Reflections on the Year 2021

It’s that time again, where I reflect on this past year and honestly, 2021 was a lot better than 2020! I mean, how could it not be? I bought a lot more CDs to add to my CD collection, I graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I’m on my third writing internship (which should end in a couple of months), and I got into the Disney College Program. I know people are stressing out about the Omicron variant currently, but I won’t let that get me down! Let’s just pray that the Omicron variant and other COVID-19 stuff don’t ruin our lives again.

The beginning of the year wasn’t too exciting. I was finishing my last semester of college online and I was wrapping things up with Ka Leo, the Disney Ohana Club, and the Public Relations Student Society of America. By the way, I did an awesome presentation for my FDM 200 class, which was basically a class about fashion and appearance, where I discussed the band tee trend. After I graduated, I kind of stopped talking to my friends from my “real life.” Instead, I was mostly communicating with my WordPress friends because that’s what I wanted to focus on: my writing. 

My internship experience with Hawaii Business Magazine, which was from June to August 2021, taught me so much and it helped me grow as a professional writer. First of all, I learned that it’s not appropriate to show Disney stuffed animals during Zoom interviews for an article. Second of all, I got to attend my first leadership conference, where I met all of the Hawaii Business Magazine staff in-person. But most of all, I took on my toughest article at the time, “Tattoos in the Workplace Are an Evolving Issue in Hawaiʻi,” which was about the sensitive subject of tattoos in the workplace. It was hard getting interviews at first, but in the end, I got to talk with such nice people that gave helpful info/opinions for my article.

After my internship with Hawaii Business Magazine, I spent the next three months doing nothing because the publishing companies I was interested in weren’t hiring, but also, I still didn’t have enough writing experience for a full-time job. On the plus side, my parents had a babysitter for my dog, Roxy, because I had no life! Then, on Wednesday, October 27, 2021, I talked about it already in this post, but I’ll talk about it again briefly. I opened an email from the Manoa Career Center, which said that Disney was still hiring for the Disney College Program for Spring 2022. After thinking about it all day, I decided to apply and 12 days later, on Monday, November 8, 2021, I was accepted into the program!

Around the same time I applied for the Disney College Program, I applied for a remote internship for a publishing company in Colorado called Topic Insights. I got two articles published with them so far: one was about the problem with Instagram and the other was about how to accomplish New Year’s resolutions. So after I’m done with my internship for Topic Insights, I’ll be getting ready to go to Florida for the Disney College Program; I’ll be working at Walt Disney World. I haven’t been to Disney World since I was five, so I’m really excited to go back there; I need to make a bucket list of the things I want to do there.

As for CDs, my favorites that I bought this year include Richie Sambora’s Stranger in this Town (1991), Black Sabbath’s Born Again (1983), Bon Jovi’s Keep the Faith (1992), Whitesnake’s Ready an’ Willing (1980), Saints & Sinners (1982), and Slide It In (1984), and Deep Purple’s Deep Purple in Rock (1970) and Fireball (1971). I guess, I have a lot of favorites from 2021. I just don’t post about them online because I don’t feel like showing off my CDs to the world as soon as I get them; I just want to listen to the music! I’ll post pictures of them eventually when I do album reviews for them; I did reviews for a couple of them already. By the way, I’m going to miss my CDs so much when I’m down in Florida for four months.

In 2022, I’m hoping for a new Def Leppard studio album (the band’s last studio album was released in 2015), a tour announcement from AC/DC (I need to see my man Phil Rudd smack those drums in person), opportunities to see Iron Maiden and Judas Priest live (or tour announcements, at least), and a wonderful experience on my Disney College Program. My mom doesn’t want to go to the mainland too many times because we’re already going to drop me off for the Disney College Program. But anyways, thank you 2021 for the wonderful memories and for helping me grow as a writer; bring on 2022!

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Take care and see ya real soon!

Lana