Okay, so I stole this from my FB. The formatting is all screwy and I'm not going to go through and renumber everything because that's really loserlike and I don't have enough patience to do such a thing. However, I thought I'd repost it. In case you're interested, this list chronicles seventy-six different events. So... here you go.

IT'S TIME FOR THE ANNUAL YEAR-IN-REVIEW POST! Except I'm actually breaking from tradition a bit and I'm posting this on Facebook first. Soooo... let's have at it!


WARNING: If you've never read a post by Alex before, be warned: I RAMBLE. I'm verbose (blame my Dickensian tendencies). So DEAL WITH IT. Also, I would have tagged like a million people had I been able to, but I ran out of tags, so I tagged pretty much everybody mentioned by name + a good chunk of the quiz bowl team. Sorry I couldn't include you all! (Oh god, I've only been in Kentucky for six months and I'm using the phrase "you all" on a regular basis now...)

JANUARY

I rang in the New Year at Rachel's house with a bunch of good friends; did lots of crazy things like tangoing (well, okay, it's normal for us), watched West Side Story for the first time, etc.

I decided that one of my goals for this year was to write a musical. FAIL. Keep an eye out, though. This comes important around July.

I finished reading (and falling in love with) Bleak House by (duh) Charles Dickens. And I've been in a sort of "I'm not too crazy about anything written after 1950"-persuasion since. (However, that opinion HAS changed; I am trying to be more open. After all, I liked The Hours, didn't I? Note to self: read more Ginny Woolf! FOR SERIOUS!)

OBAMA WAS SWORN IN LIKE OH MY GOD. And we skipped out of AP Spanish to go see the inauguration. It didn't help that Dr Redmond had a test for us that day, though... while HE WAS THERE. UNFAIR. Lolz.

I was published musically, via the NYSSMA concert. As a result, I'm on my own iPod. Which is more than most of you can say (except for Matt lolz).

I realised that I was super-addicted to my blog and I needed to stop blogging every day... which turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Hooray!

AP LIT: THE INFERNO! (For like ever. And I have a greater appreciation for it now than I ever did before. I'm still sort of hoping that Andrea's theory that Dante and Virgil are in love with each other still holds some truth...)


FEBRUARY

Okay, so this was technically in February, although it sort of started in January, but, like, the day changed... ahem. Jason Mraz on SNL! (And yes, it merits mentioning in my year-in-review post. JUST BECAUSE.)

Fifth graders really thought I was Snape, via blog entries. Oh, how I miss Shakespeariment.

CD Swap Day! Best idea ever. Glad I did it as a freshman, and I'm glad I was able to help organise it as a senior. Must do this again sometime. I love all my CD Swap Day CDs (and yes, I ended up with four of them, although it wasn't like I went, "OMG I NEED ALL THESE CDS!!" Oh, and I ended up with the Once On This Island soundtrack, too, courtesy of Lizzie

3407. A plane crashed... ten minutes away from where we all live. (Well, from where I used to live.) Fifty people dead. Probably one of the most surreal experiences ever.

Went to my second Sabres game ever with Alyssa! (13 Feb 2009, the day following the plane crash). We ended up beating the San Jose Sharks in a win that felt very sort of "this one's for you, Buffalo." God, the energy of that game was pretty incredible...

Shadowed at UofL and flew all by myself for the first time. (Which really wasn't that great, considering the fact that my first flight was the Monday after the plane crashed. However, I sat next to a teenage boy who kept reading hunting magazines while listening to Taylor Swift on his iPod. I still don't know what to think about this.)

I TURNED SEVENTEEN. Word up, yo. (And yes, I did just say that...)


MARCH

I turned seventeen... again. (Second birthday, and don't you forget it. It's like a hobbit's second breakfast, except... with a birthday.)

Got my scholarship to UofL!

My grandma died. Sad day.

Mum went to England for two weeks, leaving me semi-alone to run wild fend for myself. Luckily, my aunt stepped into help. (This was around the point where I started playing Tetris.)

I had my first ever phone conversation with my Mummy, Whitney! It was really nice. And I could even hear Chloe on the other end!

Notable reads: A Room With a View and Howards End, both by E. M. Forster. (Well, okay, maybe I read HE during April, but the point is that I read it, yes?)


APRIL

Spring break: instead of studying dutifully for APs every day (as had been my plan), we painted and did lots of house-selling stuff. We probably did even more of that before, but I was just too lazy to list it.

