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2009: The Year in Review

2009 was a big year filled with big things. To help you (and me) remember some of those things, I present a year-end tradition at The World of Stuff, the Year in Review.

• January 1 – The World of Stuff gets a redesign.
• January 5 – I go to Miami Metrozoo.
• January 8 – I celebrate my university’s football team winning the national championship.
• January 9 – I go apartment hunting for my next year at school.
• January 31 – My friend Evan and I play in a talent show.
• February 1 – I introduce a text-message service for the Gainesville bus system. (I don’t think it’s working right now.)
• February 7 – I announce that I’ll be going to Europe with some friends in the summer.
• February 24 – I vote in the spring Student Government elections.
• March 7 – I go to a Florida Panthers hockey game with friends.
• March 20 – I vote against allowing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Gainesville.
• March 21 – I take panoramic photos around campus and upload one of them to Wikipedia.
• March 27 – The xkcd blog links to a page on The World of Stuff.
• March 28 – I go tubing on the Ichetucknee with friends from my dorm.
• April 2 – I volunteer at Lifeapalooza, Get Carded’s year-end event.
• April 4 – My friend Evan and I spend an evening in Jacksonville.
• April 6 – TWoS turns six years old.
• April 12 – My first date, like, ever.
• April 14 – A second date, seeing comedian Demetri Martin perform on campus.
• April 19 – I buy a netbook for our trip to Europe.
• April 23 – I’m named Get Carded’s Volunteer of the Year again.
• April 25 – I go to Gator Freethought’s year-end party.
• April 30 – A third and last date.
• May 2 – I move out of Hume Hall for good.
• May 26 – Andy, Mark, Dan, and I leave for our European adventure.
• May 27-June 3 – Andy and I stay with Andy’s relatives in London.
• June 3-9 – Andy and I stay in and around Paris, first in a hostel in town, then in the suburbs with an Esperanto-speaking friend of his, and finally back in the city with a Esperanto-speaking host.
• June 10-11 – After arriving in Spain, Andy and I spend a day and night in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque Country.
• June 11-14 – I stay outside Madrid. Andy joins me, but leaves on the 13th to go to a funeral at home.
• June 14-18 – I stay with my old friend Laura in Seville.
• June 18 – After some confusion, including a chance encounter with Mark and Dan, I meet Andy in Madrid, and we head to Barcelona.
• June 18-25 – Andy and I stay in Barcelona, first with some Esperanto-speaking hosts, and then with our friend George and his family.
• June 25-26 – On the way to Italy, Andy and I stay in a small town in the South of France.
• June 26 – Andy and I make a brief stop in the tiny country of Monaco.
• June 26-27 – Andy and I stay in Pisa, Italy, and check out the Leaning Tower.
• June 27-30 – Andy and I stay in Rome. I also venture into Vatican City, where I have another chance encounter with Mark.
• June 30-July 3 – Andy and I explore beautiful Venice, Italy.
• July 4-7 – While Andy is in Switzerland with Mark and Dan, I stay in Croatia and visit relatives I hadn’t even known about before.
• July 8-10 – Andy and I stay with Andy’s cousin in Vienna.
• July 10-18 – Andy and I attend the Summer Esperanto Study near Bratislava, Slovakia, where I turn 20, have my first kiss, and go on excursions to Bratislava and Vienna.
• July 18-25 – Andy and I go to the International Youth Congress of Esperanto in Liberec, Czech Republic. During that time, I go on an excursion to Prague.
• July 25-26 – As Andy flies from Prague to London, I stay with Esperantist Chuck Smith and his girlfriend Judith in Dresden, Germany.
• July 26-28 – I stay with Chuck and Judith at their home in Berlin.
• July 28-30 – I visit Amsterdam.
• July 30-31 – After arriving back in London, I stay with Andy and George at George’s Drury Lane dorm owned by the London School of Economics.
• July 31 – Andy and I meet up with Mark and Dan, and together we fly home.
• August 22 – I move in to my new apartment in Gainesville with Andy and my previous roommate, Ryan.
• August 25 – I have a band practice with my friend Evan and one of his friends, but nothing else comes of it.
• September 15 – I listen to two of the Beatles’ remastered albums for the first time.
• September 15 – Andy and I kick off a new year for our Esperanto club by explaining how we spent our summer.
• September 23 – I watch my childhood friend Reid make his TV debut.
• October 5 – I meet our new roommate who has just moved in to the apartment.
• October 6 – I give a presentation and talk to a reporter at Florida Free Culture’s Mind Mashup event.
• October 15-16 – I go with my friend Andrea and some of her friends to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens, and then we spend the night at her house.
• October 29 – I have a letter to the editor published in a student newspaper.
• October 31 – I spend Halloween with Andrea and some of her other friends.
• November 2 – I have to reinstall Ubuntu after an upgrade goes awry.
• November 8 – I post a semi-original video, The World of Stuff’s first in almost three years.
• November 25-26 – I spend Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house.
• December 5 – I watch the Gators lose the SEC Championship Game.
• December 22 – I announce my plans to go on a road trip up the East Coast with some friends next summer.
• December 24 – I get a new cell phone for Christmas.
• December 25 – Christmas.
• December 27 – My sister and I join our friend Kevin in meeting Laura in Miami Beach.

I don’t have to tell you that the 2000s have been a pretty terrible decade politically, economically, culturally… But it’s significant for me because it’s the first one I remember from beginning to end. Yes, I remember January 1, 2000. It was a Saturday. The ball dropped, and the world didn’t end. Later, the Snorlax episode of Pokémon was on. I remember that, okay?

I read somewhere that people tend to reminisce about the decade that’s two decades before the current one. It makes sense. In the ’70s, they romanticized the ’50s; in the ’90s, we dug the groovy ’70s (ask my sister about that one); and in the 2000s, we loved the ’80s. I can feel a wave of ’90s nostalgia coming on as my generation comes of age. I don’t need to wonder what people will remember about the 2000s, but I do wonder whether they’ll think of it fondly.

I almost suffered from reminiscence overload while compiling this post, but as if that weren’t enough, my dad just went through all the digital photos on his old laptop and had me look at them. They range from 2000, when he first got a Sony Mavica (floppy disks, anyone?), to 2008. I hadn’t seen a lot of them before, and others I hadn’t seen in a long time, so it was fun to look back.

I’m not just looking back; I’m also looking forward. As cheesy as that sounds, it’s true. My high school friend Yamilee (first mentioned here) is getting married on Saturday… I know, that’s what I was thinking! January 1 would have made a great wedding anniversary, but hey, it’s not my wedding. I will be going, though; my whole family’s invited. In fact, my sister is going to be a bridesmaid!

So, that’s it for the 2000s. (The media is still waffling about what to call the decade, often referring to it euphemistically as just “this decade” or “the decade,” but I’ve long made up my mind.) 2009 was a good year for me, and I hope 2010 is just as good. See you in the… oh crap, what do we call the next one?

From Time: The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell.

From The Big Picture: The decade in news photographs.