Year in review 2009

[liv]

And my now traditional (for six new years running!) review of the year, because I don't like the standard survey one. 2009 was a very eventful year, with lots of new experiences and life upheaval, but overall really positive. Essentially, I escaped from a less than positive job, spent some time flailing about the transition, moved countries and started a new job which I hope will become a staple theme of my life for many years to come!

Also, 2009 was the year of Dreamwidth; I got involved in volunteering from very early in the year, ended up with an account whose low number I'm ridiculously proud of, and started teaching myself programming so I could work on making journal styles modern and usable. It's hard to see my renewed enthusiasm for blogging reflected in more frequent updates, because all the moving has meant very limited internet access for the second half of the year.

Significant events

• I left Sweden for good, very sad to leave the country where I was starting to feel at home, and of course my lovely Swedish friends and community. But I was very glad to escape from the drawn-out misery of the job, even with no real future prospects at that time.
• I visited New York, Montreal and Berkeley / San Fransisco (which I never got round to blogging, oops!)
• I spent a gorgeous month getting properly into text study at a yeshiva.
• I celebrated Passover by leading the first Seder in Copenhagen and the second in Stockholm.
• I got a new job, moved to Stoke-on-Trent, and bought a house []

Books

• Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
• Lois McMaster Bujold: Memory (which is mainly brilliant because it's the culmination of a truly wonderful series).
• Scott Lynch: The lies of Locke Lamora
• Martha Cooley: The archivist
• Alaa al Aswany: The Yacoubian Building

I think I have officially fallen off the reviewing bandwagon. I read 61 books in 2009 and reviewed, um, 28 of them. Eek. I haven't even been keeping a proper list of the books I have yet to review, it's all on scraps of paper and there are loads of gaps. Hopefully this will get better when I actually have regular internet access.

Music I'm somewhat meh about music this year. With all the moving around and transition, I've spent the majority of the year living in places where I couldn't really listen to my own music, and I haven't had enough internet access (spot a theme?) to buy exciting new stuff. The musical high point of the year was the VNV Nation concert; thank you so much for making that happen, redbird! But I've mostly been rediscovering old favourites that happened to be on my little mp3 player, so. Also, getting somewhat into more directly folky stuff, not just the old staple Steeleye Span but also Broadside Electric, Pentangle and people who write their own settings of Childe.

• Delays: Valentine
• Solas: Darkness Darkness
• Presidents of the USA: Peaches
• Placebo: English summer rain
• Kate Rusby: A rose in April

LJ / DW posts

• nextian: whose stories are they? (Jews and cultural appropriation)
• compilerbitch: This made me cry (trans issues)
• cereta: On rape and men (My response is still my most popular post of 2009.)
• deepad: I didn't dream of dragons (SF and representation of ethnic minorities)
• hatam_soferet: Why should we be excluded? (The daughters of Zelophehad and Jewish feminism)

Wow, I didn't intend it that way, but there's a definite theme to all of these. It's been a year of learning about marginalized perspectives, indeed.

Creative writing

• j4: Towpath diverged in a wood (poetic prose)
• jack: How Magog, Tricia, Sarah and I met the Bicycle-eating Railings (original fic)
• gnimmel: Christmas cards (illustrated, spiral-shaped story)
• redbird: The family tree (science popularization)
• papersky: When we were robots in Egypt (poetry)

My posts

• Comparisons are odorous (whiteness and ethnicity)
• Power imbalances and the internet (indirect response to RaceFail)
• That "mixed" relationship thing
• I'm probably going to regret posting this (abortion and disability)
• Parable (gender)

Wonderful friends

• hatam_soferet
• jack
• pseudomonas
• rysmiel
• darcydodo

People I love and wish I'd seen more of

• compilerbitch
• doseybat
• estherhugenholtz
• lethargic_man
• ewtikins

People I'm really glad I got to know

• khalinche
• mathcathy
• daharyn
• AF locally
• ravingglory

New to the Dreamroll (I could cheat and count everybody, cos I've only newly moved to DW, but more seriously, people I've met primarily through the DW community:)

• azurelunatic
• cesy
• zarhooie
• edgeraven
• kerrypolka

Since we seem to be indulging in nostalgia with the calendar change, here are my previous review of the year posts:

• 2004
• 2005
• 2006
• 2007
• 2008

Comments

[liv]

I don't know nextian either, I just found her post clicking on Racefail related links. And I don't wholly agree with everything she says, I just found it thought-provoking.

When it comes to Judeo-Christian I'm generally not that offended, I usually attribute it to ignorance more than malice. Though, to be fair, there is a point where being massively ignorant of everything about a significant cultural minority in your society pretty much amounts to racism.

[nanaya]

I think I'm in agreement with you. I'm generally agnostic about "cultural approptiation" too (since I regard non-tangible "appropriations" as being a combination of post-colonialist attitudes and general crapness, and think "appropriation" is a poor word which should be reserved for e.g. the Elgin Marbles and other such tangibles - it should be something it is POSSIBLE to steal).

But! "Judeo-Christian" is often use in really annoying, ignorant ways! And that pisses me off. Jews & Christians not being identical is hardly arcane knowledge, after all.