explore new places.

One thing my counsellor mentioned was that there’s no reason for me not to travel if I want to. And he’s right, there isn’t. I don’t know when I can next go on a trip, but I’m definitely seizing the opportunity when it comes.

All travel posts

Conclusion

I thought that my 2019 was pretty boring because it feels like I did nothing but work, change jobs, and work some more, but it was actually really good. I’m glad that I had opportunities to work on my mental health and that I could travel, read, and drink tea.

I hope that you had a great 2019 yourself, and may your 2020 be even better!