2020…to put it lightly; hasn’t been as amazing as we’d hoped. I can still see us on December 31st 2019, full of hope, with a glass of champagne, excited for the new year. Little did those innocent versions of ourselves know what was about to happen. However, 2021 is around the corner and I’m here to convince you that this year hasn’t been all bad. So that’s why, for this lookback at 2020, I’ll swerve around the virus-that-shall-not-be-named and all the other bad stuff. This is how you should remember 2020:

January
The start of this excuse of a year. Okay, yes you’re right, this is when the first case of the big C was discovered in China, but like I said: We’re not going to talk about that! So what happened in January? You probably didn’t know this, but in January 2020, a new planet was discovered: TOI 1338b (very catchy name, I agree).

February/March
It’s hard to imagine now, but in February 2020 an actual big award show took place. During the Oscars, the movie ‘Parasite’ took over and won award after award. And can we ever really get over this moment: the director of Parasite that makes his Oscars kiss. Another iconic thing that happened in February: this. For the people who didn’t click the link, Shakira and J-Lo served us an amazing half-time show and, honestly, I’m not sure if we will ever recover. In March, we all started working from home, and even though this is sad, it did make for some amazing work-at-home-fails. Here are my favourite ones.

April/May
So in April and May, Elon Musk took the spotlight for some reason. In April, Elon launched SpaceX into space with two astronauts, making it the first commercial rocket to go into space. In May, Elon had his first son and named him X Æ A-12 Musk (for all the confused people: here is a video on how to pronounce that). The fact that this was not the weirdest thing that happened in 2020, is just another indication of how crazy this year has been.

June/July
Summer! This of course happens every year, but still, I wasn’t mad about it. During June, a solar eclipse happened. This is a rare phenomenon that only occurs one’s a year. In July, the academic year ended and we all got to celebrate our Summer Holiday!

August
August came around and the World Health Organisation delivered the news that there had been no new cases of wild poliovirus recorded on the continent of Africa since 2016. Another good thing that happened in August 2020: Spangas, a famous Dutch show for teens, introduced their first Non-binary character!

September
In September, we got to start atAnd with that, the countdown to the next vacation :). What also happened this month is that Unicef did research on the 41 most prosperous countries and found out that the Netherlands is the best country to grow up in (so you’re in the right place).

October/November
Honestly, October and November are a kind of blur. But I did some research and this is what went down. Marvel announced that, for the first time in comic-history, an Islamic superhero will be introduced: Miss Marvel. In October the, proudboys was hijacked, from an extremist group by the LQBTQ+ community. The first extremist and hateful posts got replaced with lovely pictures of gay couples and their love stories. We stan. In November, the American presidential elections took place, and I’ll let you decide on your own if the outcome was bad or good. One thing that’s for sure: It was the highest counted number of voters in history!

December
And now we’re here…the end of 2020. This month always brings wonderful things such as Christmas trees, lights and warmth. I hope you were able to celebrate this appropriately, and together with your loved ones.

So, that’s how you should remember this wretched year. I’m not saying that we should forget the bad stuff, but just that we definitely shouldn’t forget the good stuff! I hope this helps you to close off this year a bit more positive and start 2021 with some hope. Happy new year!