JIYOON AND I INVENTED THE BOOK GAME, which lead to interesting things such as Macbeth the Penguin working for ESPN, Virginia the fly being trapped in a room with a view for hours and hours before being sent to debtor's prison and meeting Little Dorrit, etc. Why have I not played this since college started?! Must fix that... actually I did, once, like three months ago...


MAY

AP EXAMS AP EXAMS AP EXAMS: Monday, AP Gov; Tuesday, AP Spanish; Wednesday, AP Calc; Thursday, AP Lit; Friday, AP Euro. HELL WEEK!

I FREED MYSELF FROM ALL AP EXAMS LIKE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE OH MY GOD YAY.

Notable reads: The Basic Eight (re-read, Daniel Handler), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy), The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Díaz)

JDD (this was in May, wasn't it?)

Jiyoon and I wrote Zita y la Margarita, a lovely little story about a princess who meets a man-eating daisy. Very feministic. It's still sitting on my desk... ho hum...

Rachel and I went to go volunteer at Habitat for Humanity for government hours; played with a really adorable kid, had a party for one of the guys who was leaving (he was pretty cool), learned a lot, and then got lost on the 33 for like an hour. And I still remember this as one of my favourite afternoons before leaving, lolz.


JUNE

Hike for Hospice with team Sean Connery's Beard! With ice cream at the end (visiting Marie at work with Alyssa and Jiyoon).

Err, like, high school ended?

Prom! And post-prom!

A fun Masterminds picnic with fun cakes and the "Now what was I saying again?" shirt -- last time I saw MJ, I really want to go back and visit

More summer madness with the "Boom Boom Pow" video! Oh, Alyssa, how can I ever thank you for making sure I know all the words to Fergie's part...?

FRESHMAN ORIENTATION AT UOFL, where I met Amanda and Brynn. And oh how glad I am that they put us in the same group!

Kristina visited for the first time in seven years, and it felt like nothing had changed (other than the fact that I'm now taller lol)

I graduated?

Last guitar lesson ever; oh, and I found out that Michael Jackson had died while in my last ever guitar lesson. Strange, strange day.


JULY

Drive in movie! The film itself sucked (really, guys, why did we have to go see Transformers when Up was only a few screens away?) but the idea itself was fantastic

I (sort of) began writing that musical (Advanced Placement: The Musical) and got about two scenes in before I stopped. However, that did not stop me from writing my brilliant rap, "You're An AP Whore." [How strange it is that nobody's asked me for the lyrics...]

I began to go borderline insane. I began to feel like a warped version of Madame Bovary because of issues I'd had for a rather long time with a friend.

I wrote a long letter...

... that I ended up not being able to send. So I burned it. And, with that burning, it really became a transformative experience of letting go.

We sold our house in NY for realz, so like we don't even legitamitely live there anymore!

Summer memories, trying to cram in everything before I left; where do I start? Highlights: grad parties (Casey's, Andrea's, Anji's, Betsy's, my own), Shakespeare in the Park (and that chocolate place we went to afterwards), the Fourth of July with Pride & Prejudice (which we never actually finished), nail polish and Andrea's hot tub, Casey doing the Valu dance, Duck Duck Goose at my grad party, seeing all my friends one last time, the afternoon Sari, Alex and their mum came round, the day Rachel brought round the notebook...

AP scores. And I owned that Hell Week. Fours and fives on everything, bitches!

We moved after frantically packing up our house to the lovely LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY! Probably one of the strangest experiences I have ever had, and that's really saying something for me.

A day after we all moved to Kentucky: Harriet went missing.

Five days later: SHE RETURNS. LIKE WHAT!! Probably one of the best moments of the year.


AUGUST

Louisville flooded, and I slept through the storm that freakin' flooded the place.

Mum and I went to England! ...

... where a lot of stuff happened, good things and bad things, strange experiences and happy ones. Glad I was able to go.

I STARTED COLLEGE! And met like a zillion amazing people. (Well, okay, maybe not a zillion, but several...)

And I read lots of William Blake (like far too much William Blake, seriously) -- Seth can attest to this.

I joined the Quiz Bowl team. Best decision made in college as of yet.


SEPTEMBER

September was a myriad of glitteryness, so I'll just present a few highlights: me acting like a sheep ("BAHHH BAHHH BAHHHHH"), making mix CDs, getting to know people better, exploits with Heather during Labour Day weekend, reading Little Dorrit and listening to Lily Allen, exploring, beginning to have rather long conversations with Drew, trying to keep in touch with people, letters, meeting Sara, sending and receiving, falling and fighting and flying and flailing, seeing Whip It and Amanda's spazzy SatNav, and... JOHN KEATS LIKE OH MY GOD SWOON (and, to some extent, the same goes for Shelley, although Keats does stuff to me that is like GWUHHHHH).


