My last journal update for this year.

So yeah.

2020.

I think we can all agree this was a truly unpleasant year... for literally everyone across the world. In fact, I would say this was by far the worst year I've ever experienced. And 90% of the time, I was hardly doing anything, except remaining inside the house, all day, every day.

COVID-19 happened, numerous natural disasters occurred all over the planet, the American presidential election was utterly chaotic, and even now said chaos hasn't really stopped. People are still getting sick, and many people are still dying. It's insane.

Never in my life did I think I'd ever live through something like this. Though frankly, I guess no one truly did. I mean, a global pandemic, and probably one of the worst to ever happen aside from the Spanish Flu. But this one is just terrible, and it's still happening right now.

At least a vaccine is being made, but we have yet to know whether or not it actually works. Oh, and Australia is likely to get a third wave of the virus now, which means more quarantine. Yay...

So you see, I don't have any positive things to say about this year. Aside from maybe a few good things that have happened.

Number being that I'm still alive and never got infected.

Number two, I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time in a long time, and I liked them. (Seriously, those movies are fricking amazing.)

Number three, I watched plenty of anime, such as Attack On Titan, all three Evangelion Rebuild movies, and a couple others. I also watched the animated movie The Prince of Egypt for the first time in years, this one had me get emotional several times.

Number four, I watched a TV show called His Dark Materials, this one I actually quite liked. I also watched Stranger Things, that show is awesome. I also discovered a pretty interesting science fiction series called The Expanse. I liked that one.

(That's all I could really do, sitting down and watching things.)

Number five, I finally finished my online high-school curriculum. Except now I have to spend the next year preparing for college education. Yeah... that's gonna be something.

Other than that, it was pretty miserable. But, it did teach me a valuable lesson. That nobody really has control over what life does to them. We may not always like the cards we are dealt with, but we still have to make due with them regardless.

For me, there was plenty of mental anguish that I had to deal with. But towards the end of this year, I eventually accepted how things were, and I guess I became less stressed about it. I'm by no means happy about it, but I'm dealing with it pretty well now.

Moving on to the subject of next year, I'm going to do the opposite of what I did the last time and keep my expectations low. That way, I won't be met with as much disappointment. I don't know if 2021 will be an even worser year, but I do know that things aren't going to immediately turn sunshine and rainbows overnight.

If anything positive is to happen next year, it will happen gradually. But in the end, I don't really know that. Nobody does. We just have to keep living and see what happens. And no matter what, we'll still persevere somehow. That is my only hope.

Still, my main point stands. I'm not going to make any assumptions. Like I said before in a previous "New Years" journal, I'm more of a "we'll see" kind of person.

And now, I think that's just about all I can say, really.

I hope you had a relatively Happy New Year. Stay safe, keep your family and friends close, always read the news (but no doom-scrolling), and please, for goodness sake, wash your darn hands.

Thank you for reading this journal. See you in the next year.