2008
How to sum up 2008? Amazing, grueling.
My big accomplishments in 2008 were learning to swim, organizing my company's Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day from scratch, finally watching "The Daily Show" in person, seeing "Avenue Q" twice more, "running" a 5K race, taking the GRE and applying to grad school in economics, meeting Haruki Murakami, being splashmary's bridesmaid, and helping file about a half dozen expert reports for various cases at work. I also volunteered (esp. in the primary) and voted for Obama, attended the Comedy Central election night party (winning a game of Plink-O! Woo!), and generally had my spirits raised by that. Getting addicted to "House" and "Dr. Who" may or may not fall into the "accomplishments" category, but falling in love with Kimya Dawson's music certainly does. :)
This was actually an amazingly social year, looking back on it. I greatly enjoyed spending time with family (including a rather unexpected family vacation to Disneyland, and a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone for the first time since high school) and meeting some amazing people, in particular through xse99 et al. and zwol. Through systematic stalking (encouraged and occasionally abetted by rthecuban), I also met a lot of adorable adoptable rabbits. I found two new churches (before and after the move), the latter of which is the best fit yet in NY (and has strong ties to my college church, surprisingly). I began to appreciate the finer points of hospitality, blessed with many opportunities to be a guest and to host guests; I hope to continue this trend in the next year (hopefully blahamanas will get a chance to reschedule this weekend's visit!). This was also my karaoke-ing-est year to date, with at least 6 outings I can recall offhand and many more instances of playing Rock Band; this really inspires me to learn to sing in 2009! :)
Less exciting was a lot having to do with the mechanics of daily life: getting locked out of the apartment for two nights (door accidentally chained), getting locked *in* the apartment twice (due to an idiotic mechanism and a knob that fell off), having to clean up a horrendously grimy kitchen upon moving in (as our super lay dying, we later discovered), and dealing with real estate brokers and moving companies with varying levels of scruples and competence for the third year in a row. Between time constraints, lack of nearby grocery stores, and an odd fear of my new kitchen, I pretty much stopped cooking in the last half of 2008, but at the end of December I cleaned it again, redecorated a bit, got an infusion of utensils and baking supplies from a friend leaving NY, and resolved to actually plan healthy meals and manage to eat the leftovers in time.
Work also had its share of challenges, including a few months with a bigoted jerk of an officemate (thanks, everyone, for your sound advice on that) and several other months of long hours and little appreciation. However, I got assigned an awesome new mentor and got my old officemate back after his sojourn abroad, and I have greatly enjoyed getting to know the two classes who have started after me. I also greatly appreciated the advice of coworkers who have been through grad school and the support of my two supervisors writing recommendations for me.
Requisite song from "Rent"
Requisite song from "Avenue Q"
My big accomplishments in 2008 were learning to swim, organizing my company's Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day from scratch, finally watching "The Daily Show" in person, seeing "Avenue Q" twice more, "running" a 5K race, taking the GRE and applying to grad school in economics, meeting Haruki Murakami, being splashmary's bridesmaid, and helping file about a half dozen expert reports for various cases at work. I also volunteered (esp. in the primary) and voted for Obama, attended the Comedy Central election night party (winning a game of Plink-O! Woo!), and generally had my spirits raised by that. Getting addicted to "House" and "Dr. Who" may or may not fall into the "accomplishments" category, but falling in love with Kimya Dawson's music certainly does. :)
This was actually an amazingly social year, looking back on it. I greatly enjoyed spending time with family (including a rather unexpected family vacation to Disneyland, and a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone for the first time since high school) and meeting some amazing people, in particular through xse99 et al. and zwol. Through systematic stalking (encouraged and occasionally abetted by rthecuban), I also met a lot of adorable adoptable rabbits. I found two new churches (before and after the move), the latter of which is the best fit yet in NY (and has strong ties to my college church, surprisingly). I began to appreciate the finer points of hospitality, blessed with many opportunities to be a guest and to host guests; I hope to continue this trend in the next year (hopefully blahamanas will get a chance to reschedule this weekend's visit!). This was also my karaoke-ing-est year to date, with at least 6 outings I can recall offhand and many more instances of playing Rock Band; this really inspires me to learn to sing in 2009! :)
Less exciting was a lot having to do with the mechanics of daily life: getting locked out of the apartment for two nights (door accidentally chained), getting locked *in* the apartment twice (due to an idiotic mechanism and a knob that fell off), having to clean up a horrendously grimy kitchen upon moving in (as our super lay dying, we later discovered), and dealing with real estate brokers and moving companies with varying levels of scruples and competence for the third year in a row. Between time constraints, lack of nearby grocery stores, and an odd fear of my new kitchen, I pretty much stopped cooking in the last half of 2008, but at the end of December I cleaned it again, redecorated a bit, got an infusion of utensils and baking supplies from a friend leaving NY, and resolved to actually plan healthy meals and manage to eat the leftovers in time.
Work also had its share of challenges, including a few months with a bigoted jerk of an officemate (thanks, everyone, for your sound advice on that) and several other months of long hours and little appreciation. However, I got assigned an awesome new mentor and got my old officemate back after his sojourn abroad, and I have greatly enjoyed getting to know the two classes who have started after me. I also greatly appreciated the advice of coworkers who have been through grad school and the support of my two supervisors writing recommendations for me.
Requisite song from "Rent"
Requisite song from "Avenue Q"