2010 in review

I know it's not the end of the year yet, but I'm in lab, running experiments, and this stage is about an hour of just waiting around for my surfactant to dissolve, so I figured I could do my usual summing-up post about all the stuff that happened this year.

January:
-Was the coldest I've ever been in my life while going on a trip to Boone with my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law. The trip was really fun but so cold that we didn't actually get to do any of the things we were planning on doing. The zip line and snow tubing were both closed due to the wind chill so basically we just sledded.
-Started 4th semester of grad school and TAing my first class

February:
-Don't really remember anything exciting happening in February, but I did get my first credit card (wooo) so I can be building up my credit score before Keegan and I attempt to get a loan to buy a house.
-Was duteously following my plan to make a new recipe every week

March:
-Entered the lottery to win tickets to the Final Four and then actually won tickets to go to the Final Four!

April:
-Was the busiest month I've had in a really long time
-Spent essentially the entire Final Four weekend either in Lucas Oil Stadium or in its parking lot -- was SO WORTH IT to see Duke win the 2010 national championship! I'm so glad I signed up to go last year when they were such a long shot because frankly if they go again this year (2011) it'll be a mad house and EVERYONE will apply to win tickets in the lottery so my chances of winning again are dramatically decreased
-Went to Seattle to present at the Society for Biomaterials conference. This was my first big conference (I don't think regional symposiums really count) and I really enjoyed it. Seattle was an awesome city and the farmer's market was a lot of fun. I was also able to talk to some folks at the FDA and other people who are working on encapsulation about my work and received some valuable feedback

May:
-Started planning a trip for our one year wedding anniversary! :-*
-Went to the Azalea Festival in Wilmington, NC with my mother-in-law and my aunt... in-law? Keegan's aunt and uncle have moved to Wilmington, so we were visiting them and touring some of the old homes in the downtown area
-Duke BME had their retreat and it coincided with my 24th birthday
-Attended our first wedding as a married couple!
-Starting working on polymer synthesis in the chemistry department so that I could begin work on my project

June:
-Celebrated one year married to Keegan!
-Went to the Outer Banks for our actual anniversary, to attend another wedding
-Started our trip to Newport, RI/Bar Harbor, ME :-)
-Got trained on the SEM so I could start imaging my samples
-Started and stopped P90x after deciding it was really not worth my time (but signed up for a weight training PE class at Duke)

July:
-Finished our anniversary trip by attending Brochufest 2010
-Met with Duke's nutritionist to learn more about structuring my meals and balancing my diet and exercise. Mainly this was for me to start getting in the habit of eating healthy now so that when Keegan and I decide to start a family I will already know how to take care of myself and will be in better health going into pregnancy

August:
-Started my third year at Duke (how have I been here for 3 years already?!)... and that's pretty much it
-Did meet with a director of R&D at Ethicon, Inc who is excited about my project and agreed to donate materials for my research purposes. Awesome :-)

September:
-Keegan made his first trip up to the Cambridge, MA office
-Keegan celebrates his 25th birthday!
-Booked our trip to Costa Rica with Caitlin and Zach :-)

October:
-Completed(/survived) graduate student campout! Didn't win tickets though... boo.
-Presented at BMES in Austin, TX where I received even more feedback than from my presentation at SFB in April
-Went to Austin City Limits! Definitely going to make it a plan to go back there for ACL or for South by Southwest. Or both. Already on my agenda to go to Jazz Fest this year!
-Review paper (finally) accepted for publication! (Was submitted in May, and it took this long for me to hear back)

November:
-Went to see HP7 at midnight! When I had a test that day! Movie was awesome, so worth it. And I got a really good grade on the test. Maybe I should do that all the time...? Oh wait, I have no more exams to study for!
-Ran my first 8k! When I signed up I thought it was a 5k... only to find out 3 days before hand that it was actually 5 miles
-Began tracking the miles I run every day; goal is to run at least 20 every week

December:
-Got our Christmas tree!
-Finished my last classes and my last TA-ship! Bring on the experiments and labwork!
-Review paper appears online (woot!)
-Finish out my last semester of classes at Duke with a 4.0

And then just because I always track where I've been in the year:
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Delaware
New Jersey
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New York
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine
Kentucky
Ohio
Indiana
Minnesota
Washington
Texas

That's a pretty impressive list for one year! The new states visited were Kentucky, Indiana, Minnesota, Washington, Rhode Island, and Maine :-)

2011 is definitely including at least one new place -- Costa Rica! We could also be going to England and Wales because I'm applying to present at the International Conference on Self-Healing Materials in Bath, England in June/July. Since I'm also planning on Jazz Fest with Cait, that would at least give me Louisiana as a new state visited, and perhaps Alabama and Mississippi depending on where we fly and if we go to visit her dad in Alabama. I'm not sure how else I would go to those states unless we decided to drive to Texas for Keegan's cousin's graduation... which would be unpleasant hah.