If you think about it, the holiday newsletter was the original blog and so it makes complete sense that I write one here in order to recap my year and to ensure that people don’t delete this blog from their feed or bookmarks or what have you. You people keep me alive.

Now it quickly became clear that the alcohol is not only slowly destroying my liver, but my brain cells have completely deteriorated. Since I haven’t been faithfully blogging daily with my various cute little exploits, I did what any sane person would do and checked my Google Calendar to figure out just what in the heck I did in 2009. And thus, a recap of my year:

January – This seemed to be a pretty tame month. Apparently I went to the eye doctor several times.  Also I went to Belgium but since I still wear the glasses I got at the eye doctor and I completely forgot I went to Belgium during this calendar year, I guess the eye doctor wins. (Belgium was awesome btw. See photos of that expedition here.) On the way back from Belgium we saw Rihanna in our mobile lounge at Dulles airport. I knew it was Rihanna because she acted like a bitch to everyone who spoke with her. The day after we got back I walked two miles down to the Mall to watch Obama’s inauguration, where I stood by the Washington Monument and took pictures and froze to death all by myself in the name of making history. Then I came home and made lasagna. I guess January was pretty sweet.

Obama Swears In

February – I clearly blocked the crappy months filled with schoolwork since February is a complete blip. I started the spring semester AND training for my 10k. There were a series of birthday parties and apparently I went on something I called a “non-Restaurant Week dinner”.  Of course, the major highlight is that this is the month I got my bike from my friend Rachel in Charlottesville, and then proceeded to ride it exactly 5 times during the rest of 2009. It’s really proven to be a cost-effective purchase.

Foggy Bruges

March – Surely I’m forgetting stuff right? As far as I can tell, in March I ran a 5k. I also highlighted my school’s spring break period in my calendar which is ridiculous since I didn’t go anywhere and I still had to go to work anyway so the entire week was exactly the same except I didn’t have class that one day. I must’ve been desperate to put something on my schedule.

April – April was really big. In addition to a couple doctors appointments, I got my haircut.  Do not underestimate how huge this event is. THIS IS THE ONLY HAIRCUT I HAD IN 2009.  I’m not even sure how a normal human goes nine months without a haircut.  I meant to get another one around July/August and it just never happened and it all sort of compounded with being super busy this fall and next thing you know we’re a week away from New Year’s and no haircut on the horizon.  Based on my Google Calendar here are other activities I did in 2009 more times than the number of times I got my haircut in 2009:

• Went to a Nationals game (3x)
• Charity races (3x)
• Visited Grandma in Tampa, Florida (3x)
• Visited Europe (2x)
• Attended weddings (3x)
• Headed out west (2x)
• Went to NYC (2x)

New Year’s Resolution 2010 #1: Get a haircut.

May – The beginning of The Summer of Arlene! Now we’re getting somewhere. I had a very stressful end of spring semester wherein I completely choked through a presentation, worked my ass off on an indexing project from hell, raced 6 miles, attended two big weddings for dear friends and then slept for two weeks before….

View from Neuschwanstein Castle

June – And Germany! Back to Europe with my friend Marc to feast on sausages, beer, spagel and to meet a bunch of American frat boys.  Remember when going to Europe was very bohemian and artistic? Those people must be doing their summers abroad elsewhere these days.  Thankfully we returned from Germany without having murdered the other person or carried home bedbug stragglers. Success! Upon returning I had to present a paper at a conference, and then I visited NYC and ate bo ssam, and then I turned a year older and then I started running a lot, maybe to make the pain go away. Yes.

Cheezin It Up at the Top of the Rock

July – I took a long trip down to sticky humid Tampa Florida to hang with my grandma.  I nearly burned my finger off trying to entertain her with sparklers. I continued to run and also began eating and growing a distended belly to hold all the food I needed to eat in order to simply feel full. Let this be a lesson to all of you. Running makes you fat.

August – I took a very short online course which was misery, I can’t talk about it lest I go on a terrible tirade and directly name the professor on this blog and get in trouble. Basically August sucked.

September – To make myself feel better, and because I had to, I took a week off from work and went to Hawaii with my beau. The exciting part for me was driving through my old little town, seeing my old school and eating manapua. I suppose the scuba diving and giant mountains and warm beach were nice too. Also during this period I began the hardest class of my life. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE.

Sunset Beach, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii

October – I cried about learning programming language and then I ran ten miles. My mom had hip replacement surgery. We argued about which was more painful.

November – More programming language, lots of birfdays, Thanksgiving and final projects. ZZZzzzz.

The Cells of Alcatraz

December – Well it’s not over yet but this month was dedicated to procrastinating, then actually completing, and finishing my final projects, thus ending my graduate school career with the bestowing of a master’s degree. I will never, ever, ever do that again. Also I went to San Francisco, my new favorite place in America where I had the best thing I’ve ever eaten: pork belly slider with aioli and kimchee. Then I came home and it snowed a lot and I bought everyone crappy Christmas presents. Then I sat down to write this letter, then I stopped for the day and started writing it again the next day and eventually I managed to pound it out. Then I did some cleaning and made some peanut butter blossom cookies and did you know you really should take that “1 inch” rule about the dough balls really seriously because I started off with these humongous cookies with a speck of a hershey kiss in the center when, in reality, a perfect peanut butter blossom has a 1:1 cookie to hershey kiss ratio and I keep forgetting that in addition to buying gifts I have to wrap them too, where in the heck am I going to find wrapping paper…..

All in all, I think 2009 was pretty damn successful. I’m most happy to have shared it with all of you fine people.  ♪ You are the sunshine of my life ♪ yeah ♫ That’s why I’ll always be arooounnd

Happy Holidays from Arlene and Gummi!