My Year in Lists: Favourite Moments of 2010

Happy New Year's Eve! I wish all of you a wonderful new year in 2011.

I should do some sort of 2010 year-in-review, and since I do have sushi-redemption lunch plans with Mathew this afternoon I'm going to make it quick. I call it sushi-redemption because we were supposed to go for sushi last week, and Mathew picked the place. He always likes to talk smack about my favourite sushi place, and he claimed this new place would blow mine out of the water. It's all the way in Little Italy, so we went, and it turned out it was closed for lunch from Monday through Wednesday. Fail, Mathew, fail! We went to a cute little Italian cafe instead, since he'd paid for parking and there were no other sushi places in the area. Anyway, we'll see how this place is today, although I think my place wins by default since it's always open for lunch!

Anyway, here (in no particular order) are some events that were highlights of my 2010.

1) Concerts! (Of course.) I went to 21 shows this year, including one tonight. If I were to pick the top three, I would say they were *finally* seeing Los Campesinos!, the Broken Social Scene show, and Joel Plaskett in Guelph. However, all of the shows were pretty special, and it's hard to compare them.

2) My March Break trip to Europe. It was so great getting to see my dear friend Becca T in her new home environment. We met in Paris, and spent a weekend wandering around and hitting up some great restaurants. We went to a little restaurant in a former stable that I discovered in 2009; we had an awesome meal in the cellar, and it was a miracle that we could leave the cellar without hitting our heads going up the stairs after all of the wine and free bonus drinks that the owner gave us.

After a fabulous weekend in Paris, we went to Nice, where I spent about six days on the Cote d'Azur. I loved spending an afternoon biking along the Promenade d'Anglais, taking a bus to the small towns along the coast, stopping in Monaco for a couple hours, taking the train to Italy for an afternoon, and of course spending lots of time shopping, eating, and drinking with Becca.

After that trip, I'm going to Europe again this March Break. The plan is to meet Becca in Barcelona, and if time permits I might do a weekend in London to meet up with old friends there! Yay!

3) My summer trip to Cape Cod and Boston was pretty excellent too. I loved lounging by the Atlantic ocean, biking along a Cape Cod trail, taking the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, and taking two days to explore Boston by foot. I loved spending the week with Veronica (Go9) and we had so much fun!

4) I bought an iPhone this year. That sucker is life changing! It was a gift from me to me for turning thirty.

5) I have been truly blessed with great classes of students both in semester 2 of last school year and semester 1 of this school year. I can't say enough about these classes. I guess I have to take partial credit, since I am able to create a great learning environment, but my students make my job so easy. It'll be nice to see them on Monday.

6) I have to admit that I did a lot of shopping and bought a lot of clothing and handbags in 2010. I should try and curtail my spending in 2011, and it shouldn't be hard because I seriously should have everything I need. I can't believe I bought myself not one, but two, Maggie bags at Coach. One was for turning thirty, and the other was a complete pick-me-up.

7) I bought a bike this year! FINALLY. After years of saying I was going to do it. I love using it to get around my neighbourhood. It's made Starbucks, the gym, and some friends' places much closer for me. I miss riding it and can't wait until spring.

8) I got a MacBookPro this year, after my trusty old Toshiba bit the bullet. I love it. I'm so part of the Apple cult now.

9) I got to meet a long time blog friend in person this year! My friend Matt from Winnipeg and I have been internet friends for five years and have been trading music, sending each other funny links, dissing Stephen Harper, laughing at juggalos, and just generally being sarcastic for all that time. We got to hang out in both April and October in attempts to see Los Campesinos! So I guess the volcano wasn't totally a bad thing 'cuz we got to hang out twice instead of once. Making sarcastic comments IRL is so much fun!

10) I went hardcore camping this summer. I doubt it's something I'll ever do again but it was a pretty cool experience. The best part of it was seeing all the stars in the sky while being away from civilization; I'd forgotten how many there were. I used to see skies like that every night when I taught in remote NW Ontario for a year. It was also pretty awesome because it corresponded with the Persied meteor shower, and I got to see quite a few shooting stars. Less fun was being scared by large lumbering creatures in the night, but it's pretty hilarious in retrospect.

11) I read 30 books this year. That's about one every two weeks, which I think is very respectable for a busy girl like me. Most of the thirty were excellent too! If I were to pick a top three, I would pick "I Shall Not Hate" by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, "Room" by Emma Donoghue, and "Mr. Shakepeare's Bastard" by Richard B. Wright.

12) Finally, I'm going lump all kinds of favourite moments into one category: time spent with friends. I never get to see *everyone* as much as I'd like but I did spend a lot of time with friends whether it going out for countless, often sushi, meals, spending time relaxing at the spa, various Go9 get-togethers, time being silly with my awesome friends at work, and two weeks of Becca T living on my couch in the summer. I am so blessed to have so many truly awesome close friends, and thank goodness they were there for all of the good times and bad times 2010 had to offer.

And that wraps up my sixth calendar year of blogging and my first year of being in my thirties. 2010 was pretty great, so 2011 - you have a lot to live up to! However, since I am bringing 2011 in with a concert, it's will be off to a great start.