2021 was essentially a continuation of 2020, where we’ve been on this seemingly endless loop of variants and other issues related to this loop. I’m starting to feel like a hamster in another wheel, and I don’t think I like this one. Let me go back to my other wheel, please.
TL;DR I’m tired, you’re probably tired, we’re all just tired of this. 😪
That aside, it’s that time of year again! I enjoyed writing my 2020 highlights and 2021 goals last year where I got the chance to think about the small wins among the pile of suck. 2021 was definitely a continuation of that pile, but I don’t think it beats 2020, so I’m calling that a win. There’s a lot that’s gone throughout the culmination of the year, but there’s been a fair amount of wins as well.
Top 5 Most Viewed Posts
Most of the time it’s hard for me to tell (or at least guess) which posts are actually the top five most viewed posts of the year until around August. But 2021 started out strong with one post from last year and kept going, and I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t checking my stats more often than in past years because I’ve been fascinated by the data due to one oddity.
Unlike in 2020 where most of my top viewed posts were reviews, all of 2021’s top posts are reviews. (And except for one, they’re all from past years.)
1. Meteor Garden Review
It’s not lost on me that Hana Yori Dango introduced to me J-pop and K-pop, Boys Over Flowers introduced me to Korean dramas and Meteor Garden is well… now my top review of all time. (And I guess my blogging legacy since this is the keyword associated with the blog? This wasn’t on my bingo card.) Friends, this is the first year that a post has not only hit 500 views in an entire year but also 1000. Most of my posts float around 50-100 with a few reviews running into 200-300, so I’m really? Just in shock? (A little?) Long story short, it was pretty clear from February which post would be the top one this year.
I’m actually really happy that something that played such a huge role in getting me into Asian dramas and music is doing super well. I’m going to go cry some happy tears like a little sap.
(Side note: If you found this blog from this review and stayed around, thank you for sticking around and joining my little circus of life.)
I also didn’t promote my stuff on social media as much (for reasons) so quite a chunk of my yearly views is from this review alone. I really should do better on promoting…
2. The Shadow Glass by Rin Chupeco
Honestly, if we’re not counting the outlier, this review from 2018 would actually be the top post of the year. And really, it’s a prime example of how book reviews are evergreen content. (I will continue dying on that hill.)
3. Send Me Their Souls by Sara Wolf
This one was actually a pleasant surprise primarily because most of my reviews posted after the publication date tend to die shortly after it’s posted. Send Me Their Souls actually did die like Meteor Garden did, but somehow it’s been given a second life.
4. Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
The only post from this year that made it in this year’s list. (To be fair, I also didn’t write that many posts overall, so I guess this doesn’t surprise me much?)
5. Feather by Olivia Wildenstein
My review for Feather slid into the top 5 last year as well, and it took me a few months to realize Celestial (the sequel) released around that time, so people were probably searching for reviews of the first book?
6. Bookwyrm Breakdown: Continuing the Julie Kagawa Agenda, Getting the Stabby and Other Things
If Meteor Garden died, this actually would’ve been the fifth most viewed post of this year. (Also I can’t believe the post where I practically say I convinced people to read Shadow of the Fox and then they’re doing the same now actually did well considering wrap-ups usually die?)
2021 Blogging Highlights
If I really think about it, most of my blogging highlights have been SEO-related with quite a few posts landing into the Top 5 Results for a keyword and two of them somehow becoming a featured snippet? I swear, I’m no SEO expert, but I’m apparently doing a few somethings right according to Google Search Console. Please hire me with a livable wage I’m a good child. But there have been other highlights and wins!
(Mom, please be proud of me, thanks.)
New Blog Look!
To be honest, this would actually be on this year’s highlights since the blog turns 10 years, but I ended up moving it early due to personal reasons that may result in some timing conflict I’d rather avoid if I can help it. (Dear Universe, I’d like to have some control of my life, but I think with the new variant this is quickly becoming moot.)
