oh nein

I know that most people process this at the beginning of January, but you know, my classes don't start until next week, which means that the last 20 days since the holidays have more-or-less officially ended have been filled with guilt-ridden and rain-season-induced procrastination slash headache from being stuck inside a small apartment with only a cat to have a conversation with. I haven't eaten properly or slept properly or done anything properly in the last 2 weeks, and I am kind of ready to get on with life.

But in light of all this, I have had a bit of time to do a little more reflecting. So I decided to make a list of 9 things (to commemorate the last year of the decade) that I have done for the very first time in 2009:

1. Skinny dipped, in Lake Michigan. That's right, I couldn't remember an adult and truly skinny dipping instance from my past, so I'm counting this one as my first.
2. Backpacked (overnight rain gear and all) on the hills around Lake Tahoe.
3. Saw my very first free-ranging whale, on the Pacific.
4. Saw London from the London Eye, rode the Tube, met the Queen. Ok, maybe it was an almost on that last one.
5. Had an English brew with my dad and helped my little sister with a school project.
6. Met a long-time internet friend at Shakespeare's Globe. What a performance! What company!
7. Attended an international professional conference, and got most of the costs covered.
8. Attended a drag show. According to my in-the-know gay friends, this was a good one. Oh, Berkeley.
9. Got my tragus pierced. Not my first cartilage piercing, but hopefully the first to survive the tumultuous healing period.

And here are 10 things (to appease the select group of "twenty-ten" enthusiasts) that I would love to see happen in 2010. Although if they don't, I won't be crying any rivers (nice as rivers may be), because I'm certain that ten equally as awesome and unpredictable things will happen instead:

1. Travel. Oh how many places remain undiscovered by me. Currently I have my eyes on the Pac Northwest coast (Oregon and Seattle), Texas, and/or Oaxaca, Mexico.
2. Camp in Yosemite, the real overnight tent deal.
3. Meet local Russians and interview them for my research project. Also, meet local Russians.
4. Finish research project, present findings at a conference, officially receive my Master's degree. Eek! And, finally!
5. Get a dog. Or at least a bigger place.
6. Take said dog on an overnight backpacking/camping trip. Or at least, take said dog on extended weekend hikes.
7. Learn the flute part to a folksy number for a flute-guitar duet, and perform it (somewhere totally informal) with a guitar counterpart (my husband will do).
8. Finish learning the crocheting basics. I started last year with the basic basics, and even made a small pouch to hold my crocheting hooks, but it's time to move to more advanced basics, I think.
9. Serve on a jury. I know most people aren't excited about jury duty, and yes, it's a total hassle. But it's my right as a new citizen, and I wanna exercise it, dangit! Plus, I watch entirely too many CSI episodes.
10. Get a tattoo, perhaps of a compass (to commemorate my wandering propensities), perhaps in a completely appropriately-professional nonvisible place this time.

Did you do anything for the first time last year? Are you thinking of doing some more new things this year? I'm intrigued!

time warp

I forgot to mention how a few days before New Year's, I found an old envelope in my high school journal. It must've come from some sort of a magazine, I honestly don't remember, but it was a pre-printed note to my future self. I wrote, signed and sealed it on Jan 1, 2000, to be opened 10 years later. It's a good thing I kept it all these years, over various moves from home to college, to years after college, to grad school, all across the country. Come to think of it, this journal and the letter might have come with me to France on my study abroad. This is a well-traveled little time-capsule.

I was so impressed with my sentimental and planning-ahead 15-year-old self, that I decided to make this a tradition. Every 10 years, I will write myself a little note to be opened in the future. So this is what we did on New Year's Eve 2009-2010, as a kind of family activity. And who would've thought (not my then-teenage self, that's for sure) that ten years from when the original note was sealed, I'd be writing the next one in a house in Reno, next to my husband and across from various American members of the family I now call my own. Of course, I can't wait (well, ok, I can) to see what my 35-year-old self will think of me today. Let's just hope she doesn't notice my current cynicism.

So this is what I wrote then, 10 years ago:

The best things in my life are:
Stephen [then boyfriend], Ellen [then-and-now best friend], water, air, love, friends, still enough money to go to Boston, (being able to sleep)

I'm glad water and air are at the top of my list. Because, you know, I probably wouldn't be here without those.

My personal goals for the future are:
Be better so people wouldn't be disappointed, get into a good college and continue further, be stronger

Damn, I'm still working on that first one.

My wishes for the future of the world are:
No more nuclear bombs, less people, be friendlier overall, accept abortions, improve medicine + governments, overall satisfaction.

These are some lofty dreams there, teenage self! No nuclear bombs? Accept abortions? Improve governments? Luckily, there are laws in place to control some of these now, though that last one may still take a while.

In all honesty though, this is an interesting glimpse into my younger self. I had no idea I was so concerned with the state of the world. I mean, less people? Did I somehow know that this very issue would be very much on my mind ten years later? Maybe we don't change quite as much as we think we do. Or at least, somewhere at the core, we're still... so unmistakably ourselves.

And to my future self: I promise not to make fun of your wrinkles, if you don't make fun of my naïveté. Deal?

reflecting on the year and the years

On January 1, 2010, we stopped at a store in Reno, NV (on our way back from watching the Reno fireworks (my first) from the hills the night before) and bought me some cowboy boots. These are my first pair of leathery Western cowboy boots, and they are sturdy and beautiful. They go against my European upbringing and are such alien accessories on my feet. Yet they are a perfect mix of the girly heel-and-pointy-toe and the masculine look, and I pretty much love them.

It's interesting though, how I adapt to the cultures around me. I'd never thought I'd be wearing cowboy boots, but here I am, living on the West Coast, exploring the territories, soaking in the whole western atmosphere. I love horses, I love animals and wildlife, I love open spaces and blending in with nature. I think I'd make a good cowgirl. It's funny to think that just a couple of years ago, I sported the Vera Bradley and petticoat fashion of coastal Connecticut, a short train ride from NYC. These adaptations aren't all that bad though. In fact, they excite me. I'm a perpetual explorer, and I love that I get to and have gotten to experience this much of the world already. So seeing my flowery purse from CT hanging next to my cowboy boots from NV and next to some hand-painted wooden earrings from Russia puts a smile on my face. I hope this next year will continue to allow me to explore our world.

I kind of can't believe that we are starting the second decade of this second millennium (AD) already. Time flies when you are... a human being living pretty mundane days one after another. No, but actually, my husband and I met in 2002, which is just a few years into the first decade of the century, and now we'll be starting the second one together. I guess that's pretty neat, and about as close as I'll ever get to mushy.

And in terms of resolutions, I personally find them kind of trite. I mean, I'm already constantly trying to be the best... whatever... I can be. I may fail often, yes, but it doesn't make sense not to always try. Maybe I just don't work well with nagging goals floating around in the back of my head? I mean, I am going along a certain path toward some endpoint, working hard, making the best of it, and other than that, I take life as it comes. Now this previous sentence also seems kind of trite, but it's also kind of true. Maybe it's that I work on myself every day and little-by-little, rather than with sweeping once-a-year resolutions? I've also never made a Bucket List.

How did I get from talking about shoes to kicking the bucket? This always seems to happen to me.