2021 was supposed to be the year that the vaccine was introduced to all and COVID deaths would (mostly) be a thing of the past. Instead, Delta happened and Sri Lanka (and the world) saw the situation worsen drastically. We lost many invaluable lives to the virus.

Here are some 2021 personal stats:

Transport

In 2018, I took 556 bus rides. In 2019, I took 265. In 2020, I took 15.

In 2021, I took none. It would've been irresponsible for me to¹. I've only taken 8 tuk/taxi rides in all of 2021, and 5 of these happened in the last two months of the year when case numbers subsided. There's really no point making a graph for just 8 rides so I will skip it, along with the year-on-year comparison.

The Blog

I only published 7 posts in 2021, down from 16 in 2020 and 18 in 2019. Given the circumstances this year, I am happy with this output.

Art/Music

On Chithrapotha, I managed only 36 posts this year, and a lot of them were WIP from my animated short. I really should get around to posting more and stop trying to innovate so much and try new things in every single piece². Sometimes we need to do things just for fun and I need to return to the place of fun and relaxation that made me pick up painting in the first place.

On SoundCloud I managed 7 tracks this year, which is down from 8 in 2020 and 18 in 2019. The big addition this year has been a MIDI-enabled keyboard that I got at the end of October and which has opened up new sonic possibilities. Here's to a hope of more exiting music in 2022!

Spotify/Last.fm

Spotify finally became available in Sri Lanka in 2021! This has seen my Last.fm scrobbles increase from 123 and 207 in 2019 and 2020, to a massive 1335 in 2021.

My listening peaked in May and then dropped off:

Mostly listening to rock and pop in the evenings:

Anime

I didn't watch much 2021 anime in 2021 (because holy shit there's a whole backlog), but out of the shows that I watched, Heike Monogatari, Horimiya, and the second season of Yuru Camp deserve mentions for being standout hits. Especially Heike, I believe, deserves more audience awareness and critical acclaim than it got. It is yet another Naoko Yamada masterclass in visual storytelling, and her directorial debut for an outfit other than Kyoto Animation.

The best 2021 movie I managed to catch was Josee to Tora to Sakana-tachi, a heart-warming tale of a sheltered girl meeting love and seeing the world. I also enjoyed the simple storyline and striking art style of Cider no You ni Kotoba ga Wakiagaru. Star Wars: Visions also deserves a mention for showing us the Star Wars universe through the eyes of the best studios in anime.

Books

According to Goodreads I have only read 2 books this year, the second and third books in Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I have a whole stack of books remaining from my pandemic Big Bad Wolf haul that I need to get through.

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So, that's been my 2021 in numbers. It had a lot of downs and downs, but hopefully 2022 is the year we emerge from this scourge and return to some semblance of normalcy³. Cheers!