2022 Year End Recap

(If you have a short reading attention span, feel free to just skip to the actual ranking, which you'd have to click into the blog post to view >:3)

This particular blog post is to first document what was actually published in 2022.

Note: Notice two font sizes below? The regular size matching this sentence and paragraphs above, are my makeup work for before. The smaller size (like this) are the ones that are posted extremely closed to, if not in fact on the exact published date. Those, should there actually be casual viewers of my blog, are hard to miss, since the Blog Archive function reflects them quite well, and the backdated ones are what easily gone unnoticed, hence the emphasis.

1. [Series Overview] Crown of Coral and Pearl duology - Mara Rutherford
2. [Series Overview] Loom Saga - Elise Kova
3. [Series Overview] The Apprentice Witch trilogy - James Nicol
4. 2021 Year End Recap
5. [Series Overview] 魔女の宅急便 - 角野栄子 (Majo no Takkyuubin - Eiko Kadono)
6. [Series Overview] Magisterium - Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
7. [Series Overview] The Scholomance - Naomi Novik
8. [Series Overview] The Gilded Wolves trilogy - Roshani Chokshi
9. [Series Overview] Green Bone Saga - Fonda Lee
10. [Series Overview] The Blood of Stars - Elizabeth Lim
11. [Series Overview] Six Crimson Cranes duology - Elizabeth Lim

That said, while I did studiously track all my post, sadly, this very post itself is once again actually published later, in 2023, and again backdated. And I'll explain to you the unfortunate reason as to why:

• I was doing so very well, and this post had the chance to actually be published on time. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Check 2021 Year End Recap for references. In short, 2022 was the year I got my very first stable full-time job. For people who know me and read my updates on social media in another language, it's not a secret that to me it's a bittersweet post. I like the job itself (as a Librarian), but including myself, it was just a team of three Librarians in my branch and I had one quite subpar coworker (let's call her Ms. A), so as time went by, I have to say, I did get quite fed up with constantly having to clean up after mistakes, either caused by incompetence or miscommunications.
• Ms. A's then-upcoming departure (2022/10/24, though that was her day off, so her last day was actually 2022/10/23) was made known on 2022/10/6, thus my then-boss had to interview candidates for the vacancy. Suffice to say it wasn't a popular job, so we didn't exactly get a crapload of people to choose from, and the clock was ticking.
• A new coworker (Ms. A's 1st replacement) started on October 24, and my other remaining colleague (let's call her Ms. B, who was truly a lifesaver) and I tried our best to catch said person up to speed, and just when we were done, evidently it was too much for that person, and she informed us of her resignation on 2022/10/30. (For those who are wondering, at that point she's worked for just 5 days.) So it was back to square one, more interviews for my then-boss.
• We got our 2nd new coworker (Ms. A's 2nd replacement, let's call her Ms. C) on November 2, and I won't dwell on how utterly a horrible fit this Ms. C is to the job, it's not worth it. Like the previous newcomer, C was also very slow to learn, and there were other issues.
• During this period, Ms. B found a better job and her last day was to be November 23. I was eventually left to deal with two newbies, with the newer newcomer (Ms. B's replacement, let's call her Ms. D) also turning out to not be a quick learner.
• Both Ms. C & D made A LOT OF mistakes by the start of December; D just joined so it was easier to cut her some slack, but C had been working for a month by then, it was ridiculous, so for my own sanity I called her out on it, and boy did she not take it well, throwing a tantrum, also announcing her "apparent" resignation on December 6, with her "supposed" last day to be December 16. Around a week after C's inappropriate behavior, she meekly admitted that she'd be staying after all.
• I won't waste more swears on this; to sum up, C is a backstabber and my former boss is a dick. I'm totally cool with saying this publicly, as I have nothing to hide. I'm contract-based, and it's a yearly contract. My then-boss decided to not renew mine, and it was her decision, but she didn't have the decency to admit it, and tried to make it as if my company was the one who came up with this idea. If I had to guess, my then-boss probably made up her mind when C threw that tantrum, but I would never know for sure.
• It was purely accidental that I had things to discuss with my HR on December 19 that the HR brought up the topic, and informed me that my contract won't be renewed. And the actual confirmation that this was nonnegotiable, was on December 21. By then I only had two off-days left, my last day of work was to be December 31. I was left in an incredibly shitty situation, with my off-days fixed and with absolutely no way to get extra days off to be interviewed.
• And wasn't that just hella stressful and dramatic? My entire family's Christmas was ruined because I was facing the unknown and very likely would become jobless at the start of the upcoming year. But I'm here, which means I'm obviously in an okay enough state to be able to do this. I won't bore you with the blow-by-blow details, but yes, I do have bragging rights, and I would love to shove it in the faces of those who wronged me, but as time is too precious for continuing insignificant anger, this will do. By December 27, I actually pretty much secured two job offers, which are both superior in various ways comparing to what my then-current Librarian job had to offer. But I wanted to be sure and not just take whatever that'd have me on the spot.
• By 2023/01/04, another one was in the bag, with one just as close, with its final interview scheduled on January 7. I also had three other interviews scheduled. On January 5, I went to one that we (as in my family and I myself) all thought I had little chance of actually getting, as it's again government environment but much more serious, with heavier responsibilities, comparing to working at a branch of our capital's public library. We were wrong. I got the offer two hours after the interview, and started working the very next day.

