Year in review 2011

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I seem to have started a bad habit of getting most of the way through January before I get round to these. Anyway, this is my 8^th consecutive year of summing up the events and consumption of the previous year, so that counts for something, right? Like 2010, 2011 involved a lot of awesome teaching and a depressing series of failures to attract funding. A lot of delightful weekends with friends but few big memorable events. My love-life continued happy and there was a fair amount of wedding planning.

Significant events:

• elemy and angelofthenorth got married.
• jack re-graduated.
• I had a totally awesome work trip to Edinburgh.
• I had the most perfect, wonderful holiday in Wales with jack.
• I managed to spend a bit of time with two of my favourite people in defiance of geography, hatam_soferet and MK.

Places:

• Stoke-on-Trent
• Cambridge
• Edinburgh
• Pembrokeshire
• Stockholm

Books:

• NK Jemisin: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
• Jo Walton: Among Others
• Chris Moriarty: Spin State
• Ali Smith: Girl meets boy
• Barbara Kingsolver: Lacuna

It's been a funny year for reading. Mostly dominated by stuff that I happened to be able to get in appropriate format for my trusty e-reader. On the one hand it's meant that I've mainly read stuff I specifically wanted to read, somewhat less salted than in former days with random stuff that I happened to find in the library and charity shops. On the other hand, I haven't read anything that really stands out as amazingly brilliant. It feels as if the average quality, as it were, has improved, but I've somewhat missed out on the real gems. I've also been really awful at reviewing; in 2011 I read 38 books, of which I've only managed to review 15! Oops.

Music:

• The Real Tuesday Weld: I love the rain
• Men at work: Land Downunder
• Fleet Foxes: White winter hymnal
• Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer: I go like the raven
• Mylène Farmer: Diabolique mon ange

Musically, I've been floating around various discovery sites trying to find new stuff. mix_tape was a great source for a while, and then it kind of died. And I have a few friends who make great Spotify playlists; I've picked up loads of cool stuff from SS. Until the latest upgrade which basically broke it, I was making heavy use of eMusic's recommendation system. But basically I feel out of the loop musically, I'm not finding enough new things to get excited about.

Notable posts:

• jennett: Clothing saying something
• rho: Social justice and word choice
• denise:"Real Name" policies: They just don't work.
• hairyears: The future's arriving in the wrong New Order [housing]
• forthwritten: The cities are burning; part 2

My posts:

• What are the political implications of getting engaged to be married?
• Indistinguishable from magic
• Questions from Khalinche
• Painful humour
• Breaking out of the bubble

Wonderful friends:

• hatam_soferet
• hadassah
• khalinche
• angelofthenorth
• jack

People I love and wish I'd seen more of:

• rysmiel
• lethargic_man
• doseybat
• darcydodo
• blue_mai

People I'm really glad I got to know better:

• kerrypolka
• kake
• gwyddno
• illusive_shelle
• purplecthulu

New to the d-roll:

• auntsarentgents
• evilsusan
• lauredhel
• vatine
• marshtide

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