2009: A Year In Review
Well its that time again in my yearly tradition to do a recap of my whole year. This one will have to be done quick as I am limiting myself to the time it takes my laptop battery to die which in this case gives me somewhere between 30 and 50 minutes. Here goes:
The New year started off with me being in Costa Rica and celebrating the turning of the year by arriving at the party we had set our sights on about five minutes before midnight. The party was at a house set on top of a hill and I got to see the fireworks being lit off in the city from above. Later that night I resolved to make a few major changes in my life starting with committing yet again to learning German. This particular resolution, now a part of my past, was intended to get me more involved in life and to give me more opportuinities as a result of my increased skill set. I also at the time wanted to meet a German girl.
The Costa Rica trip had been going well and after the new year it continued to go well. We traveled to a couple of places and I'll attempt to spell them San Miguel (River rafting and hanging out at this pretty cool inn I got a chance to raft a class IV section of a Costa Rican river) Tuerralba (not how it is actually spelled. More river rafting thought it wasn't nearly as epic as the other place) 11,500 feet up on the Pan American Highway, a costal town the name of which escapes me, and finally back to Guanacaste section of CR to fly home. I got to the Sacramento Airport and realized that I had no way of getting to my car which was parked at a friends house a good 20 miles away. I called a few people (Anselm you might remember this) but they were all out of town. Fortunately for me (though I never did figure out what a cab all the way to my car would have cost. It might well have been less than I ended up paying) there was a public bus running from the airport to downtown Sac. I took it and 20 minutes later was on another bus heading for West Sac and my car. I caught a cab to skip a bus connection that had stopped running and ended up taking another after I found out that I had just missed the last section of bus that would have taken me within easy walking distance of my car. It was now getting closer to midnight and I didn't want to walk the 7 miles to my car so I took another cab to my car, said hello and thank you again to the friend who had taken care of it for the past couple of weeks, and drove to home to Chico.
Once in Chico I stayed a few days, packed my bags again, and left for Santa Barbara. The next few weeks were spent in SB hanging out with friends, surfing, and enjoying my winter break. I drove back to school a couple of days before it was supposed to start.
The semester went okay. I took a less units but for some reason was just as if not more stressed out than I had been in the fall.
A few friends from Santa Barbara came a visited and we had an adventure taking my car up to the snow.
My band played a show at a local coffee shop. The show went well and I was offered a gig with another band. I would end up declining.
There were a great many other adventures and interesting things that happened I'm sure but the next thing I remember happening was the Leoffeler New Music Symposium. I had a piece of mine played in the student concert and I played in a jazz combo a piece written by my roommate.
A couple of days later I took my first canoe paddle of the season down Butte Creek and the cold weather and cold water reminded me how much more fun sumer time boating is.
I was still talking to Evelyne the Swiss girl I had met in the middle of the fall semester at this time and it was during a trip down to Fresno in early March when I finally said enough to another girl who I had known from several years before. The rest of the weekend was spent riding a mountain trail on our bikes to this awesome granite cave, partying, and just hanging out.
Spring Break was just around the corner and I spent the entirety of it at Raft Guide School offered by Adventure Outings at Chico State. This was an awesome adventure that involved getting rained on, rafting in cold water, lots of learning, lots of fun, good food, and a lot of awesome white water on three separate rivers.
Shortly after that I shaved my goatee off for the first time in a year or more.
The spring performance of The Creation by Franz Joseph Haydn went well. Well except for me that is. I lost my voice shortly before the performance but still stood there on stage with the rest of the 150+ person choir mouthing the words and following along in my score.
During this time I had two separate love interests. Neither one ended up working out but there was a time when I was worried that pursuing them both (the idea being I would choose one eventually) would lead to them finding out about each other and I'd lose them both. Like I said neither one ended up working out.
April came and with it good weather. I had, a couple of months before, started riding my bike the four miles both to and from school whenever the roads were dry enough not to shoot a line of dirty water up my back. I considered living so far away an inconvenience but would only be later after moving far closer to campus that I would start to miss the the exercise and the time I got to think and be alone in both physical and mental ways.
I backed into someone in the parking lot of Chico natural foods. Woops. There went the $100 I had managed to save during the month.
May begins and the end of semester pressure starts to build.
