Welcome back everyone! We are 25% done with 2021, can y’all believe it? Time sure flies when you’re doing pretty much nothing other than living through historical events.
I thought I’d do a quick “Q1 check-in”: do y’all ever have quarterly check-ins at your workplace? Does your company do them? Basically, they’re just checkpoints – usually meetings – where you look back on the quarter that just ended. Did it meet expectations? Was it better than anticipated? Worse? What happened? Anything worth mentioning?
Oh lord, so much has happened in these first three months! I tried to recap what happened with the world as well as what I’ve been doing, so please, keep reading! I would also love to hear from you and find out how you’ve spent the past three months!
What’s Up With The World?
Well, for starters, we’re still in a pandemic. However, things are way better than they were just a few months ago! We’ve administered more than 500 million vaccines globally, my grandma being among those lucky people! I cannot wait to see her again without worrying about passing the virus to her. I know that soon enough, I’ll be able to get my vaccine, too, and hopefully go back to a somewhat normal life! Other than that, a lot has happened: Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Biden was elected new President of the United States, we rejoined the Paris Agreement and Reddit users nearly crashed the stock market. Tom Brady won another Super Bowl, the Pope met with the Ayatollah in Iraq, but we sadly witnessed a multitude of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Italy is in a third lockdown. Apparently we have a robot just strolling around Mars taking pics? Oh, but a container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal and stopped 12% of global trade. Oh, baby baby, it’s a wild world.
What’s Up With Me?
I’ve Been Working
Well, I’ve been working at my job for a whole year! From my kitchen table! Yikes. You might remember I haven’t worked a day in the office, but I hope we’ll all be able to go back soon. Never thought I’d miss getting downtown during rush hour!
I’ve Been Eating Out
Like a lot. Chicago opened up indoor dining (obviously not at full capacity) and I’ve been taking advantage of that. I missed the normalcy of eating out so much! Some places I’ve visited are Cabra and Macello for Chicago Restaurant Week, Mon Ami Gabi, Za’ Za’s (in St. Charles), Ella Elli and Topo Gigio for date night, Stella’s Diner and Eggsperience for brunch, Café Deko for coffee and overall insta-worthy vibes. I’ve also gotten slices of Pie Eyed pizza and D’Amato’s pizza (they couldn’t be more different, try them both!). Other than that, I’ve tried Raising Cane’s for the first time since they recently opened one in Wrigleyville, and I visited Black and Caspian, a restaurant co-owned by my new friend Leyla (check her out, she’s awesome).
I’ve Been Working on Projects
So much has been happening on the side hustle front, too! Livia and I launched our new website for Studiare in America. You may not know this, but we have a startup! It’s basically a college consulting business where we help Italian kids who want to pursue their college or post grad studies in the United States. Now that we have a website, everything feels much more legit!
I also collaborated with Leyla, my aforementioned restaurant-owning, youtuber, overall badass new friend. We filmed a video about studying in the United States, I’ll be sure to share it on here once it’s ready!
I’ve Been Working Towards My Goals
You may also remember that my last post was about my goals for 2021. Well, I’ve been working on most of them! My bullet journal, for example, is still very much alive, and it’s helping me track my progress towards my goals. I’ll soon write another post on how I set it up because I think it’s so useful and fun! I’ve also been practicing Portuguese almost every day, I’ve secured collaborations with Nando’s Peri Peri and Eataly, and here I am writing one blog post per month!
I’ve Been Having Fun
Although life isn’t what it used to be yet, I’ve been trying to have as much fun as possible by taking advantage of the added freedom we’ve obtained due to covid cases going down. That includes eating at restaurants, but also seeing the river dyed green for St. Patrick’s day, a tradition we missed on last year. I’ve also seen a few friends I had not seen in months or even a whole year (we ordered a 128-pieces sushi tray, highly recommend!) , and I’ve checked out the new Primark store on State Street. It’s not “normal life” just yet, but it feels good! Next up, probably more than a few months from now, I would like to be able to do what I miss the most: traveling. For so long, traveling has pretty much been my only personality trait, so it’s been pretty hard to navigate life without that constant “anchor”. Does anybody else feel that way?
What’s Up With Y’All?
I would love to know what the past three months have been like for you! Whether you’ve felt hopeful or in your feels, all emotions are valid. I share my thoughts on here because I hope they will make you feel a bit less lonely, and maybe they’ll inspire you – I’m a firm believer that we can all inspire one another, even when we feel so terribly boring and uncool! So feel free to let me know how you’re doing, you can comment down here or you can message me on my Instagram, my DMs are open! See you all next time!