New Year's Meme

(Fifth in a series. See also New Year's Day 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.)

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
*Took a research leave
*Directed an M.A. thesis and an honors thesis
*Bought a house
*Got married
*Went up for tenure

2. Did you keep your 2011 resolutions, and will you make more this year?
I didn't make any last year, but I have some modest ones for this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, Evey (formerly my best friend in Cha-Cha City and now my most-missed friend from same)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What countries did you visit?
Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
A book contract--or more to the point, a totally completed book manuscript that I never have to do anything to ever again. Or to put it more positively: I want to be substantially engaged by a new research project.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Dude, I checked off half the boxes on the adulthood checklist this year; who can choose just one? But I will say that buying a house + getting married means suddenly and radically coming to terms with one's place in the bourgeoisie.

8. What was your biggest failure?
I don't think I had any big failures this year; my leave-semester resolution to meditate daily didn't even come close to happening--I may have meditated six times in four months--but I consider that less significant than my usual daily failures of kindness, patience, and charity.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No, though I seem now to be in danger of monthly migraines (after the one I had a few months ago, which lasted 12 hours, many of them spent puking, I learned some avoidance techniques).

10. What was the best thing you bought?
Our house

11. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The members of my and Cosimo's families, who were supportive of our having a smaller wedding and who contributed help to exactly the degree (and of exactly the kind) that was useful. From what I hear about weddings, t'ain't necessarily so.

12. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one I know personally. But I'm constantly appalled by things like this.

13. Where did most of your money go?
Jesus, we spent a fortune this year, not just buying a house but furnishing/outfitting it; getting married; going to Europe. So the better question is where didn't my money go?

14. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
Happier; same weight; maybe slightly richer, insofar as my spouse and I actually have a little money in a savings account and now own a major piece of property. (But then again, maybe we're actually poorer, since a home loan means we're more in debt? Math is hard.)

15. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Slept. Read more (and better) contemporary fiction. Been more patient, generous, etc.

16. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasted time on the goddamn internet.

17. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Continually

18. What was the best new book you read?
None of the new books I read this year (apart from a few in my field) are good enough to merit mentioning.

19. What was your favorite film of the year?
I saw a lot of good films this year, but nothing stands out as AMAZING. Margin Call and Young Adult were two of the smartest and most satisfying, though.

20. What kept you sane?
My semester of research leave

21. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Last year I wrote that I'd learned how good it is to be a grown-up. I stand by that. Fuck the cult of youth and its eternal anxious questing after hipness.

My 2011 was pretty spectacular. May 2012 be equally good to all of you!