Santa Barbara starts burning again for the third time in 18 months. I wanted to be home where all the excitement was. I ate up every news report, fire map, and picture of the blaze. Fortunately for me the SB Independent published on some days an update every 4-6 hours. The fire lasted a few intense days of high winds and really dry conditions before it was extinguished. Out of the 1000 or so homes that could have burned down amazingly only 80 or so actually did.
I sign a lease for an apartment for the next year to begin on June first.
I pull another study at the last minute for finals and finish yet another semester of college.
Went camping with a couple of friends near Sac. I make the mistake of not bringing my car and end up on an adventure to retrieve it that involves hitch hiking. I make it back to the cam ground to find everyone asleep though it's only half past midnight.
I drive back to Chico and the Wilderness First Responder course I signed up for starts. This was ten days of intense learning about how to treat and care for people who become injured in the back country. I spend the time I'm not at the course (not a whole lot was left at the end of each day) moving my stuff into my new apartment.
The WRF course ends and I, feeling brave, start talking to a cute girl from choir who I hadn't yet really had the nerve to speak to. We talked via text message all summer and got a couple of chances to hangout. Nothing would come of this girl either but I learned a lot about fun, adventure, and what it takes to be a fun and adventurous person.
I left Chico the day after the course ends and head to Santa Barbara to work the weekend at Santa Barbara Ice Company. The next few weeks were spent rock climbing, hanging out with friends, working at the Ice Company and having a blast in Santa Barbara. I have a couple of amazing conversations, plenty of euphoric moments, and in general am enjoying myself and enjoying Santa Barbara.
On the drive up I overload my car with two riders from CL and a ton of stuff. The drive was uneventful but seeing Wicked was as was partying at one of the Berkeley Co-ops.
Satir Family Camp takes place and this year I really enjoy taking the time to learn more about the campers I don't normally talk to. This leads to a greater understanding of myself and of other people. Camp gets better every day and I am truly sad to leave. Moreso than ever.
The summer doldrums start as they seem to do every year after SFC is over. I returned to Chico, my band played a show the morning after I got back, and I stayed around for a couple of miserable (feeling completely ummotivated and lazy) days from what I later determined was the heat.
I started my month working at the apartment complex my parents own in, of all places, Oakland. I would work there taking breaks to visit friends in different places and having friends come visit me for most of the month of July. One of the highlights was going to SF to see a band purely for their name: Sex with No Hands. They played well. I also made a few trips to Fresno, had a friend visit from Chico, and went contra dancing a couple of times.
I worked at the Ice Company fiesta week and after that was over a couple of friends and myself started driving two separate cars to Chico. After dropping one of the friends in Oakland we continued on and one of the vehicles (my brothers white toyota van) overheated and blew the head gasket. I was delayed in my trip to Bellingham in Washington state while I arranged for it to be towed to Sac and stored in a friends yard. I continued on a couple of people I was giving a ride to from craigslist towards Washington.
We stopped at Redwood National Park and hiked down to the big trees. What an experience. I was so glad we had taken the time to do that. Those trees are so big, so amazing, and gave me a sense of just how small I really am. We drove for several more hours, stopping to look at the elk, to pick blackberries, and to eat dinner. Later that evening I got my first traffic ticket driving through a small town in Oregon called Reedsport. In my anger at the ticket I ended up driving till four in the morning eventually getting us to an impromptu campsite in a tree farm a few hours short of Seattle. I dropped my two fellow travelers off in Tachoma and drove the rest of the way to Bellingham meeting up with two friends I have who live there.
I had such a blast in Bellingham I really wished I had made a harder push to get there earlier in the summer instead of staying in Oakland as long as I did. I mountain biked, played volleyball, jumped off of cliffs into pools of water, ate some good food, and hungout with the two awesome people I knew there. I was sad to leave just a few days later.
I picked a rider up and dropped him off at the artesian well in Olympia where I filled my water bottles. I drove the rest of the way to Portland alone. I spent the night in Portland at another friends' house. In the morning I picked up several more riders and we all trekked it down to southern Oregon where I dropped them off and continued on my way to Chico alone.
I attended work training for the tutors of the Student Learning Center. School started a few days after I got back and it was back to classes.
