There no getting around the fact that 2020 was defined by the pandemic. With that in mind, some personal stats:
Transport
In 2018, I took 556 bus rides. In 2019, I took 265.
In 2020, I took 15. Not a typo. 14 rides in January and a solitary ride in February. With the threat of Covid rising (even before the government decided to finally lockdown in March), I didn’t risk taking cramped public transport. Sadly, I also understand that working from home and taking a PickMe are not privileges everyone has access to.
A breakdown of all rides taken in 2020 clearly reflect the two waves/lockdowns we had this year in Sri Lanka:
These are the ride counts and average fares for 2020 in comparison to 2019:
| Type | Count (2019) | Avg (2019) | Count (2020) | Avg (2020) | Count Diff | Avg Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bus | 265 | 21.91 | 15 | 27.53 | -250 | 5.62 |
| PickMe | 245 | 394.35 | 102 | 349.25 | -143 | -45.10 |
| Tuk | 29 | 356.21 | 12 | 256.83 | -17 | -99.38 |
| Uber | 5 | 500.00 | 1 | 50.00 | -4 | -450.00 |
| Total | 544 | 130 | -414 |
The Blog
I published 16 posts in 2020, down from 18 in 2019. It’s still not hitting my ideal of 24 (posting twice a month), but I’ll take it:
Art/Music
Chithrapotha is rolling on, with 55 posts this year. This is nowhere near the 27 I posted in just over a month when I started it, but I put more effort to finish pieces now and can never finish them at a rate of one-a-day like I used to.
On SoundCloud I only managed 8 tracks this year (down from 18 in 2019), mostly due to my recording setup getting fudged by an OS upgrade back in June. Hopefully, with the new year—and planned hardware upgrades—I’ll be back to recording a ton of tracks that have piled up on my phone’s voice recording app.
* * *
So, those are my 2020 stats. It’s not been a great year, but I’m well aware that things could’ve been much worse—and I’m grateful for good health and still having all my loved ones with me.
I sincerely hope 2021 will be a good year for you and yours!