The Year in Review « The Off-Center

The Year in Review

Oh what fun! I can’t wait til the future gets here.

So, this is a little more personal than I tend to get on this particular blog, but since it’s mine, after all, I have decided that that’s all right. Thus, we have the obligatory Year In Review post on this, the last day of 2008.

Around this time last year, I had just finished applying to Grad School. My birthday was spent, most notably, in the Rainbow Room with my best friend, documented evidence of us sprawled, filled with champagne, on the grand piano in the ballroom. Later in the month, I spent two weekends back to back in a hotel suite, behaving very deviantly with my boyfriend, and then with him and a mutual friend of ours. Very deviant.

February brought about the most important event of the year, that being the production of my play, Does Anyone Know Sarah Paisner? It went off rather well, although the process was a trying one and there is much I would have changed. It proved to be a remarkable learning experience, and looking back on it, I wouldn’t change a thing.

In March, I played paintball for the first time, my mother turned 60 and I interviewed for Grad school, working at a steady job that I actually kind of miss — really, I miss the people in my office. They were lovely (The New 42 folk, I’m talkin’ about you). I fell in love with Columbia when I set foot on campus, I declined Brooklyn’s odd offer for a Masters of English and I was rejected from the New School after being one of their final, what was it? 12 candidates, I think. They take 6. And their application process should be outlawed. What a nightmare.

In April and May I applied for a string of jobs, convinced that NYU and Columbia would reject me from their programs and I’d be stranded as a receptionist for the rest of time with no upward mobility. I got a weird job that I never thought I’d get completely outside of my field, and then I got accepted at Columbia (and rejected from NYU, but fuck NYU). I took the new job and accepted my offer from Columbia (which is probably the second best thing that happened to me all year), and got rid of my cat, who was a huge bitch. Pretty little thing, huge bitch. Oh, I had a reading with Epiphany Theater Company in there somewhere as well.

The summer was pretty quiet. Did a reading with the Bridge Theater Company, then in late August I started at Columbia. And my life has pretty much been School + Work since then… Oh, but of course, the election this year was epic and emotional enough to be included in my personal year in review — we’re saying yes and takin’ it back, and I can’t wait to get started in early ‘09.

…so, it was a successful year, a very career-oriented year, a year where I’ve been really proud of myself and my accomplishments. But you know what it was missing? Adventure. With the exception of the paintball and the stripper (that was in December at a friend’s party) there hasn’t been much adventure. And no deviant weekends away since last January. Also, I think I could spend a little more time working on my relationships. I don’t want them to fall by the wayside as I pave my way in this world. So, I will resolve to do that as well.

From last year, I kept my resolution to be a more disciplined writer. Leaving out the brutal fact that I haven’t written all week, I have been much better than ever before in putting the time in to do the work, and this was even before the demands of the School of the Arts began to weigh down on me.

Tonight, instead of the big parties I’ve been used to, we’re going to have Fondue Years Eve at Mike’s house, and I have a bottle of champagne that I am keeping all to myself. I will sit and talk and get fizzy behind the eyes as I look forward with blind optimism toward the coming year, a handful of my closest friends settled in nearby.

Health & Happiness in ‘09 to you and yours.

They say you were something in those formative years. Hold onto nothing as fast as you can… well, still. A pretty good year.

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