Overturn

They say that blinking plays an important role in memory. Each time you blink, you create a memory. When there is a lot of information to process you blink more to parse what you are seeing. Days and nights could be blinks in our lives too, with sleep, another tool in memory creation, playing its role. The turning over of the calendar is like a longer term temporal blink to break a multifaceted, complex, series of changes over 365 days and put them in some kind of perspective. By writing a blog, I'm committing 2019 into a kind of long term memory to be accessed later if needs-be. It's also the basis for making goals in the year ahead.

2018 was a busy but overall "good" year. I started off injured (my knee after bouncing on a trampoline) but busting through the doubts eventually broke through the 3:30 barrier in the marathon by the end of the year. It ended with injury a fall at Omaha and then surgery on a hernia. Work started with the endless problem solving of having moved into an only partially adequate new site with several staffing issues but it was my responses that by year-end had me awarded the Supreme Care Award (the highest award our company gives). For family, it was the year also that I managed to get my in-laws to New Zealand, and just in the nick of time because events in early 2019 would have nixed it if it had been any later.

In my more instinctive moments I have said 2019 was a "dog" of a year. Two family crises have undoubtedly tinted it with a financial shade of red. My recent injury, which I drag into 2020, has also put a damper on things too. But a general look over those three aspects, health, family and work, I can't say it's much down on 2018. For running, I managed my goal of 3000km almost 2 months early. Though I had wanted to break 3:20 in the marathon, 3:22 is still a very satisfying number. And a 1:29:58 in the half was also a large monkey off the back. Work-wise, our school is going from strength to strength and my prominence in the school is only greater. An unexpected bonus in the closing days at least partially makes up for the blood letting earlier in the year. 

Probably another redeeming thing in 2019 is that I am doing one thing that I enjoy more: reading. And I'm only reading Chinese these days. I'm really making hay with the time that I would otherwise be running. All my recent reading has really fleshed out my knowledge of recent history in Asia, specially China before and under Mao and also North Korea. My current book, which I should finish before I go to China, is Mao: The Unknown Story. There is a sinister story about my first attempt at reading this book here. Regarding the book itself, my wife and I have discussed a lot about whether it could really be objective. The author, who penned the story Wild Swans about how her family suffered during Mao's Cultural Revolution, could be said to have a bone to pick. But she does it with a lot of new evidence to show how her narrative of how things happened could be plausible. It makes sense of many of the odd little side stories that don't stack up well without some underlying story. The Long March is a great example, where it would be impossible for it to succeed without some outside forces at work. There were a lot of jaw-dropping side facts: Zhang Xueliang died in Hawai'i. Ch'iang Chingkuo's wife was from Belarus. When you have a lot of vague knowledge about history, it's nice to have a narrative to make sense of it; hopefully one that is proximate to the truth; and some facts that nail down and enliven the stories too.

Last year I made some goals. This year will be about consolidating things financially and pushing things professionally. Regarding running, I make no goals because I'm not sure if this recent setback is "one of those injuries". But health, I look to change my manner of activity and switch a mindfulness over what I consume. 2020 has a nice ring to it and I am positive about the future.