Meme of the decade (yes, I know it's late)

[liv]

I tried to keep this brief, since after all I have hundreds of thousands of words about the last 7 years of the decade in question already! Feel free to ask for details if you are in fact interested, though.

2000 I turned 21 a few days before the unofficial new millennium. The love of my life, darcydodo asked me out towards the beginning of the year, so it was mainly characterized by intense soppiness. I visited her homeland, California, for the first time, and got sucked into her interests, Gilbert & Sullivan and the student LGB scene. Oxford was very good for me, both socially and academically; in the summer I did well enough in the main exam part of my degree to be relatively confident of a First overall, and started thinking seriously about a research career. I rebuilt my friendship with pseudomonas and started getting to know hatam_soferet, and it was wonderfully intense and studenty.

2001 I was still hopelessly in love. I applied for a lot of PhD positions, but got offered a place working for one of my heroes, and jumped at the chance even though it meant moving to Scotland which I had no idea about. I was a little sad to leave Oxford, but ready to move on after 4 years. I temped for a while doing data entry for Social Services, then bought my first flat in Dundee, which made economic sense in the cheapest city in the UK.

2002 The first half of the year I spent a lot of time on the overnight coach from Dundee to Oxford via a 4 am change at Milton Keynes, which made sense when I was poor and in love. I got excited about doing real grownup science, and spent what leisure time I had running the liturgy and education for the tiny Jewish community, or participating in a really awesome interfaith group. I played table-top role-playing games for relaxation, including attending a gaming con. I reconnected with several people from my past, like blue_mai, redaloud and doseybat, who introduced me to compilerbitch.

Then in the summer my brother Screwy broke his neck, so the second half of the year was dominated by family crisis. My relationship with D came to an end in the middle of that, though what actually killed it was her moving back to California to start her own PhD, it just took us a few months to realize how unsustainable that sort of long distance was. And three days later, lethargic_man, an old friend with whom I had recently reconnected, asked me out. I was in no state to start a new relationship, but accepted anyway because we are so eminently compatible.

2003 I swapped commuting to Oxford for commuting to London where my bf lived, and Sheffield where Screwy was going through rehab. Though pseudomonas was in Edinburgh, so I was able to see quite a bit of him. lethargic_man and I did manage to take advantage of the long distance thing by meeting in random cities in the middle and doing some tourism. I also travelled to the US twice: California in January for a post-breakup visit with darcydodo where we cried a lot, but made sure of staying friends in the long term. Then in September for hatam_soferet's wedding and my first taste of New York. lethargic_man introduced me to rysmiel and we got on extremely well, both via correspondence and LJ and when rysmiel happened to be visiting Scotland.

My PhD fell apart a little bit; I lost my sense of focus, and had what could have been a major paper scooped, and got into an emotionally awkward situation with my co-supervisor. The university pastoral services and my overall boss between them were very good at sorting things out, but I've been plagued by the procrastination beast ever since.

2004 I worked on my PhD and struggled with procrastination, I corresponded a lot and travelled a bit with lethargic_man. I had lots of community and interfaith responsibilities. At the end of the year I realized that I had to commit myself to a definite date, otherwise I would never wind up experiments and start writing up. I couldn't really sustain a relationship through that, so I stopped seeing lethargic_man at the end of the year.

2005 I spent several months writing up, looking at my computer and my four walls, and came close to hating science and myself. I did make it in the end, and had a very satisfying viva and got the qualification. I went on an epic trip round North America, seeing hatam_soferet in New York, darcydodo in Berkeley and rysmiel in Montreal, and meeting up with a great number of LJ friends. Then I moved back in with my parents while I looked for jobs. My friend MK set me up with a really exciting post-doc in Melbourne, Australia. I visited in December, expecting the job offer to be a formality, only political issues meant it wasn't available after all. It was still awesome to spend a few weeks with my youngest cousins as well as seeing MK himself and his wife and adorable son.

2006 I started the year temping in the admissions office of Cambridge BOGS. I got called for interview for a job in Sweden I'd completely given up on, because my future boss was a bit disorganized about actually following up on appointing anyone. Although I foresaw some problems, I accepted the job offer because I was desperate and because there were many exciting elements. So I moved to Stockholm in May at about 3 weeks' notice. I fell on my feet, finding an absolutely perfect flat in a lovely suburb halfway between the town centre and work, and started settling in to the expat life. I met and made almost instant friends with estherhugenholtz.

2007 Living in Stockholm really suited me. I found another small Jewish community to throw myself into, and I really got on well with my colleagues and made progress with Swedish language skills. In the summer I travelled round Europe a bit without flying, with day trips by boat to Estonia and Finland, a few days in Germany, and ending up in the Netherlands for estherhugenholtz' wedding.

2008 After a slightly confusing end of 2007 when I spent my birthday unexpectedly surrounded by admirers, I got together with jack early in the year (officially 29^th February). We had lots of romantic weekends in Stockholm, Cambridge and random European cities including Kiruna in the Swedish Arctic, and Florence (the long distance thing made me give up my no flying resolution). I also felt really socially settled and contented in Stockholm, spending a lot of time with Joanna, SA and later SS. Work didn't go brilliantly, but I did get my contract extended for a third year and started doing some teaching.

2009I'd pretty much given up on the job ever being productive, and instead concentrated on job hunting, though I was pessimistic about my chances. A lot of my energy went into being an itinerant preacher for Progressive communities across Scandinavia. I finally escaped from the job in June; I was very sad to leave Sweden, my friends and my community, but I really needed to get out of that atmosphere of failure (not just my own). With my future completely uncertain, I took the risk of spending the summer in the US again, mainly to get the experience of yeshiva study, but I also saw hatam_soferet, darcydodo and rysmiel.

When I got back everything magically fell into place and I was offered my dream job, half teaching and half research at Keele. I moved to Stoke-on-Trent again in something of a hurry, and spent the last part of the year rushing around dealing with the move and with settling into the job, which is incredibly exciting and a very steep learning curve. And right at the end of the year, I bought a house here.

I've really enjoyed reading all of yours, both people I know quite well and people I've barely met.