2020... Year in Review — Jenn Dumoulin

Ah, 2020… it’s certainly been a year like no other. The pandemic has impacted many of us to an unprecedented and unexpected degree - personally, professionally, financially, psychologically - and I know that many people reading this are keen to see 2020 head out the door, but I think if we each took some time to reflect, we’d see that 2020 hasn’t been all bad news.

So, in the spirit of the New Year, I thought I’d take a moment and reflect on some of the big things that I’ve accomplished this year (and I hope that, if you haven’t done so already, this will inspire you to do the same).

What happened in my academic world

Conferences: Although a couple of the conferences that I had been accepted to in 2020 were rescheduled, I took advantage of some virtual conference opportunities and presented my research at the York University Humanities Graduate Students’ Association Conference as well as at the Fifth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies.
Connections with other researchers: I’ve connected with other researchers in the field of urban fantasy online through social media platforms (Yay Twitter!) and through a couple of listservs that I’m part of.
Dissertation: I completed a draft of my first chapter of my dissertation, dug into my data and have started to write my second chapter.
Papers: I was the second author on a published paper titled Social and Non Social Media Users During The COVID-19 Pandemic Confinement Period in Canada, as well as the forthcoming paper titled Race “Rock” Bottomed: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the new definition of "brownness“. In addition, I currently have two papers under consideration. I definitely used this past year to finish off some old projects and tackle some new ones!
Teaching: I taught three university classes last year - two entirely virtual! In addition to my staple course - Popular Culture and Communication - which I taught in the Winter and Fall 2020 semesters, I also taught Policy Studies during the Summer semester.

What happened in my professional world

Research: I worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Ottawa in the Department of Communication on a pilot project to create two new workshop series’ for graduate students. I’ve also started working as a Research Assistant for the Ottawa Institutional Research and Impact Study, which seeks to identify current knowledge and practices within the University of Ottawa community related to Knowledge Translation and Knowledge Mobilization.
UOCreator Series: Working with a friend and colleague in the Department of Communication, I helped to co-launch the UOCreator Series - a digital publishing nexus for academic work in non-traditional formats (i.e. videos and podcasts). We soft-launched in the Fall and will be pushing out content over the next year.
Volunteering (Ottawa Lions): In May, I took over as President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Ottawa Lions Track & Field Club, a Club that holds a special place in my heart.
Volunteering (uOttawa): In addition to volunteering as an Upper Year Buddy in the uOConnexion program, I also continued to volunteer as the Co-President of the Communication Graduate Students’ Association. As Co-President, I helped to organize the Department of Communication’s Annual Doctoral Conference (and also served as one of the moderators), the Alumni Conference, and two new Workshop Series with the undergraduate Communication Students’ Association - the Job Talks Series and the Graduate Studies Series. In addition, I set up distribution listservs for all of the graduate students in the Department, developed new by-laws for the CGSA and helped launch the CGSA website.
Work: After four fabulous years - two as a Speed Dating Host and two as Events Coordinator - I left my position at Dashing Date in February to focus on my PhD. I also started working as a Freelance Writer for iPoliticsINTEL over the summer.

what happened in my personal world

Apartment De-Clutter: Over the summer, I cleared out more than 9 boxes of clothes, books, kitchen supplies, and a whole bunch of other things that I wasn’t using - in addition to a storage area literally overflowing with old school projects.
Driving: I’ve been without a car since my Dodge (aka the “Daudge”) died a very sad death while I was articling and although I’ve rented cars here and there, it’s been a few years since I’ve really needed to drive on a regular basis. Thanks to Communauto (suggested by a friend) I’m behind the wheel again - turns out I actually missed it.
Internet Connections: This year was HUGE on social media! I was retweeted by my favourite author, who is also the author of my dissertation research topic. My story was also re-shared on Sean Paul’s Instagram story - twice!
Running: After a bit of a break, and some inconsistent training, I picked up seriously running again! I’m back to running 4-5 times per week, including a couple of intense workout sessions and a regular long run. I also competed again in three races - one track, one cross-country and one road race (including a half-marathon).
Sleep: Before COVID-19, I was sleeping about 3-4 hours per day so that I could get up to teach early morning spin classes after late nights of work. With the first lockdown, my need to commute several times per day to part-time jobs in different parts of the city as well as the requirement to get up super early to do so was gone - so I slept in. I now average between 6-7 hours of sleep per night.
Social Media Cleanse: I spent some of 2020 cleaning up my Instagram - an ongoing task. I decided that I only wanted to see content from people that I’m friends with and causes that I care about and have been unfollowing accounts that don’t fit into those categories. It might seem tedious, but I have to say only seeing photos from people that I care about makes me happy. I’m also working on doing the same for my Academia.edu account, cleaning up my “mentions” so that only relevant ones are visible - apparently there are lots of academics with the name “J. Dumoulin”.

And that’s just a few things that happened this year…

What’s coming next in 2021

While no one really knows what 2021 will bring, and it’s important to be flexible, I’ve got a few big projects and goals lined up:

Books: I’ll be working on completing two book chapters for publication - one collaborative and one on my own - coming out of the Monsters Conference that I attended in Prague in December 2019.
Conferences: I’ve been accepted into 3 conferences so far! I’ll be presenting at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies Annual Conference (virtual), the International Association for the Study of Popular Music - U.S. Chapter Annual Conference (virtual), and the Popular Culture Association - American Culture Association Annual Conference.
Dissertation: This is the project of the year - my (self-imposed) deadline is between June and August 2021. It’s an ambitious deadline, but I’m confident that I can get pretty close.
Journal Articles: I’ve been selected to complete a book review for Fantasy/Animation and I have two articles in progress - my paper on Tattoos and Comics Culture and my paper on Sean Paul.
Video Editing: This is the skill that I want to work on this year! I’ve accepted that the first few videos will probably not be much good, but the only way to get better is to practice. I’m aiming to produce one video a month to start.

And that’s just a few things that I have planned so far… Stay tuned! 2021 is going to be a great year!