This has been such a tumultuous year, but I’m not the first or last to say so.
We know about the things that happened this year with COVID-19, the racial tensions, the political circus in America, the tanking economy, so on and so forth.
There were some ambivalent things that happened.
Let me get some of the bad stuff out there first:
-I struggled with moments of depression, internalized anger, and even paranoia.
-I felt like things were hopeless after lockdown happened.
-I had to rethink so many plans due to COVID. So many Zoom meetings and phone calls happened to talk to family, friends, and even co-workers.
Now for some good things:
-I recorded my first split record.
-Getting back into doing videos of different kinds was amazing.
-I did a lot of reading and doing my best to learn some new skills.
There were so many takeaways to learn in this bizarre, yet tense times. COVID and everything else isn’t going to magically disappear once 2021 rolls around. I’m sure we can all agree with that. I do hope things can improve in some way, shape, or form, but I know this won’t be instantaneous.
There was one thing that I’ve been thinking about when it came to Ospreyshire the blogger as well as Ospreyshire the spoken word artist. Yes, I’m a man of multiple disciplines with poetry, spoken word, videography, film reviews, fiction, and music. As far as the Ospreyshire Realm is concerned (as in the blog you’re looking at right now), I feel as though there’s an identity crisis. My other blogs where I review films, documentaries, and anime as well as my fiction blog at least have clearly defined purposes. There are times where I ask myself “What is Ospreyshire in terms of this blog?”. Look, I attract bloggers of all races, nations, interests, hobbies, and content which is really cool. While blogging has allowed me to be outspoken when I’ve internalized so many things for most of my life (saying nothing about how I’m naturally introverted who pretends to have extrovert tendencies in my offline life, but that’s another story), I feel as though things are inconsistent from a content standpoint. I will still post poetry, audio projects when I do recording, or the occasional cross-promotion to friends or creators I like which is a given. The thing is I really have to rethink about how I do new projects especially with the growing irrelevance in music consumption (not that I expected to go platinum or even gold) as well as making a more clearly defined identity on this blog. Apologies for sounding like I’m thinking about what others may or may not be thinking about me since I used to have a really bad habit of caring too much of what others think, but I want to make sure people who read this blog have some more consistency in content. This doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon my art or some of my opinion pieces because I have a few in mind that have to be said like some sequels to some of my personal posts in the past for example. Stay tuned on that.
Anyways, I hope you all had a blessed holiday season and that you have a Happy New Year!
Here’s to 2021! [clinks with my glass of sparkling grape juice]
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Ospreyshire's Realm 
Congrats on the successes. I’m with you on 2021. To think that things will magically disappear or improve at the stroke of midnight on December 31st (or is midnight the start of January 1st?) is rather strange. I’m expecting it to be more of the same for a while. Hopefully with a sign that things are improving, but I’m expecting January to be tough. After that, who knows? Good luck with everything coming up.
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Thanks, Charles. I haven’t heard people explicitly say COVID or the other ills of this world would disappear in these next couple of days, but I’m sure it was implied. This certainly won’t be an overnight problem and I could see January being rough since it’s still Winter when flu season happens. That’s not even getting into the variant that’s been reported, not to scare you or my other readers. Will see what happens.
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I’ve heard a few say that they will, but in the ‘Covid is a Democrat hoax’ way. Not sure if that counts. January will also be rough because I think we’re going to see a major surge mid-month. You have a lot of people traveling and parties going on regardless of the advisories. I heard about the variant turning up in Colorado. Though, I’ve heard it isn’t as lethal, but that doesn’t sound like a big upside. It’s like saying a knife to the chest isn’t ‘as lethal’ as a bullet to the head. Both kill.
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That makes sense and I’ve sadly heard that same quote around me before earlier this year. I get what you’re saying though. We just got a lot of snow where I’m from, so people aren’t traveling around that much (that I know of) at the moment, but I could see that happening with others with those parties or general acts of covidiocy. I just heard about the variant in Colorado today, too. It’s confusing what to make of the variant since it’s so new. Very apt analogy there. It’s still a raging pandemic.
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I’m in New York. Not the city, but lower part of the state. There are a lot of people who act like the danger is over. Not sure why. So, you see more gatherings and trips than you’d expect. You would think winter would be when more people stay inside since it’s cold. Nope.
I hope the vaccine handles the variant too. I haven’t heard anything about that.
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Gotcha. I know New York can have some hardcore winters up there. It’s amazing how people can do these things when they clearly know better. I swear common sense is rare these days.
