Year in Review

I found this over at Notes, Recollections, Etc., and I thought to myself, "Self, you should do this meme! It is yet one more way not to do the work that you should be doing!" So here's the deal:

1. Harken back to your archives.
2. Collect the first sentence you wrote every month for the whole year.
3. Entertain us.
   

January: "First, and before I get into the philosophy of this blogspace, welcome!" Because, of course, I moved to this address at the start of this year. So this is actually a blog-in-review meme for me, as well as being a year-in-review meme.

February: "After doing 30+ conferences in three days, I can barely string two words together." I should really stop doing this many conferences, yes? But the students really do get a lot out of them....

March: "I mean, yes, professionally, it is a deal-breaker for me." Which is my answer to the title question: "Is functional illiteracy a deal-breaker for me?" Clearly this was a post related to my foray into the world of online-dating.

April: "Yes, it's true: I have finished the Article."

May: "Yes, I had to get the "Professor of the Year" post off the top, even though I'm still really over the moon about the whole thing." In which I babble so as not to have a self-congratulatory post at the top of my blog. Even though, of course, I continued to congratulate myself about it in the first sentence of the non-self-congratulatory post.

June: "Ok, so before I get to the why of it all (for there is a why of it, and it's a lame why) here's what I've been doing" In which I explain why I've not been blogging regularly.

July: "Why is it that some grown women - particularly (at least from my observations in various airports and shopping districts around the country) women who aren't, shall we say, petite (and I would put myself into that category, because I'm not petite at all) - think that dressing like a five year old will make them appear "feminine"?" A question for the ages.

August: "I've decided for this Reading for Pleasure Wednesday to mine the vault that is my brain to talk about some books that I loved as a kid." Remember my whole RfP invention? Wow, have I dropped the ball on THAT. Ah well. The best-laid plans, etc.

September: "I've been thinking a lot about this practice of corresponding lately, in part because I do so much of it." In which I write a boring and opaque post about corresponding with people. You know, this meme is actually showing me that I'm a pretty boring blogger. Sorry for that.

October: "Notice that this is just the draft, but still!" In which I talk about completing the draft of my Book Proposal. Oh, and I got another rejection, very close to as nice as the first. Jury's still out on the last publisher, but I'm choosing not to worry about it until I get that third rejection. Then I'll revisit the proposal and send it to three more. This seems like a sensible course to take with this, and I'm not terribly stressed out by it. Also, a funny thing about me is that I'm not terrible with handling rejection. Criticism I hate, but outright rejection? Yeah, I can get over it pretty quickly. Not sure what that says about me.

November: "I think it's done." The book proposal, that is. I'm so fucking boring. Why do you people read my blog? Or maybe it's just that I'm boring at the beginning of the month? I hope that's the case.

December: "I realize I've not really posted in a few days...." In which I apologize for not posting and go on in a very boring fashion about all of the work I have to do.



Ok, so this exercise has shown me a number of things: 1) I whine a lot on my blog; 2) I'm very obsessed with work things on my blog; 3) I am not very interesting, at least at the beginning of the month.

However, at least we see that this has been a year that's been about work. Maybe one of my resolutions will be to make 2007 less about work? We shall see.

To lighten the somber mood of this post, might I also add that I made a hair appt. for tomorrow (yay! I so need a haircut!), my regular hair person had her baby (yay! babies! though also boo! Will have to go to a replacement person for this haircut! Very dangerous!) and I also have been working through my list of other appts. I need to make (doctor, dentist, veterinarian, etc.). I am very productive even when I'm boring and I procrastinate! Hurrah!