2022, A Roundup of a Tough Year

Covering my past year of blogging in a capsule and also a throwback to my posts of this year. I write on Socio-Politics, International Relations, Law, Technology, MUN etc. Also enlisting a few achievements, milestones and anecdotes.

2022 was one of the hardest years of my life yet. It is part of growing up but it is not something which I can separate out as well. 2022 and 2023 I believe are my make-or-break years. What I am now on will be based on what I do these two years of which one year has passed out.

I successfully spent a year outside my home, that too out of my home state in the 3rd biggest city in India despite all the odds.

I am not really a pessimist, even if something is not great I try to make sure that I don’t view it so negatively. That is why I typically avoid articles which are deeply emotional or sad unless the circumstances force me. Till now I have written only two sad personal experience stories.

2022, was a year which I expected to go very well but that wasn’t the case. Ofcourse, this year was adventurous, with a lot of downs and ups, risks and opportunities. This was also the year which hit my family the hardest and also a year in which we had gone the extra mile to get things back on track.

By the end of 2021, everything was getting to normal in India but that was a big warning for the upcoming Omicron which came by the end of Christmas and New Year. I had a great New year's day. Within three days of arriving in Bangalore, I had to go back home due to Omicron and then Bangalore was the wrong place to be in.

My state Kerala, even though was one of the last states to be affected was badly affected. After a month since then, I had to be back only to run back home for one of the worst days of my life. My Grandmother passed away when I was travelling back on the train. I hadn’t seen my family in very bad shape in a long time until then.

Yet, everything was not so sorry. It took three months for me to wait for something interesting to happen- My first five-star experience in India. It was only in September, I had the best time of the year and our family’s best moment in years- our first post-pandemic domestic trip. I will include all the details in my Journal article.

I completed reading 30 books this year and started with five others. In a lot of academic books, I could refer to only partially or only some chapters of the same. I expect to complete them soon.

Dedication of this article

Writing in 2022

Just like how the year went, my writing journey also went through the same experience. There was nothing outstanding as such. Unlike in past years, there was massive stagnation and a drop in my reach. With a lot happening around me, I couldn't also focus too much on writing and publicity.

Something very important was that I started writing on a new platform with a lot of new hopes- Vocal Media. The growth and expectation aren’t much worth the hype yet it was worth making sure I expand beyond my blog and medium. I couldn’t utilise the Vocal+ free membership I got earlier in the year due to technical issues which really disappointed me.

This year I could reach a new milestone on the medium which is 5000 followers. Medium also underwent a lot of changes which everyone writing would have witnessed including the massive UI changes they brought it.

I hope to carry on my work here with utmost sincerity and hard work. I look for more support as both readers and as well as different forms of encouragement you can help me with.

I also started my Buy Me a Coffee, for allowing people to support me through monetary methods, although that needs more cooperation from a lot of readers as well as the medium referral program which I am yet to get a proper benefit of. (Find the relevant links to those at the bottom of my article.) Obviously supporting me would mean I could depend on better and paid resources for my research and articles.

Best Collection of this year

Now, I am here to convey the hall of fame of my articles for the year 2021, which I consider my best. I hope you too will agree with me. If you haven’t read it, please do and let me know if you’ll continue to agree with me or not.

Political Science Theory

Due to a lack of pure theoretical issues, I explored the misconceptions and myths regarding the war in Ukraine and a lot of people still believing that this a just war and somehow Russia was betrayed by Ukraine and the west. Hence my duty as a researcher is to keep people informed, hence I have enlisted the facts which busted all the myths provided.

Personal Journal

For the first time in my life, I visited and stayed in a Five Star Hotel in India. In this article, I cover in depth my 24 hours of experience in the hotel despite having spent a tough year.

This is just an article based on my experience and also explains some things which I found exciting and interesting. Also, this article is also aimed at people who may not be able to go to a five-star hotel but are yet able to read and comprehend from my experience. For an average person from India, going to a five-star hotel is out of reach.