I haven’t heard any news about it working on the variant to the best of my knowledge, so I’m not sure if it can handle it if it’s some kind of new/evolved strain.
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Common sense may very well be a superpower these days. Southern New York winters have been suspiciously mild the last few years. Makes me think something is coming.
I looked it up and they’re hoping the vaccine will work. Testing is going on.
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I know, right? Come to think of it, winters haven’t been that bad since earlier this year. Last year on Christmas, it was in the 50s which is the warmest Christmas I remember. It felt like Fall weather that day. Yeah, sometimes I kind of wonder about the weather.
I wasn’t sure about that. Granted, it’s a new variant, so I’m still on the fence even with the vaccine being rushed since it normally takes at least a year and a half for a vaccine to be ready for the public in most circumstances, but that’s a story for another day.
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I’ve noticed that winters are mild until February here. Then it gets brutal. We’ll see if it’s the same this time.
I wonder if it being an mRNA vaccine changes the variant issue. I looked into the rushing too and was told why it happened this way. First, mRNA vaccines have been researched for years, so this builds off that information instead of coming from scratch. Also, money was no object for this vaccine, so scientists didn’t have budgetary constraints. That apparently opened up a lot in terms of speed. So, while it was rushed, it doesn’t appear to be as rushed as people think. All that being said, I do wonder about if there are any long term effects that we can’t see now. Yet, the alternative is to let covid continue to rip through the human race, so I don’t know what the alternative is.
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Around New York? Gotcha. Granted, I’ve only been to that state once several years ago and it was upstate (Syracuse, Albany, and some smaller towns). Februaries can be brutal in the Midwest with snow or at least with really low temperatures. We’ll see what happens.
To be honest, I wasn’t aware of the term mRNA vaccine before. I didn’t know how much studying went into it even with such a new virus out there. Not going to lie, I did have concerns with how fast it was rushed out compared to other vaccines or medicines to the best of my knowledge. I did hear that there have been side effects (I forget which brand), but it’s too soon to tell if they were just temporary or if there’s some long-term stuff that may or may not be known at the moment. It really is a catch-22 with COVID going through everything or using a vaccine still in the testing stage. Don’t worry, I’m not conspiratorial when it comes to these things though.
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I went to college around Syracuse. That’s where the snow is hiding. Funniest thing is that it wasn’t that bad during my 4 years as a student. The 1 year I lived there afterwards was brutal because of a massive ice storm in April.
I heard the common side effects are the usual ones for vaccines. You’re bound to have some cases of severe reactions though. Just like some people can eat peanuts and others die if they have even an accidental taste. Main reason I have any idea about this is because my sister works with genetics, so she’s known about the work for a while. Her lab works mostly with bone development and cancer though.
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Oh, really? That’s nice. The snow is hiding there? I can see that making sense since it’s farther up North compared to the NYC area or at least the other cities and towns downstate. Sorry you had to deal with that ice storm then. Those certainly aren’t fun.
I wasn’t aware that you had a sister who worked in that field. I did hear about both the mild and severe side effects from different people (not personally though). Let’s hope things can be an improvement over the dumpster fire that was 2020.
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You also have Canadian winds coming off the lakes. Makes some really odd weather patterns. Mostly wind effect that would carry the snow over the shoreside campus and drop it in the town.
Fingers crossed that 2021 doesn’t try a ‘hold my beer’ thing.
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Okay, that makes sense especially since Quebec and Ontario border New York.
That’s a great way to describe such hope for 2021.
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I’m sorry about your tough year, but I’m glad you came back to create and learn some new things.
Yeah, 2021 is still going to be awful for at least half of it. Also, having a president who isn’t actively telling us he doesn’t care about us to our face is only going to marginally better then what we have now…
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2020 was a tough year in general. I’ve had rough moments in previous years, but the climate was totally different compared to anything else I could remember. It was still good to create as well as learning new things in general.
That’s certainly plausible, Scott. I get what you’re saying. Sure, he may have the decency to wear a mask and do social distancing, but he’s certainly no superhero. In the words of the singer Derek Webb: “We’ll never have a savior up on Capitol Hill”.
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2020 was challenging for everyone except for the billionaires who made a killing. The rest of us are struggling, especially if you’re Black. You’ll figure out how to mold OSPREYSHIRE’S REALM in what you desire.
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Good point and it was a struggle. There were things I was still thankful for, but it was really tough. Thank you. I’ll figure out the best way to use this particular blog.
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