Year In Review

Happy New Year, folks! 2008 was a decent year, better than 2007, and I feel like 2009 will just keep getting better. A lot of folks have been posting a sort of "year in review," and I thought I would follow suit, as a lot of things happened in 2008. (I wish I jumped on the Project 365 Bandwagon, but I didn't have anything picture-worthy the first few days.)

The big event of 2008 was my sister Kelly's wedding. I (she, all of us) never imagined how much preparation actually goes into a wedding. It's hard for our family to keep a guest list small, as we have 21 aunts and uncles and 22 cousins, and many of those cousins are reaching the spouse/significant other plus kids phase. And even if you tell yourself, "It's my wedding and I'll do what I want," you have to think about things that will please other people, like who gets to be in the wedding, who will read, which dress will be the most flattering for everyone, when people can be available for a shower/bachelorette party, and whether people will last outside in the heat without passing out. We had a fantastic time, and everyone was really pleased with the final results. You can check out photos here and a clip of the wedding video here (best viewed in Internet Explorer). I couldn't really afford to get them a wedding present (as I had flown home two extra times for wedding-related stuff and had to fork over $400 to get my dress rush-ordered), so my present to them was the pro Flickr account. I figured that everyone has digital cameras these days, so why not have a way for everyone to share their photos?

2008 was also a bigger travel year for me. In addition to extra flights home for the wedding, I also made two great trips: in April I visited my friend Chrissie in San Francisco, and in July/August I went to Spain with Justin and Enrique. I also enjoyed my first flight in International Business Class, thanks to my dad's frequent flyer miles, and got to add two new countries to my totals (even though it was only for two hours each): Portugal, which is just over the border from where Enrique lives; and the Netherlands, which was my stopover on my last flight to London. I'm actually building up a good "visited states" count due to my stopovers, having been through airports in San Diego, Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC and Philadelphia.

It gets harder as the years goes on in Oxford, as I have to say goodbye to good friends. Chung finished his DPhil and returned to Hong Kong, Enrique got a job in London, Teresa moved to DC and Ralf went home to Germany, among other people. But it's also nice as I continue to make new friends. I'm also getting in touch with people from high school, as this past year was our 10-year reunion. I couldn't make it, but it's been nice to see who's doing what these days.

The research seems to be improving. I'm aiming for a chapter a term, and my supervisor has been giving me positive feedback, so it looks good.

I have no idea what 2009 brings (except for many, many weddings in the summer), but I've got a good feeling about it.

Hope everyone's year has gotten off to a good start!