I think the last time I did a major makeover was back in 2016 and then there have been a few minor makeovers over the years, but this one is an admittedly pretty big overhaul since and I’m actually proud of it more than in 2016. Partially this might be the planning that went into this (containing a lot of Lupe and me poking each other’s brains), since I started thinking about doing a potential overhaul for a while and just accepted the small steps with everything on my plate instead. Now that I’m no longer worrying about attending classes and doing schoolwork while writing blog posts and working, I have more time on my plate to sit down and really plan things out when I just need to worry about work and general adulting things like bills (and additional sudden hiccups).
I’ve also grown as a person over the years, so a lot of tastes have frankly matured and do not result in as much cringe as young me naturally would. (Can’t say the same in another ten years, but we’ll cross that bridge in that time. Am I even going to be blogging then?)
The majority of this makeover was actually done through mobile, so this went a lot smoother than I thought it would! Quick shoutout to Clo, Ruby, Shruti, Kal and everyone else I might have bugged about with sneak peeks and helping me test things out on the desktop side of things. Also shoutout to Roberta for always letting me know when things go a little wonky after they go live.
Finish Reformatting
I’m so happy I got this done and over with after three very long years, even if a huge chunk of my posts actually got trashed instead. I know with the makeover I’m back to square one and have to repeat the cycle to change all the images, but I personally think that’s a lot quicker than the whole nine yards. I’ll take it.
There’s also less angel and devil back and forth on my shoulders about deleting or not deleting posts, so maybe the remaining ones will one day haunt me. Anyways, if any of my really old reviews somehow end up on Reddit again for being cringe or whatever reason, just know that I’m embarrassed of myself as well and wish for a hole to open up beneath me every time one of my old posts come to haunt me. (Other times I wonder, “I really said that? Yes, apparently I did.”)
2021 Personal Highlights
2021 wasn’t as exciting with personal highlights as it was with blogging highlights; I think it’s actually the reverse this time. It’s the first full year I’m no longer in school and worrying about exams, yet there’s this faint niggling feeling once in a while that I have a ten-page paper due in six hours and I very much didn’t start it. (This has happened and I don’t recommend it.)
There’s honestly not much that I would put as a personal highlight because like 2020, my goal for 2021 was taking it as I go one day at a time, especially considering there’s a pandemic. (Probably doesn’t help I get secondhand embarrassment from everything my own state is sometimes.) This was the year I officially went back into bullet journaling and actually stuck around with it instead of abandoning it three months in. There’s been a few things I liked about it but a few things I miss about pre-made planners, but I think I’ll keep this going in the new year as well.
We’ll see if I keep this for the second year in the row or if I somehow just abandon it about halfway through. I’d like to think it’s not likely, but it’s a possibility.
I also revamped my portfolio again, deciding to move it from its own individual site to an individual page on the blog. A huge portion of my portfolio now that I’m done with college/university (and even during) consists of blog pieces, so it made more sense to keep the traffic on the blog and continuously build an existing platform and branding than two different ones. Plus, my portfolio was using pretty much the same color palette as the blog.
I also found it took more space and time to run two websites, and embarrassing enough, I haven’t updated a single thing for well over a year. I swear I’m a Professional™ (at least, I try to be). Long story short, it was better to keep it on one site rather than two.
2022 Goals
I walked into 2021 like I walked into 2020: have goals, but don’t stress over it. With the Pandemic, 2022 is more than likely the same way: walking into the year with a vague sense of purpose but also Self-Care is important. If I walk out of the year with just surviving, that’s okay too.
Blogging Goals
In 2021 I wanted to do a lot of cleanup work like tags, media files, categories, etc. 2021 was also the year where I didn’t have “something that knocks out my entire cell service because I don’t have a super fancy phone like a flagship iPhone and Samsung but I’ll still have like 4-5 bars of cell service” on my bingo card.
So yeah, the cleanup process (outside of tags) kind of went out the window. Defining the type of content I want definitely went out the window, and so did updating old blog posts, writing fewer reviews, and being more active with comments and blog hopping. In fact, I probably just wrote reviews. A lot of my connection relied heavily on cellular traffic and if I honestly didn’t have my iPad, I think I would’ve abandoned blogging except for the occasional post.