I would consider myself very privileged to have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For any person of the middle class, it is not possible to stay in a five-star hotel and it is very expensive. Maybe they get opportunities rarely if they are able to save a lot and maybe if they opt for a tour package. Other than going there for a purpose, it is impossible for an average person to just go there for relaxation or for leisure.

International Relations

The most important topic in the domain remains to be Russia vs Ukraine. Even today there is no clear-cut resolution to the issue. Starting from February, the war is inching a year now. Hence, its the biggest war Europe has witnessed ever since the second world war. This has also divided the world community yet showed the fractures in the present world order.

Most of the scholars in the field in February, March and April were engaged in analysing the same. I was also working on the same topic multiple times in the past year. This article was made from a book which I started reading for the purpose of writing the same. Hence the issue has its own complexities which needed some time to work.

I honestly didn’t expect an invasion so soon, even if it was a possibility it was quite sudden and my article plans went flop because of it. Hence, my plan of publishing the issue was delayed. On the other hand, I got time to add more content and give more of a historical perspective. The response I got from multiple platforms including Medium was also highly satisfactory.

Science and Technology

This is one of my multiple successful technology-based articles. I explore the technical details behind the working of a credit card and how it enables fast and secure payments in seconds.

History

Unlike other topics, history requires more research and needs more focused writing. I don’t focus on pure history but rather look into the history of Geopolitics which we have at present.

In this article, I decoded the US-China-USSR and how it was present in the cold war and how that shaped the rest of the cold war. President Nixon by reaching out to Mao was a game changer who led to the rise of China which today stands as a miracle.

The article got 150 fans and 5000 claps.

COVID-19

Three years down the lane, COVID-19 is far from over. Although till mid-December, India was in normal until the situation in China unravelled for the worst. Although unlike many countries India is in a good state with a record vaccination and people ready to cooperate with local rules than many democracies.

Omicron was a success story in India. Although it did take away the life of my Grandmother, the wave was defeated by India in a month and I examined what are the options for India in the month of January, and how to tackle the challenge.

Politics

The lack of a proper issue left me a lot of vacuum on what exactly to write on as part of pure-Polutics. I could cover only some small name-sake issues. Thus I built a lot of small issues. One important story was in my home town which got statewide attention.

Thrikkakara attracted statewide attraction during the bypoll which was seen as a close contest between the ruling and the opposition. This was a political important story which I explored and covered which had a lot of implications.

On my personal blog, I received a lot of engagement but the same was absent on medium. I didn’t receive the response that I expected.

Indian Politics

The biggest Indian political story has been on the UP elections which took place in the month of march. I published a podcast episode on the same.

On medium, I published an article on how India successfully overcame the third wave or the Omicron wave.

Election based Analysis

After two years of Biden's Presidency and the world rising from Pandemic to Post Pandemic, the biggest political story of the month has been the US mid-term elections which broke all the historic trends. This was the most important election of the year on the world stage. There were a couple of other small elections like France, Brazil, Italy, Sweden, etc. which I didn't cover extensively.

Here is the analysis of the most nail-biting mid-term elections ever and how they will affect the Biden Presidency.

Education

I have been active in the educational field for the past few years. I have taken an effort to understand the pain of students. My articles on education, syllabus and study tips are aimed at making the life of students easier.

The honours degree is quite confusing and there are doubts about the same for a lot of students. Whether to pursue it or not has always been hard for many. I have thus made a special detailed article on the same.

Find it useful and share it with any student in distress. Although it is mainly for KTU Students, I have made the effort to keep it as general as possible.

Some important achievements and milestones

This is an interesting technical article on an important topic in Science and Technology. This article received more than 110 fans. I was able to start the #SimplifyTheTech series and publish multiple articles under it.

I wrote an article for my dear juniors in my masters to help them get rid of their fears. This is the first article series. Hope you enjoy will this series.

A very commonly used tool- How can make calls over the internet? How is it different from other ordinary calls? How can we make internet call for free? Get all your queries answered on VoIP through my article.

A lot of the books I read are being converted to articles. Hence stay tuned for my articles.

I crossed 5000 followers on medium recently and I would like to thank you all for your support and constant encouragement.

I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2023! Wish you all the success in your respective domains and most importantly in writing.

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