Source: weheartit.com
My year in review. In 212 short, random facts. In no particular order.
- I started the year sick.
- I was sick 3 times this year.
- One of my ailments were infected vocal chords. No picknick when you’re a teacher.
- My job informed me in March they would have to let me go after all.
- One month later, I had already found a new one.
- I went from English teacher, to English teacher trainer: from teaching English communicative skills to teaching linguistics, proficiency and sociolinguistics.
- Hayfever symptoms lessened drastically.
- I now only get shots to battle my hayfever once every 6 weeks instead of every 4.
- I know I don’t have gluten intolerance, but my stomach is simply weird.
- In February, I visited London for 4 days.
- Highlights were Temple Church and the National Gallery.
- Places I hadn’t visited before but did now: Spital Fields, Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, Temple Church, Covent Garden Market.
- My mom took me to see Swan Lake.
- I finished my classes at uni.
- All that’s left are one paper and my thesis.
- Tentative graduation date: June or September 2013.
- After 3 years, I will then receive my Research Master (or Master in Philosophy, i.e. MPhil.) in Communication and Information Sciences.
- I spoke at my first big conference in Berlin in August.
- This conference is the largest Sociolinguistics conference in the world.
- My paper was well-received.
- Unfortunately my paper will not be published anymore.
- My co-author and I are too busy to make it work so I now get to work on a different paper with him and still get a publication.
- I discovered over 1000 new songs.
- In 2012, I posted 329 blogs.
- That’s an average of 27 per month.
- On average, 7500 people visited this blog per month.
- The all time best viewed blog is Collective haul: Forever 21, H&M, River Island, Urban Outfitters & Primark (among others).
- It is also this year’s best viewed blog.
- Shoplogs and my nail polish collection are the best viewed posts overall.
- In March I saw Memoryhouse play Paradiso.
- Some time in September I developed an incessant toothache.
- I thought my tooth had broken.
- My dentist told me I simply developed a bad case of sensitive teeth and sent me home with a different toothpaste.
- Within 2 days my toothache was gone.
- At my old job, I interviewed and hired my replacements.
- My brother got his own apartment and I visited in April.
- 2012’s main highlight must have been my trip to the USA over summer.
- In April I saw Maps & Atlases in concert.
- I had to cancel going to see Band of Skulls because I was too exhausted.
- I learnt that working 32 hours, combined with full time studying and going to job interviews is a bit too much of a good thing.
- As a result my shoulders and upper back muscles jammed up and I had to see my physiotherapist to get rid of it.
- The last time I visited a hair dresser was May.
- May was a good month for concerts.
- I went to see Perfume Genius, Tim Christensen & the Damn Crystals, and White Denim all in that month.
- A good friend of mine threw a vintage 1920s/ 1930s party.
- My input was to dress up as a flapper girl. I wrote a post about my outfit, hair and make up.
- Another highlight in May was going shopping in Antwerp with my best friend.
- For one concert, I bought a ticket, but ended up not being able to go, because Ticketmaster forgot to send it to me.
- It was the Purity Ring concert on June 5th.
- The Purity Ring album is one of my favorite albums released in the past year.
- My number 1 album of 2012 is Alt-J – An Awesome Wave.
- 2012’s summer was awesome in my book.
- Not only did I visit the USA, but I also went to my first music festival: Pukkelpop.
- Two of my favorite concerts of the year took place in June: Marcus Foster and James Vincent McMorrow.
- I celebrated my birthday twice: once with family and once with friends.
- At the end of June and early July I had more parties and dinners than I could count.
- There were end of year dinners and outings with colleagues and ex-colleagues.
- But there were also dinners and gatherings at my new job.
- My birthday was in the same week.
- I spent 2.5 weeks traveling the US & Canada.
- In total I visited three cities: Toronto, Boston, New York.
- Highlights of the trip: Niagara Falls, Seeing whales, and the High Line.
- After years of pondering, I finally got a tattoo.
- The tattoo was done at Red Rocket Tattoo in New York City.
- I figured that even if I end up hating it, I will still have the memory of getting it done in my favorite city in the world.
- On the trip I got to see my friend Arizar after 4 years.
- She told me she was pregnant only to contact me later in the year to let me know she’s having twins.