Okay, so in case it wasn't obvious. While I had reasonably become busier in 2022 due to RL responsibilities, it wasn't until October that it went downhill, and mind you, I was even relatively coping, managing to still bust out some blog posts by mid November, but December was just hell.

I know, from all the statements above, it could easily look like "I was the actual problematic person thus had to be let go", but lmao, I really wasn't, and that's the only reason why I'm able to laugh it off, because the way my former boss handled that branch was just, immature and very amateur. Believe me when I say, my remaining reading plans for 2022 went to dust that last month thanks to my last job. I'm not going to lie, we (my family and I) all agree that, lol, ultimately, I have my then-boss to thank, because I ended up in a much, much, better place. BUT, that was not at all her intention. She really could have handled it more professionally and gracefully, with her way there's just no respect to give, as she deserves none.

Anyways, as of 2023/05/27, according to the Blog Archive function, I have 8 posts published in 2022, none at this point were backdated, and I did try to maintain being productive. That one particular post that was more than 90% done back in 2021, still couldn't make it in 2022, hopefully I could manage to get it out in 2023. Spoilers alert, because of my RL job, 2023's post def. won't be as lengthy as this one! Fingers crossed there'd be no more drama! lol

2022 Reading Challenge

Sammm has read 23 books toward her goal of 30 books.

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23 of 30 (76%)

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It's because of 2022's unusual circumstances that resulted in the first part being rather large. I hope people are patient enough to reach this part, lmao. On Goodreads, there's the My Year in Books function they provided that give some statistics, [check out mine for 2022!] (My GR profile is set for GR Users only, so this one, you'd have to login in order to view.) There's also the Goodreads Year in Review, [read mine!] (no GR account required.)

So what's different here is that I'm going to rank what I've read, but limited to series that concluded in this year and the year before. Notice how 2022 is the first year to differ from other Year End Recap posts? Yup, it's because I fear there'd be no point of making a ranking list had I not included the two-year duration from the start. And, ladies and gents, drum roll....!

Note: First books of series represent said entire series. I know the cut-off was the final book, but I believe people are usually more familiar with the cover and title of first installments so.

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 

Right... Not fun since not enough series meet the criteria I set, thus unable to let me accurately depict how much I loathe some of them lmao. Because the pool is too small, I'm going to include series ending two year ago that I read this year into the mix; ta-da:

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 

Right... (lol) In case people didn't feel like counting, the total is 7 series. The reason why some now have been stacked, is because, 1 per slot made the ranking list lengthy, which in itself isn't too big of a deal, however, I feel bad for the ones closer to the bottom. It really wasn't like "it's the second to the last place"; trust me, certain gaps are super huge. Since it's still not reflecting well enough, I figure grouping what I feel the similar amount of like, would make me feel less guilty, haha. There you have it!

Hope despite the crisis in 2022, you'd still have a fruitful year! What series concluded in 2022 do you like the most? Feel free to share!