A 2007 sort of year

2007 is drawing to a close. Looking back, it’s been yet another whirlwind year full of highlights:

• I spent 4 lovely months living on Queen Street West, sharing a house with three incredible, smart, funny and interesting people, doing things I’d never done before, like making breads in a breadmaker, having waffle parties, playing Mario Kart tourneys, tobogganing in Bellwoods, and having a laugh with their friends. I will never forget the feeling of walking home late at night down Queen Street past all the closed shops, shivering in my cloak and knee socks after getting off the streetcar. It’s stuck in my mind as a special sort of freedom.
• Talking Transit Camp at Northern Voice Moose Camp with Will Pate – the first of many times I will explain what a Transit Camp is, and why it’s an interesting thing to do.
• Wrapping up my last semester at The Behemoth. It was a very formative semester, where I learned a little more about what leadership is about. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to know very much at all about how to work with closely people who are motivated differently from me.
• Moving back to Vancouver – or, more accurately, Burnaby.
• Immersing myself in dialogue and local food issues for 6 weeks as part of the SFU Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue.
• Traveling to Manila for two weeks for a friend’s wedding.
• I turned 23, tiptoeing out of my early 20’s.
• Attending the Web of Change conference on Cortes Island. Camping on my own for the first time (on a campground, but I have to start somewhere).
• Attending the AoIR Conference, to meet lots of people doing interesting things, many of whom, it turns out, are in my own backyard at CPROST at SFU’s Harbour Centre.
• Transit Camp-crazy November: writing the honours proposal, and planning the Vancouver event.
• Transit Camp Vancouver itself, followed quickly by my fourth move in 2 years. I painted my room for the first time, and am now in the process of making a roman blind. It is proving hilarious.

2008 will undoubtedly be equally if not more exciting. In April, I will convocate, but not before spending 3 months fretting about coordinating and conducting my first self-directed research, which will be fun and stressful and wrought with episodes of uncertainty, self-doubt and deep deliberation. I have no summer plans at the moment, aside from a trip to HK to see family. In September, I will officially enter my mid-20’s and triumphantly re-enter the job market, which will bring more fun and stress and many further episodes of uncertainty!

Until then, I’m doing a schwack of snowshoeing, eating, sleeping, and smiling.