More end of year reflections

Another end-of year meme, last seen at MaggieMay's.

1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?
- Interview for a tenure-track job (and be offered it)
- Navigate a very complicated breakup
- Blog
- Meet blogfriends in person!
- Visit a number of new places

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My New Year's resolution for last year was to give running one more go by trying new shoes, and it worked. The knee problem is fixed! For this year, my resolution is to be better about remembering friends' birthdays. Also, to read more novels. Also, to lift weights again.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, my friends K & J. K had a baby in October after a long time trying with artificial insemination.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
US, UK, Germany

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
Stability (sadly, until at least the last third of the year, that's no gonna happen.)

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 5, the day GF and I had the conversation about the end of our relationship.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Convocating with my PhD, winning an award for my dissertation, publishing two articles, getting a job offer.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I failed to be a very good daughter to my mother.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a stupid, annoying injury in March - I stepped out of a taxi and skidded on black ice with that first stepping foot. The other leg wrenched grotesquely, resulting in a horrible knee injury that required six weeks of physiotherapy and interrupted my running for two months.

Also, the dog-pulling incident happened, resulting in cut-up and badly scarred knees.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
This fantastic pair of black swingy culotte things, that look absolutely fabulous with heeled boots, are cut like a dream, and are the most comfortable thing ever. Just a few weeks ago.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
GF's

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
GF's

14. Where did most of your money go?
Credit card payments and travel.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Camp-for-adults. Great new friends I met in last year's Uni City, where I am visiting now. The job I have this year. My students at that job.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
"The Ring," by Sarah Harmer. "A Case of You", by kd lang.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
Sadder, same weight, richer (?)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Talking on the phone with friends, as Maggie says. Seeing friends. Step classes. Writing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Crying. Eating sugar. Being angry at GF.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
This year I spent it in New York. But does this mean next year? In that case, I imagine it will be at my mother's in Home City, where I will be visiting from afar.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006?
No.

22. How many one-night stands?
None.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
The L Word (for the train wreck of it all) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And the perennial favourite, The National (what a geek).

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope.

25. What was the best book you read?
None stand out. That's awful, isn't it. It was a bad reading year.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Sarah Borges.

27. What did you want and get?
A PhD. A job. A brown belt.

28. What did you want and not get?
Nothing that I can think of.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Stranger than Fiction.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Yesterday, I turned 32. I did a meme. I hung out with my mother and my favourite aunt, and there was a Family Christmas party at my aunt's house. I watched twentysomething cousins and cousins-in-law get plastered and cut a hole in the ice on the lake and jump in naked. I had a couple of awful conversations with GF, and cried.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting a TT position at current, Dream Uni.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Classic with a twist. And necklaces.

33. What kept you sane?
Blogfriends. Regular friends.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't really fancy any celebrities, I have to say. It is ever so. It's pathetic.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The government's decision to suspend funding for...anything to do with women, essentially.

36. Who did you miss?
Lots of people. Including my dear friend who lives in Vermont, whom I usually go to visit every spring or summer - but I didn't make it this year. I last saw her for a few brief hours a year ago. But absolutely most of all, my best friend, who has moved to London.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Medieval Woman!

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
Sometimes loving each other isn't enough.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

When the days close on the memories that you’ve acquired
And your body cannot hold your soul inspired
You are here and not alone
Everybody has come home
There’s a bed made up upstairs
If you get tired

All the heaviness around you will get light
And your worry lifted up into the night
Left with nothing but pure love
Left with all you are made of
Can I stay around awhile
Is that all right?

Oh lives don’t end
We're goin’ out to be brought back again
Our lives don’t end

- Sarah Harmer, Goin' Out

Happy New Year, everyone!