OCTOBER

Joined the Jane Austen Book Club!

SABRES GAME IN NASHVILLE (for the record, we won, 1-0). LIKE OH MY GOD AMAZINGTIEMS!!!!

Modded for the first time at the high school tourney and pretended to be Scott from back home. ("Both teams, back in." /finger motions/)

Wondered what I was doing in Kentucky... and began to be "courted" in earnest, I suppose, by Tobin... T_T

Convinced myself it would be a good idea to do NaNo again, and even roped in several people along the way! (Whitney, Rose, Janice, Amanda, Star -- what can I say, we're just spiffy like that).


NOVEMBER

Wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote...

TRASH TOURNEY AT ANN ARBOR. By far one of the highlights of my year. It was everything I'd hoped to experience on the band trip a few years ago that everybody else did, but I couldn't seem to. I love quiz bowl!

I made myself happy. And I became a person I wanted to be. Or, at least, I went one step closer to who I want to be, because I stood up for myself and wasn't afraid to say "no." I matter too.

I began to understand everything Janice had told me during my freshman year of high school; funny how I never really got what it all meant until I started college myself.

Fell in love with James Joyce (and rediscovered Thomas Hardy).

Rediscovered Franz Ferdinand and Mika! And Snow Patrol! And like all my live Mraz recordings. Fell in love with music all over agan.

Ended up at 50,147 words after using like a bajillion dares and whatnot (including "Sorry about your coffee, I had to throw it at someone" and Adelaide the almost-princess using the phrase "bitches running wild" without knowing what it meant). It's still not finished, but I aim to finish the novel before January ends.

Notable movies: (500) Days of Summer, Mighty Morphing Power Rangers (how does Ryan know that RHCP are on the soundtrack?!), Pirate Radio, etc.


DECEMBER

I changed my name to Victory McWord-Whore. (Not really. But I celebrated my win.)

More quiz bowl bonding. Inglourious Basterds for the winnnnn! (Our teams for the win, too, because it's like all we ever do at tourneys, lolz.)

I got a job! Hooray! Now I look responsible to my parents!

Achieved zen when I fell in love with the world. (Not kidding on this count, either.) I am so much more positive now!

Notable movies: aforementioned Inglourious Basterds, Rushmore, Gosford Park, Chungking Express, Network, Gran Torino, Up, A Room With a View (the whole thing, not just the Italy section)

Gave the film rights of The Rise and Fall of Rushalee Cade to Drew so he can make a film (well, duh).

Pete came and visited us!

An excellent Christmas, with a few unexpected surprises that have had me smiling for the past few days! (Which I'm still smiling about -- happened early in the morning on Saturday and it's Wednesday; really, Alex, you look like an idiot.)


So: this year has been really, really strange. Lots of changes, lots of goodbyes, lots of hellos. It was a year of letters. It was a year of music and books. It was a year of studying like all the time; lots of writing, too. It was a year of favourite teachers: Nogo, Derrico, Sondel, Johnson, Shewan, Pankow, Redmond. It was a year of finding what I had lost and finding what I had never had before and growing. It was a year of coming to terms with lots of things, and yet I feel like I managed to exit somewhat victoriously. It was a year of learning to love, not just the world but also myself. I feel like I've changed quite a bit, too, from the girl I was at this point last year (and thankfully I have changed a great deal from the girl I was at this point two or three years ago -- I must have come across as a nutcase at some points!) into the person I am now. And I couldn't have done it without your help.

I am so incredibly thankful for all the people that have been in my life this year -- I really am. It's helped so much like you really wouldn't believe, so I just wanted to take the time to thank you all. I can't tag everyone -- believe me, I tried, and Facebook shouted at me. But there are so many of you who really helped me and I can't thank you enough.

This has been my best year yet. Makes me think of the final words River Song says to the Doctor: "You watch us run." (This is, in no way, a reference to the phrase "bitches running wild," although you could make it so, if you really wanted to.) And this year has been all about running: running away, running toward, running for office (lolz history club), running to comforts, running to friends. This year did not turn out in any way that I expected it to. But I wouldn't change any moment of it for anything.

...

"I won't worry my life away, hey-eh-eh, oh-h-h-h-h..." -- JMraz