There is a bunch more I want to add to this story of my whole year especially when it comes to the part where I met my girlfriend Elisabeth. But I get the feeling I'll be able to write faster and remember far more in the morning after I'd had a night of good rest. Till later the story will only go up till Aug
The New year started off with me being in Costa Rica and celebrating the turning of the year by arriving at the party we had set our sights on about five minutes before midnight. The party was at a house set on top of a hill and I got to see the fireworks being lit off in the city from above. Later that night I resolved to make a few major changes in my life starting with committing yet again to learning German. This particular resolution, now a part of my past, was intended to get me more involved in life and to give me more opportuinities as a result of my increased skill set. I also at the time wanted to meet a German girl.
The Costa Rica trip had been going well and after the new year it continued to go well. We traveled to a couple of places and I'll attempt to spell them San Miguel (River rafting and hanging out at this pretty cool inn I got a chance to raft a class IV section of a Costa Rican river) Tuerralba (not how it is actually spelled. More river rafting thought it wasn't nearly as epic as the other place) 11,500 feet up on the Pan American Highway, a costal town the name of which escapes me, and finally back to Guanacaste section of CR to fly home. I got to the Sacramento Airport and realized that I had no way of getting to my car which was parked at a friends house a good 20 miles away. I called a few people (Anselm you might remember this) but they were all out of town. Fortunately for me (though I never did figure out what a cab all the way to my car would have cost. It might well have been less than I ended up paying) there was a public bus running from the airport to downtown Sac. I took it and 20 minutes later was on another bus heading for West Sac and my car. I caught a cab to skip a bus connection that had stopped running and ended up taking another after I found out that I had just missed the last section of bus that would have taken me within easy walking distance of my car. It was now getting closer to midnight and I didn't want to walk the 7 miles to my car so I took another cab to my car, said hello and thank you again to the friend who had taken care of it for the past couple of weeks, and drove to home to Chico.
Once in Chico I stayed a few days, packed my bags again, and left for Santa Barbara. The next few weeks were spent in SB hanging out with friends, surfing, and enjoying my winter break. I drove back to school a couple of days before it was supposed to start.
The semester went okay. I took a less units but for some reason was just as if not more stressed out than I had been in the fall.
A few friends from Santa Barbara came a visited and we had an adventure taking my car up to the snow.
My band played a show at a local coffee shop. The show went well and I was offered a gig with another band. I would end up declining.
There were a great many other adventures and interesting things that happened I'm sure but the next thing I remember happening was the Leoffeler New Music Symposium. I had a piece of mine played in the student concert and I played in a jazz combo a piece written by my roommate.
A couple of days later I took my first canoe paddle of the season down Butte Creek and the cold weather and cold water reminded me how much more fun sumer time boating is.
I was still talking to Evelyne the Swiss girl I had met in the middle of the fall semester at this time and it was during a trip down to Fresno in early March when I finally said enough to another girl who I had known from several years before. The rest of the weekend was spent riding a mountain trail on our bikes to this awesome granite cave, partying, and just hanging out.
Spring Break was just around the corner and I spent the entirety of it at Raft Guide School offered by Adventure Outings at Chico State. This was an awesome adventure that involved getting rained on, rafting in cold water, lots of learning, lots of fun, good food, and a lot of awesome white water on three separate rivers.
Shortly after that I shaved my goatee off for the first time in a year or more.
The spring performance of The Creation by Franz Joseph Haydn went well. Well except for me that is. I lost my voice shortly before the performance but still stood there on stage with the rest of the 150+ person choir mouthing the words and following along in my score.
During this time I had two separate love interests. Neither one ended up working out but there was a time when I was worried that pursuing them both (the idea being I would choose one eventually) would lead to them finding out about each other and I'd lose them both. Like I said neither one ended up working out.
April came and with it good weather. I had, a couple of months before, started riding my bike the four miles both to and from school whenever the roads were dry enough not to shoot a line of dirty water up my back. I considered living so far away an inconvenience but would only be later after moving far closer to campus that I would start to miss the the exercise and the time I got to think and be alone in both physical and mental ways.
I backed into someone in the parking lot of Chico natural foods. Woops. There went the $100 I had managed to save during the month.
May begins and the end of semester pressure starts to build.