- After summer I tried being more social with friends and family.
- Since my uni classes have dwindled down I now have more time to hang out with people.
- In December I glanced at my agenda and found out that I’d had a social gathering every single week since September.
- Pukkelpop was amazing, but hot.
- I danced to Crookers,
- Rocked to Sleigh Bells.
- Slept through Stephen Malkmus.
- Saw Bjork, Stone Roses and Foo Fighters.
- And Django Django & Alt-J. My two favorite artists of the year.
- I discovered Willis Earl Beal and Isbells.
- Had a new chance to see Band of Skulls and took it.
- Was at Miike Snow while everyone else at the festival was at The Black Keys.
- Had a blast during Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.
- I finally settled my bills with the government after years of paying back excess subsidies.
- 2012 was the year for cleaning things up.
- I sorted through all of my insurance and memberships to see which ones had become redundant or could be done cheaper.
- On top of that I reorganized my entire living space.
- I threw out a bunch of old junk.
- Who still needs notes from high school 10 years after graduating?
- Reorganizing everything went in phases. I did a bit every vacation.
- I shopped a lot.
- I saved a lot of money too.
- In January I will have paid back half of my student loan.
- My new job started in August, but I first had to go to the conference in Berlin.
- So I could put off going to work by another week.
- To allow myself to get used to my new job, I took September off university.
- I started university back up in October.
- The first thing I did was tick off my Research Training, i.e. the Berlin Paper.
- After much agony, I found out I received top marks for it.
- I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of myself.
- I got sick for a third and final time only 3 weeks into my new job.
- My new job taught me that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
- Things that annoyed me at my previous job are no issue at all now, but in return there is a completely different host of things I run into.
- Despite all that, my job is the best one I’ve had so far.
- It is challenging, rewarding and interesting.
- I have some great colleagues, although I miss some of the people who I used to work with.
- Organization wise though the place is a bit messy, but it keeps you on your toes.
- In October I went to my first Lush VIP event to get a first glimpse at this year’s Christmas collection.
- After my summer vacation, I found I had so much time that I started reading books again.
- I raced through quite a few, but am now stuck at Pride & Prejudice.
- My goal to finish it before the end of the year is simply not feasible.
- Not because it is difficult to read or not an interesting read.
- Quite the contrary: I love what I’ve read so far.
- I just lack the right amount of time to sit down and read the last bit.
- The fact that daylight is minimal doesn’t help.
- I had hoped that working closer to home would solve that problem for me, but it didn’t.
- I still get tired on the train simply because it’s dark outside.
- Before, I could dose off as it would take a long time to get home.
- Now, however, I’m home in 30 minutes and I have to watch out I don’t fall asleep and miss my stop.
- Which actually happened, miss my stop that is.
- Not because I fell asleep, but because I was so engrossed in my book.
- The book in this case was 50 Shades of Grey.
- Which is quite possibly the most addictive, yet at the same time most abominable book of the year.
- Another addictive read was The Hunger Games.
- Liked it, but didn’t love it.
- Another addiction came to an end: The Twilight Saga.
- Again: liked the last movie in the series, but didn’t love it.
- 2012 was a good year for movies.
- I saw 5 while on my summer vacation trip: Snow White and the Huntsman, Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Step Up 4 and Rock of Ages.
- One thing I did for the first time was go to a Baseball Game.
- I went to see the NY Yankees play the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
- Since I didn’t know what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised I liked it.
- After summer I saw even more movies. James Bond Skyfall for instance.
- I also saw Argo after winning tickets via the Warner Brothers Facebook page.
- Another thing I won this year was the Django Django CD.
- Concert wise I didn’t see too many things after summer.
- What I saw was cool though: Bon Iver and Radiohead.
- November proved to be the craziest month yet.
- On top of a big pile of exams and grading my drains decided to clog up.
- It took 3 weeks to get it all fixed.
- Much stress and stink later, I could finally do my huge pile of laundry.
- Summer was a good time, but also proved to be challenging diet wise.
- I ate and drank everything I felt like.
- This resulted in many a sleepless night due to stomachaches.
- But it also caused me to gain weight.
- Eating anything and everything combined with little to no exercise is simply not a good idea.
