Because it actually is tradition on this blog, a nonsense end-of-the-year bumper survey. This post has no pictures, so feel free to scroll past it.
1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Watch porn in a group. Purchase and successfully use a menstrual cup. Talk about my own birth with my mom. Buy flushable toilet seat covers in bulk on Amazon. Intern at a startup. Meet someone else who’s divorced their faith tradition. Watch and fall in love with Doctor Who, Misfits, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Archer, and Suits. Have my own room (albeit by happy accident). Put a condom on a banana. With my mouth. Eat cottage cheese. Try Russian food. Try German food. Watch a Terrence Malick film. Watch a Quentin Tarantino film. Encounter a live termite. Make friendship bracelets. Have tendinitis (have less than fully-functioning hands). Read the Hunger Games series. Fishtail braid my hair. Watch a Robert Downey Jr. film. Learn to hem properly. Eat popping boba. Color a line drawing of a vulva. Watch so much television. Sew hundred-year-old pants. Buy “interview clothes.” Be officially sorted into Ravenclaw. Enjoy a comic book movie. Be published in any capacity (see Tinsel Tokyo’s Fall ’11 issue, pp. 56 – 57 for some writing I find kind of off-putting rereading it now). Like a Stanley Kubrick film. Drink almond ginger milk tea (HNNGHH). Drive a car without panicking. Cry over a wall (see Doctor Who, Series 2, Episode 13). Participate in Script Frenzy. Photograph the roof of my mouth. Ingest so much charcoal and grape seed oil. Watch a Sofia Coppola film. Watch the Oscars from start to finish. Watch an Emma Stone movie. See so many girls/women with armpit/body hair (UNF). Watch an entire episode of SNL (the things I do for you, Eisenberg). Be summoned for jury duty. Program in Ruby. Have someone offer to be a reference for my future job search. Use CGI, Ajax, JavaScript that wasn’t copied and pasted, MySQL, SQLite, Ruby, and WordPress. Feel like a movie was a religious experience. Find my Holy Grail mascara (blinc). Receive acupuncture. Watch a movie in a theater by myself. Pay for web hosting.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t make any, so I suppose I didn’t keep them. Or I did? Anyway, yes, I do want to make resolutions for next year, because I feel like my life actually has space for them now.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not close to me, but I got to see baby pictures, which is close enough!
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Paid employment. Fuchsia corduroys. …I think that’s it.
7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 22nd because I had so much caffeine, everything felt like it was happening with at least twelve times the normal intensity (as I will soon relate to you in my #reverb11 response for December 17th).
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Er… I’m probably supposed to say “finishing a college degree,” but I’m going to go ahead and say “successfully using a menstrual cup.”
9. What was your biggest failure?
GIVING MYSELF TENDINITIS MAKING FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS FOR MYSELF, BECAUSE WHO DOES THAT?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Right after Thanksgiving was the only time I was ill this year (for which I am really thankful). I have never vomited that violently before.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
It’s a tie between paid web hosting and my MiaCup. (Or my thrifted fake fur coat. Or my thrifted Betsey Johnson dress. Or my Cole Haan Air Evan Chelsea boots. Or my ticket to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy because it was the first movie I watched alone in a theater, and it was so much more enjoyable than watching with company sorry guise. I don’t know. I feel like I made a lot of good purchases this year.)
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and tuition.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
DreamHost + WordPress. Also, my period, between when my MiaCup order arrived and when I first tried using it.
16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
I’m going to have to go with “Alright With Me” by Kris Allen just because I listened to it a lot, and it marked a kind of turning point.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier, although that’s not saying much considering how my last year ended.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Checking in with people! I keep forgetting to! (Not like “Hey! What’s up?” but like “How are you doing? How was your day?” and listening and absorbing the response.)
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
...Making friendship bracelets because it gave me tendinitis that I am still healing from, and I haven’t really worn them yet anyway.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Definitely Doctor Who for the characters, but Archer and Sherlock are seriously quality television. Downton Abbey and Misfits were also really, really good.
26. What was the best book you read this year?
Small Gods. Other books I read for the first time and really liked were Good Omens, Never Let Me Go, and The Hunger Games. (YES. If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, GET ON IT before the movie comes out! It’s not amazing prose, but it’s nowhere near as poorly written as Twilight and is equally if not more addictive. The characters are pretty nice, and the world is GREAT.) I also reread a lot of books this year, and off the top of my head, the best ones were The Phantom Tollbooth and The Little Prince, but there were so (so so so) many.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Er… I listened to Florence + The Machine’s “Shake It Out” and Kimbra’s “Settle Down” for the first time this year.
28. What did you want and get?
A menstrual cup, Chelsea boots, a physical copy of The Grapes of Wrath, many distractions, useful classes, thoughtful classes, and warm fuzzy feelings.
29. What did you want and not get?
…To watch the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s probably it, because there wasn’t much I wanted this year.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
My favorite movie that came out this year (that I watched) was definitely The Tree of Life. My favorite movie that I watched this year was either The Tree of Life or The Thin Red Line, but other movies I really enjoyed were A Single Man, How to Train Your Dragon, Secretary, The Secret of Kells, Fight Club, and Zombieland.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I woke up, received a FutureMe email from 2009, received my Pottermore email, bought an unnecessary pair of red satin heels, and ate too much Ici ice cream on my 21st birthday. But the events of that day were mostly eclipsed by Pottermore, so.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
From “practical-warm-14-hours-in-the-hospital” to “intentionally cute” to “wear pants for your own safety” to “giant sweaters, tiny skirts.”
34. What kept you sane?
Movies. Tumblr fandoms. Television. Writing. Reading books. Music.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
As always, I’ve got a many-way tie going, this year amongst Tom Hardy, Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Carey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Daniel Radcliffe, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, David Tennant, Robert Downey Jr., Jane Aldridge, Jordan Reid, and Noelle Stevenson. (But to be accurate, my biggest, most time-suckingest crushes were Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg, Natalie Portman, and Jordan Reid.)
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Life is a lot more fun when you surround yourself with only people you really like.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope”
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