So let's give it up for the new year.
Putting this up a few days early: I'm flying to Charlotte tomorrow for a week-long fiesta with friends I haven’t seen in ages. So, without further ado:
Year in Review - 2010 Edition
January: Dealt with midterms, college madness, and the general sense of disbelieving depression that comes with not seeing the sun for three weeks straight…oh, Ohio.
February: Repainted my room, spent a lot of time being stressed on a friend’s behalf, and had a several-week pseudo-internet-hiatus in an effort to actually finish scholarship applications for college - not terribly fun.
March: Flew back to Charlotte for 24 hours to give a terrifyingly formal (yet fun!) presentation on the England trip I went on last year, had odd dreams, watched a heck of a lot of LOST and was generally frazzled.
April: Got hypnotized on stage at school, almost got hit by a truck, was stressed out of my mind about college stuff in general, and after some final college touring (which in one instance involved getting dragged to a frat party against my will) I made my decision to go to Virginia Tech - good call, in retrospect.
May: Dealt with all sorts of impending end-of-the-school-year stuff, but sadly the most significant thing that happened was the LOST finale, which left me an emotional wreck but was oddly cathartic, too - guess I never realized how deeply the show had impacted my life, and I’m grateful that I saw it when I did.
June: Graduated high school, started one job at a vet clinic and another as a secretary/tech support/personal shopper/landscaper/indentured servant for my strange neighbors across the street, and spent one of the most glorious weeks of my life camping on an island off the coast of NC with my best friends, which was like recharging my flipping soul.
July: A month mostly composed of endless kennel-cleaning, typing up endless real estate forms for my neighbor, attempting to befriend a paranoid and snappy German Shepherd in the hope that he wouldn’t take a chunk out of my arm at work, and massive, crippling angst about both college and my future life in the suburban wasteland that is Ohio - not really my finest hour.
August: Traveled to San Francisco for a few days with my crazy aunt, rode a Segway and befriended hippies, came back to Ohio for a few more days, then started school at VT, where I dislocated and re-set my own kneecap while salsa dancing the first night I was there and was helped back to the dorm and fed tea and ibuprofen by people who would become some of my closest friends.
September: Started to get over homesickness, realized my roommate and I were going to be exceptionally good friends, nearly got stranded in Charlotte after a surfing expedition, started a John Locke-inspired research project on wild boar, and realized that charmisjess ’s quote about college being like one endless sleepover with all of your best friends was miraculously, beautifully true.
October: Nearly froze to death on my first cold-weather camping trip, endured several moments of high drama and emo woe, gave a presentation on Bono, chopped all my hair off, built an arc reactor, spent most of Halloween weekend in drag and generally felt joyful and better about life than I had in over a year.
November: Wrote more papers than I even knew what to do with, went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time, participated in SSS’s first annual Bad Fanfiction Night, spent a great deal of time sprawled on the lounge sofa or on somebody else’s floor having deep discussions on life in general at three in the morning on weeknights, and realized that Blacksburg feels more like home than Ohio ever did.
December: Had dinner at my favorite professor’s house, survived some further existential crises, got the roommate addicted to LOST and a half-dozen other things that mean I now have a live-in fandom friend, survived exam week and wound up with a 3.71 GPA for my first semester at college, did a fair bit of traveling, had a lovely Christmas despite being ill and am heading back home to Charlotte for New Years.
All in all, pretty good year. I love you guys and wish you all the best in 2011. See you on the other side! <3