Kate, that's a big year. What kind of work would you be looking for? I'm asking because I'm nosy, but also because I can keep my eyes and ears open for you.

Cindy, I'm looking for a position as a school librarian, ideally at the middle school or high school level. Thank you for keeping an eye out! I just lined up a Zoom interview for a school in Andover next week...

Kate, my sister-in-law is a middle school math teacher in Lexington, I'm happy to ask if she knows someone who needs a librarian!

Kate, I'll be happy to keep an eye out in Central MA, if you're interested.

Yes to both of you, Jessica and sj! I'm open to pretty much anywhere in the state.

::waves::

Hey, look! I finally managed to get my password issue sorted. Turns out, it would let me change my password with the incorrect capitalization on my username (recognized my email, etc.), but it wouldn't let me then sign on with said incorrect capitalization. Good times, good times.

Eh. It was a year. After looking to move since 2017, the events of recent years have us now stuck here until 2023 (AKA, high school graduation) at the earliest, by which time I'm sure interest rates will be insane, houses outside the city will have spiked, and houses inside the city decreased in value, so then I won't be able to afford to move, anyway. I don't have the space for the hobbies I'd like to do, and having two people working at home with one bathroom is...not great. I know, I know, first world problems, but you know what? I refuse to feel guilty about being miserable in my location. Guilt helps no one.

Yesterday, I took more winter coats out of storage that I'd put in there in summer of 2020, still foolishly thinking we'd be moving that year. I try not to think about being stuck here, especially as friends move away from the shitshow that is our fair city and the misery that is our grim and grey weather. (Our city has every downside of supposedly progressive politics you can imagine and has me team no one in terms of our city leadership, such as it is.)

So, you know. Not much else to say.

First thing's first: People with really terrible years: I am sorry. I am happy that you are here, and lot of ~ma and love me for a better 2022 (let me ignore the omicron news for a minute. Cause it'll pass, the question is what comes next, and I vote for shiny ponies, a surprise bag of money, more humane politics and politicians, and a beverage of choice).

Also important: Thank you very much, dcp, Laura, Kat, and JenP for your lovely cards! dcp, thanks to you I finally got to witness first hand the cats-vs.-tree-decor thing. While I don't have a tree, Pele enjoyed it very much, too, and it was hilarious.

In the last day of 2021, 13 minutes before the deadline, I. Have. Submitted. My. Thesis. (this board is in the acknowledgment part, but of course). This brings to conclusion my MA in public policy which started in July 2019. Yes, I did choose quite a time to go and studying that subject... Anyways.

I feel like I blanked out most of 2021 (and some parts of 2020) because it was... what it was. I just focused on surviving it (which is also why I wasn't here a lot). Moving, and changing roommates (I had to freaking search for roommates three times in eight months because two of them decided to leave mid-contact for reasons unrelated to me), and living in a too-noisy part of the city, and constant stress of studying and working three days a week and living on a strict budget and then pandemic and my anti-vax dad and two mild cat emergencies and moving and doing all of this while 60% of work was processing holocaust related archives were a lot. In the terrible timeline we're in, the thesis turned out to be the fun part where I mostly got to do what I wanted to do. Yeah, it was a lot of work, and I sure as hell would have preferred to write it under better conditions, but it was a mental place where I could do more than surviving. I tried my best to thrive there, because it was where I could.

I have some hopes and careful plans for 2022. Let's see what it'll bring. Much love to y'all.

and I vote for shiny ponies, a surprise bag of money, more humane politics and politicians, and a beverage of choice

This is the kind of public policy that I fully endorse!

Congratulations Shir!!

Shir, THESIS!!! Congratulations! I know it was a long haul for your brilliant and very deserving of all the honors self!