2010 Year End Meme

That end of the year meme that's been going around, although you'll notice I waited until 2010 was good and over to finish it.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Applied to the Peace Corps! Took an overnight train across China.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My 2010 goals were 1) lose weight (nope) 2) travel more (yep) 3) save money (not as much as I would have liked, but yep) and 4) organize my computer (that would be a no). Next year I want to 1) lose weight/be healthier 2) Travel more 3) Be more fiscally responsible and 4) Blog/write more.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My co-teacher Yeong Eun had a little boy.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What countries did you visit?
China (for a second time), Korea (not sure if it counts as visiting since I'm living here)

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
More definite plans for the future.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Eh, none? It wasn't really a momentous year. A good year, but not momentous.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I applied to the Peace Corps. I became a better teacher.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't get my Peace Corp medical paperwork finished.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Thankfully no, although I do now have an extensive amount of paperwork documenting exactly how healthy I am.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Kindle and plane tickets to China

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Congress for repealing DADT.  My broadcasting club kids worked really hard and I'm super proud of them.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Look, I pretty studiously didn't pay attention to the US elections for a reason.  That much rage isn't healthy.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Travel, books, Indian food, 문구점....

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Traveling. The Peace Corp. Life in general.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
OK Go - Here It Goes Again; My Chemical Romance - Na Na Na; Lady GaGa - Alejandro; The Sounds - 4 Songs & A Fight; 이효리 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier
ii. thinner or fatter? same same
iii. richer or poorer? richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Cleaning my apartment, exercising, studying Korean, keeping in touch with people

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasting time (especially my afternoons at work), following celebrity gossip.

20. How will you be spending Christmas/New Year's Eve?
I spent Christmas with friends (lots of friends) and I spent New Years at home. I think I technically rang in the new year by reading about the Black Plague.  I never want to do anything on New Years and I always feel slightly guilty about it.

21. What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2010?
My sister got locked in my bathroom which was more embarrassing for her, but I was a bit red faced when I had to beg the adjoshi to break down my bathroom door so she could get out.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Nope

23. How many one-night stands?
Nada

24. What were your favorite TV programs?
Doctor Who, White Collar, Leverage, Castle

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.  I don't really hate anyone.  Sustaining the anger to hate someone is too much energy.

26. What was the best book you read?
I read 60 books this year: 12 re-reads, 11 non-fiction, 18 Agatha Christie. My favorites were:

Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Oh hell, probably my continuing love affair with K-pop. Basically, my year sounded a lot like this and it was ~awesome!

28. What did you want and get?
To come back to Korea for a second year, see the Terracotta Soldiers, my family to visit me in Korea

29. What did you want and not get?
I really wanted to be finished with the Peace Corps medical testing by the end of 2010.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Inception or Deathly Hallows

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 25. On my actually birthday Sarah and I went shopping and out to dinner, and then that weekend a bunch of friends from college came to Brevard and we spend the weekend having Wii tournaments and touring the yarn shops of the greater Asheville area.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
To have finished my Peace Corps medical paperwork.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Most days I made it out of the house looking vaguely presentable? I sometimes matched my glasses to my knee socks? Actually, socks in general. I own so many cheep Korean socks now.  Knee socks, plush socks, ridiculous ankle socks.  If they're sold from the back of a truck on the side of the road in Korea, I probably own them.

34. What kept you sane?
iPod and Kindle

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Kim Yuna, Johnny Weir, Alex O'Loughlin, Simon Baker

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Relations between North and South Korea, the DADT repeal

37. Who did you miss?
Family and friends back home.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Audrey, Caroline and Riah

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
If you want something and work hard enough, you can get it.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
There are jobs and chores and questions
And plates I need to twirl,
But tonight I'll take my chances,
On the far side of the world.

-- Far Side of the World, Jimmy Buffett