- I got back into the swing of things in September.
- With more regularity in my day because of work it is easier for me to plan meals.
- Also with a regular schedule I was able to work out 4 times a week.
- I quit hip hop class.
- Instead I now take spinning classes.
- I still do jazz dance, body combat and body balance.
- I came up with some new delicious salads: egg salad and a salmon/ blue cheese combo.
- For the first time in my life I made old fashioned Dutch pea soup.
- A food obsession this year was Caramel Hot Chocolate.
- I visited the Winter Efteling with my family.
- In October I attended another vintage party.
- This time it included the 1940s.
- I went for a 1940s pincurl wave look with glamorous Hollywood make up.
- I rewatched all seasons of CSI.
- One of my favorite movies this year was Cosmopolis.
- Another movie I finally saw and loved was Un Prophète.
- This year I spent quite a bit of time trying to make more posts about language.
- These are the most difficult posts for me to write.
- Getting all that’s in my head down in 500 – 1000 words is simply impossible.
- Language posts take me the largest amount of time and planning.
- My song obsession for this year was Marcus Foster – Shadow of the City.
- For the first time in a long time I visited my parents for more than a day.
- Over Christmas I stayed with them for three days straight.
- It’s good to go back to your roots!
- I’m still going strong on the low carb eating.
- In fact I’m eating fewer carbs than when I started.
- I have completely cut pasta and potatoes from my diet.
- The only thing I’ll have is the occasional bit of rice when I’m having sushi and the odd slice of bread.
- I experienced a bout of spontaneous customer service after ranting about a discontinued product on Twitter.
- It happened not once, but twice.
- I squealed like a school girl when I watched the Backstreet Boys performance at Good Morning America including Kevin.
- Youtube became my go to place for when I’m bored.
- Another obsession of my mine in 2012: nail polish top coats.
- This led to my being super uninspired to create nail art looks as it’s so quick and easy.
- One of my best experiences of the year was taking a few dance classes at The Broadway Dance Center in New York.
- It was tough, but so much fun.
- For the first time ever I started to experiment with hair care products.
- I also went on the look out for the perfect day cream.
- My birthday present to myself was a new digital photo camera.
- My favorite TV series of the year was The Newsroom.
- In November me and some friends went to the Impressionist & Van Gogh exhibition in Hermitage.
- Dresses became my new favorite clothing item.
- I created my first ever lookbook.
- I’ve been trying to come up with some new ideas for the blog.
- Some ideas I have so far: do more reviews on my favorite beauty products.
- Do an ‘How I Style…’ series.
- Create a youtube channel just for the blog and make more videos.
- I found a new location to take pictures.
- Tea is still an obsession.
- My favorite is still the Eucalyptus and Menthol by Twinings.
- In the past year I also started appreciating some black tea: Yunnan & Vintage Darjeeling.
- I threw out a bunch of nail polish.
- You can expect an updated nail polish collection in the new year.
- I started using foundation.
- I tried taking more time for taking pictures for blog posts.
- I’ve been busier than ever but it doesn’t always feel like it.
- Only now that I’m writing up this blog, it dawns on me.
- The gym has become a major part of my social life in the past 6 months.
- I now spend there at least half an hour to an hour extra on Fridays and Saturdays just to chat to people and grab a cuppa.
- This year flew by in no time.
- 2012 was a great year and I’m thankful for every minute that I lived it.
- It would not have been possible without the great people who were in it though.
- I would like to thank everyone who’s been part of it for being there.
- Be it online or in real life. Close by or far away.
- Old friend or new acquaintance. Colleague or student.
- Commenter or lurker. Follower or one time visitor.
- Know that I appreciate you and all the moments we’ve spent together.
- I hope that the new year will have us make many more memories together.
- Here’s to an equally good or maybe even better 2013!
See you all next year!
10 responses to “212 for 2012”
Wooow wat een lijst! Erg leuk zo’n overzicht 😀
Heeft ook een aantal uurtjes zwoegen en agenda’s en oude posts doorbladeren gekost maar dan heb je ook wat 😉
Can’t believe you have 212 things to say!
Lolz. I ALWAYS have something to say. Don’t you remember?
lol very true!
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