That being said, I couldn’t really go into 2022 with any blogging goals, as much as I wanted to, because it would’ve been unrealistic. Although with my working hybrid for an undetermined time with the new variants, I actually do have internet access at home now, and it’s kind of weird just typing on a laptop rather than using my iPad or phone. So with that being said, I think I might actually do in 2022 what I didn’t get to do in 2021. We’ll see.
Reading Goals
I smashed my Goodreads Reading Challenge of reading 50 books with a huge hammer because I finished 200 books (I even adjusted it halfway through the year to this). Granted, a lot of it was rereading (goal accomplished) and listening to audiobooks (goal accomplished), but there was a good dose of webtoons as well. I’m going to be walking into 2022 with a goal of reading 50 books again and adjusting as necessary. 50 seems like a realistic number with my current circumstances and anything more will just be for fun. Depending on how things go in a couple of months, I may bump this down to 30.
Unfortunately, I didn’t complete all of my overdue ARCs (and in fact added a few more to that pile), but I did finish a relatively large chunk. Much of my struggle is realizing that I keep hoarding reviews for long periods of time knowing deep down I probably won’t be posting it for a hot minute. So halfway through December, I pretty much sucked it up and submitted all those reviews to Netgalley and Goodreads. I did request far fewer ARCs in 2021, and I honestly think that worked in my favor a lot since I could focus on cleaning up old ones slowly but surely.
2022 will be the same with ARCs, being selective and requesting less no matter how much I really want to read some books. Maybe I’ll eventually get to the point where I request more than like 5 ARCs a year, but I think I still want to focus on finishing some older ones first. Either that, or it’s time to give up on the book because I lost interest in it. I think finishing the 12 I have currently is realistic.
Personal Goals
I was very much not consistent with language learning; I’ve basically abandoned it completely about three months into 2021 because there’s just too much else going on (also with that reading streak I had no desire of stopping). It’ll be nice if I do get back into language learning in 2022, but I think this might be at the bottom of my priority pile. There’s just a little too much going on in my life (and the world) currently to really focus on languages.
Outside of that, though, I definitely kept up with bullet journaling and while I didn’t watch a movie a week, I did watch 52 movies or shows so that equates to once a week in the long run. It’s cheating, but goal accomplished either way. 2022 will be similar: experiencing with bullet journaling some more and figuring out what works for me, and trying to watch 52 movies or shows. I’d remove watching shows and movies as a goal, but then I’ll abandon my Netflix again. Whoops. (Shruti and I should definitely buddy watch or read something together like we’ve been trying to do for the past year since her comment on last year’s post but I’m a clown. 🤡)
As for the rest, I’m actually choosing not to disclose my remaining personal goals this year on the blog for reasons. But hey, if I do end up accomplishing them, it’ll be considered a highlight of 2022. Tune in sometime in early 2023. (But knowing me, I’ll probably just spill it somewhere in a wrap-up.)
Let’s talk, bookwyrms: what are your goals, if any, for 2022? What are you proud of accomplishing in 2021?
Sophia started blogging in February 2012 for the hell of it and is surprisingly still around. She has a GIF for nearly everything, probably listens to too much K-Pop and is generally in an existential crisis of sorts (she's trying her best). More of her bookish reviews and K-Pop Roundups can be found at The Arts STL.
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Yay for having your posts show up high on search engines and for finishing 200 books! 2021 did feel like a repetition of 2020 and now 2022 is looking like another variation so.. let’s see how that goes haha. Also love how you have the patience to reformat and do cleanup of blog content. I started from scratch when I went self-hosted because I was too lazy to deal with it all haha.
I will not lie and say that I was half-tempted to do that because I’m absolutely embarrassed. Lupe was 100% okay with having me delete ALL of her old posts and I wish had the bravery to do that as well, but uh… here we are.
Meteor Garden is my gateway to East Asian dramas as well. I hope your year 2022 goes better in terms of blogging, reading and personally too. Have a great week ahead.