Friday, January 4, 2013

A 2012 Retrospective



It felt like four in the morning.
What sounded like fireworks
Turned out to be just what it was.
—"New Year's Eve," Tom Waits

A year ago, I made two new year's resolutions. One was to become a vegetarian: I succeeded, in my opinion, given that I can count the number of times I ate meat this year (intentionally or otherwise) on one hand. I also resolved to write one blog post a week, at which I also largely succeeded. I have decided to keep both as regular parts of my life for the foreseeable future.

This week, all I have the time and stamina for (after a long holiday season, full of travel and visits with various family and friend scions, I'm just starting to not feel generally worn out) is a short bullet-point recap of 2012. These things all happened to me:
  • Found and started dating an awesome girl through the magic of online dating
  • Met and taught kids at a military high school and a CPS magnet school
  • Discovered and explored (through the awesome girl mentioned above) the world of the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Amish (and their fantastic doughnuts)
  • Got hired full time at my freelance jobmy first full-time employment ever (not counting AmeriCorps)
  • Entered the Chicago storytelling scene and had a blast learning to tell my stories to an audience
  • Went to lots of weddings, including the one for my cousin, the catchiest catch of all
  • Watched tons of movies, read a royal succession of books, and discovered and devoured lots of awesome comics
  • Visited such diverse locales as Ithaca, NY; Terre Haute and Goshen, IN; and Minneapolis, MN (and returned, after an absence of nearly two decades, to the Mall of America) 
  • Rang out the year with games, friends, and videos of pangolins
By and large, it's been a good year. I hope 2013 will be as good and better. 

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/creative_stock/6603724951/

1 comment:

  1. No one told me about Amish doughnuts... got to look into this! What's the freelance job? Pangolins are amazing. And congratulations to your cousin, the catchiest catch of all, which also made an awesome story.

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