there's no place like home
but first you gotta figure out what it means for you
Happy 2024! It's been a while since I've written anything new. The world is burning (has been for my entire life, really) and I could not bring myself to write like I was ignoring it.
The call of the new calendar year is a strong one, though. Does anyone else get cranky around the time it changes? For some reason, without fail, every year in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, I get irritable and ready to burst into tears without an actual reason. Is it because I feel like I didn’t accomplish everything I wanted to? Is it because every year I spend it away from my friends? I love my mother and brother (my only family, really) but my hometown hasn’t been my home in a long time and it makes me feel lonely and then guilty for feeling so, when my mother tries so hard to shower me with the love she feels she hasn’t been able to provide since the last time she saw me.
But alas, I made it to the other side. I arrived late on January 1st in the capital and celebrated the change with my friends. It instantly made me feel better, less alone, less like a kid fumbling around in a grown up costume. An instant balm to my soul.
Enough of my lamenting. What did I accomplish in 2023? I quit piano, which I could have never foreseen doing, but quitting such a stressful situation made me realize how much pressure I kept myself under for years. I have so much time to do and enjoy things now, and I can tell I’m so much more rested. I do miss music sometimes, especially activities with other people (like choir), but I do not regret leaving the academic study of it behind.
On a smaller personal level, I hit my reading goal and surpassed it! My goal for 2023 was 20 books (+1 from the books I managed to read in 2022) and I managed to read 24 before the New Year! In 2024, my goal is 25 books, which I think is perfectly doable. Here are my reads of 2023:
The Psychology of Happiness by Rober Nadjemy*
Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis (this was split into two books)
Ideal Wholeness (Ιδεατή Ολότητα) by Charitini Malissova
Persuasion by Jane Austen*
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo*
Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo*
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou*
The Recognized Poems of Cavafy
Eerie Little Bedtime Stories by Madame M.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
The portrait of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde*
Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Colour by Michael R. Fischbach*
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba by Leslie Feinberg*
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice*
Body, Sex, Sexuality: LGBTQ Politics in Greece by Alexandra Chalkia and Anna Apostolelli
The Silmarillion by J.R.R.Tolkien
The School for Gods by Stefano Elio D’Anna
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas*
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
I’ve spoken about all of them in every monthly post so I won’t analyze them or critique them here, but the ones with the asterisk were my favorite reads. My last book of 2023, Wuthering Heights, while engaging, has the worst man in the world (Heathcliff) in it so it did not make it into my favorites. I have rarely read a book in which I disliked all the the characters so much but here we are. Thanks, Emily.
All in all, I’m pretty proud of my reading in 2023. There was a good mixture of non-fiction books (politics and spirituality/philosophy mostly) and fiction and even some poetry even though I’m not a huge fan. I’m excited for my 2024 reads; I have a whole bunch of books from my mother’s bookcase and I’m currently reading the first one of the pile: Demian by Herman Esse. Up next are The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Golden Beetle by Edgar Allan Poe, The Eternal Husband by Dostoyevsky, and two more I can’t recall the titles of because my mother is sending them over along with some stuff I couldn’t fit in my suitcase. My roommate also gifted me Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert which I’ve heard of before, as a title, but never read it. Currently, along with Demian I’m also reading what’s going to be my first non-fiction read of 2024: Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women's Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System by Nahla Abdo. A tough read yes, obviously not pleasant, but necessary, especially with everything that’s going on. It’s one of the books I found in the several resource links I listed in a previous substack (I think the November one) and if you want to read it you can check out the links.
Other than reading, it’s been a good year for music and my Duolingo streak! I hit a year of Duolingo and I’m a month and some change away from hitting a 500 day streak with French and now Korean, although Duolingo isn’t the best app for it. I’ve heard Lingodeer is, but it requires a subscription that I can’t afford at the moment.
In terms of music, I kept up with my monthly playlists all the way to December! Spotify Wrapped revealed ATEEZ as my top artist of 2023 (no surprise there) and my Top 10 songs of 2023 are:
Girls Back Home by Ash-B, Lee Young Ji
Bouncy by ATEEZ
I’m So Hot by Chrissy Chlapecka
Guerilla by ATEEZ
TRICKY HOUSE by xikers
PARANOIA by KANGDANIEL
Miss Me by Flyanna Boss
XXX by Kim Petras
Phantom by WayV
Wifey by Ruby Rose
A good mixture of Kpop and non Kpop as well as men and WOMEN!!!!! Finally. Much better than 2022 actually. Between October and now I also discovered Sleep Token and Spiritbox thanks to one of my besties, I listened to more of Ashnikko’s WEEDKILLER album (I liked Dying Star ft. Ethel Cain and Worms a lot), I liked the songs on Maneskin’s revamped album (especially TRAVESTERE and OFF MY FACE) and I’m also slowly making my way through Flyanna Boss’ entire discography. I love those two. I also got into P1Harmony (a Kpop boy group), and listened to nothing but ATEEZ the day their latest album THE WORLD EP.FIN: WILL came out. Tops songs from that are ARRIBA, Crazy Form, MATZ and IT’s You.
I could honestly go on and on about the music I listened to because music has always been a huge part of my life but I should probably end this post at some point.
In terms of shows and movies, I have watched nothing but One Piece for the last three months I think. But I did watch a surprising amount of movies for my standards (I usually don’t watch any tbh). Aside from the LOTR trilogy I watched in theaters, I also watched:
20th Century Women
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves*
The Watermelon Woman*
Bloodsisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism*
The Shape of Water
Corpse Bride
The three asterisked were my favorite watches (yes even the DnD movie; that shit rocked and Chris Pine could still get it). I did like The Shape of Water and 20th Century Women but I don’t think I would watch them again, and Corpse Bride would be better if it was anyone but Johnny fucking Depp in it. Fuck that man for real.
Last year’s January post had a list of resolutions. I have thought of some this year, but they’re mostly continuations of last year’s resolutions. I still want to do more yoga this year, manage the splits (I’m very close to getting my front ones!), travel more, rest more and be open to love, although that last one is looking increasingly more difficult with this each passing year (that will stay between me and my actual therapist though). I do also want to do more dance because I love it so much, but I have found it difficult to balance work and dance practice, mostly because after work I want to do nothing but eat and rot in my bed with One Piece playing in the background. Such is life. I also want to do more things alone (self-dates, as people call them on social media). I did manage to do some; I went to a musem event back in September (or was it October? Time is fake), and I also finally managed to go to the National Gallery and even sat and read at the new cat cafe in town! I finally have my free museum/monument teacher pass, so I can go to every single museum and important historical space in the city without paying a single euro. I’m very excited about that.
I’m also tentatively excited for what 2024 will bring on a personal level in general. And hope and excitement are always better than fear and despair.
I love you all. Thank you for another year on substack. See you in February.
Until next time.
All my love.
I will keep the December 2023 playlist up until January 31st, so hurry up and see what impeccable taste I have. Thank you.