Well, this year is about to come and end. It was definitely the shortest year of my life, being that it was 1/30 of my life versus say my 25th year, which was 1/25 of my life. If you are going to take this fractional approach to determining the significance of what one year is to your life, then ages 0-5 are very key. This year was very significant, however. Many things became clear to me as well as great deal happened this year. I'm going to make a list of significant events that transpired this year. I could argue that year 30 of my life was profoundly significant.
1) I realized I without a shadow of doubt that I have met and am with the woman I will marry one day.
2) I got job after approximately 12-14 months of searching, applying, getting rejected or not liking the job I was applying for, seeking advice, deliberating, and whatnot. I am absolutely excited that the next phase of my career begins as I venture out of the pure academic setting into an environment that will resemble a 1/3 academia, 1/3 start up, and 1/3 government agency. For the time being and near future, SF is my home.
3) The Texas Longhorns performed far better than I could have imagined 4 months ago and I have quite an imagination. The next 4-5 years look really, really great.
4) A really good friend, Hayley, graduated!
5) My sister turned 25. Damn, I still remember when we used to play Transformers or football together growing up.
6) I published papers that I am proud of and presented well at conferences and the classes I taught. I was also able to be an effective mentor and branch out my research from what I am trained to do.
7) After the first 1/3 of the year, the latter 2/3 were awesome for food and eating! It helps when you have saliva free flowing in your mouth. Interestingly enough, the ancient Chinese used chewed rice/saliva as a determination of guilt or lying.
8) Batman II/The Dark Knight was an absolutely amazing film. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
9) Kung Fu Panda is awesome.
10) I re-discovered the awesomeness of how good tacos can be.
11) I realized I want to buy an HD TV. Video games and watching football are just not the same once you have seen HD. Sigh. The January sales and the Super Bowl sales cannot get here any faster! [Note I did not use the word "sooner" because oklahoma sucks fat monkey nuts. I also did not capitalize "oklahoma" for that reason.]
12) 2008 sets up 2009 very well. 2008 was a year of determining the path/direction my life will take. 2009 will be a year where I begin to implement and strive toward the goals I want to achieve.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year/Haar!