Santa Barbara starts burning again for the third time in 18 months. I wanted to be home where all the excitement was. I ate up every news report, fire map, and picture of the blaze. Fortunately for me the SB Independent published on some days an update every 4-6 hours. The fire lasted a few intense days of high winds and really dry conditions before it was extinguished. Out of the 1000 or so homes that could have burned down amazingly only 80 or so actually did.
I sign a lease for an apartment for the next year to begin on June first.
I pull another study at the last minute for finals and finish yet another semester of college.
Went camping with a couple of friends near Sac. I make the mistake of not bringing my car and end up on an adventure to retrieve it that involves hitch hiking. I make it back to the cam ground to find everyone asleep though it's only half past midnight.
I drive back to Chico and the Wilderness First Responder course I signed up for starts. This was ten days of intense learning about how to treat and care for people who become injured in the back country. I spend the time I'm not at the course (not a whole lot was left at the end of each day) moving my stuff into my new apartment.
The WRF course ends and I, feeling brave, start talking to a cute girl from choir who I hadn't yet really had the nerve to speak to. We talked via text message all summer and got a couple of chances to hangout. Nothing would come of this girl either but I learned a lot about fun, adventure, and what it takes to be a fun and adventurous person.
I left Chico the day after the course ends and head to Santa Barbara to work the weekend at Santa Barbara Ice Company. The next few weeks were spent rock climbing, hanging out with friends, working at the Ice Company and having a blast in Santa Barbara. I have a couple of amazing conversations, plenty of euphoric moments, and in general am enjoying myself and enjoying Santa Barbara.
On the drive up I overload my car with two riders from CL and a ton of stuff. The drive was uneventful but seeing Wicked was as was partying at one of the Berkeley Co-ops.
Satir Family Camp takes place and this year I really enjoy taking the time to learn more about the campers I don't normally talk to. This leads to a greater understanding of myself and of other people. Camp gets better every day and I am truly sad to leave. Moreso than ever.
The summer doldrums start as they seem to do every year after SFC is over. I returned to Chico, my band played a show the morning after I got back, and I stayed around for a couple of miserable (feeling completely ummotivated and lazy) days from what I later determined was the heat.
I started my month working at the apartment complex my parents own in, of all places, Oakland. I would work there taking breaks to visit friends in different places and having friends come visit me for most of the month of July. One of the highlights was going to SF to see a band purely for their name: Sex with No Hands. They played well. I also made a few trips to Fresno, had a friend visit from Chico, and went contra dancing a couple of times.
I worked at the Ice Company fiesta week and after that was over a couple of friends and myself started driving two separate cars to Chico. After dropping one of the friends in Oakland we continued on and one of the vehicles (my brothers white toyota van) overheated and blew the head gasket. I was delayed in my trip to Bellingham in Washington state while I arranged for it to be towed to Sac and stored in a friends yard. I continued on a couple of people I was giving a ride to from craigslist towards Washington.
We stopped at Redwood National Park and hiked down to the big trees. What an experience. I was so glad we had taken the time to do that. Those trees are so big, so amazing, and gave me a sense of just how small I really am. We drove for several more hours, stopping to look at the elk, to pick blackberries, and to eat dinner. Later that evening I got my first traffic ticket driving through a small town in Oregon called Reedsport. In my anger at the ticket I ended up driving till four in the morning eventually getting us to an impromptu campsite in a tree farm a few hours short of Seattle. I dropped my two fellow travelers off in Tachoma and drove the rest of the way to Bellingham meeting up with two friends I have who live there.
I had such a blast in Bellingham I really wished I had made a harder push to get there earlier in the summer instead of staying in Oakland as long as I did. I mountain biked, played volleyball, jumped off of cliffs into pools of water, ate some good food, and hungout with the two awesome people I knew there. I was sad to leave just a few days later.
I picked a rider up and dropped him off at the artesian well in Olympia where I filled my water bottles. I drove the rest of the way to Portland alone. I spent the night in Portland at another friends' house. In the morning I picked up several more riders and we all trekked it down to southern Oregon where I dropped them off and continued on my way to Chico alone.
I attended work training for the tutors of the Student Learning Center. School started a few days after I got back and it was back to classes.
There is a bunch more I want to add to this story of my whole year especially when it comes to the part where I met my girlfriend Elisabeth. But I get the feeling I'll be able to write faster and remember far more in the morning after I'd had a night of good rest. Till later the story will only go up till Aug