A decade in review

I guess 2010 starts a new decade, and since I have a serious hate on for the 80’s, I am willing to embrace the importance of chunking time into decades we can refer to later. Plus, as Dylan said, this is the first one I’m actually able to remember in any detail, so in honour of the future, I will dwell on the past? I guess that makes sense.

The year 2000!!!!!
I was in grade 8, and there was nothing notable about the year, except that Jesus didn’t come back and the world didn’t end, nor did planes drop out of the sky due to the Y2K apocalypse promise. I remember spending a lot of lunch hours at Outlook High School eating “Fruit-tip” popsicles in the hallway. At this point I was also growing my bangs out, which is the most awkward-looking thing a girl can do during her early teenage years.

Next time I’m at home, I will find my school photo from that year to prove how hideous and awkward I was. Awful. I should also remember to get my diaries and join in Lojo’s Teen Angst Archives.

2001
Grade 9. This year my since-Kindergarten best friend went absolutely crazy. She got her first “real boyfriend” then suffered a break up and went a bit off the deep end and flirted with self mutilation. Try as I might to help her, she didn’t seem to listen and spiralled deeper into her depression. I gave up on her quickly and focused on a new group of friends. We got a new girl in our class. (In Outlook, this is a big deal) New girl Jamie sat next to me in homeroom and we are BFF instantly. She is hilarious and I loved every moment of the next couple of years thanks to the trio of me, Terri and Jamie.

2002
Grade 10. I got contacts in 2002 and realized my love for Math and Physics. Learner’s license is attained, blah blah blah.

2003
Grade 11. I got my license the week after my 16th birthday on my first try, I am awesome. I also start dating Cody in this year and make the classic mistake of completely ditching my friends and putting all my time and effort into this, my first relationship. I also got a part-time job working at the motel in town, and with that, I gain my first bit of freedom: my own money and the opportunity to drive myself to school. Around this year, I stop riding the school bus almost completely. I get involved in almost everything I possibly can so that I have an excuse to drive to school rather than take the bus. Shit, I hated the school bus.

2004
Grade 12. Finally. This year I kicked it into high gear and got super high marks. I set the goal of university scholarships, and Valedictorian. I achieved it and gave the Valedictorian address at my high school graduation. Despite committing my first act of rebellion (a bellybutton piercing), the summer was not so great: Cody and I “took a break” which was the beginning of the end for that relationship. I moved away from home and enjoy a free ride my first year university. I met my roommates Jamie and Dawn for the first time, this Jamie also proves to be a BFF, as well as I learn a lot from her about “real” life. October 2004 was the big break up. As a result, I bombed all my midterms and tried to deal with the post-breakup drama and bull shit. I learned a lot about myself and what an adult relationship should be. A lot of highs and a lot of lows in 2004, but mostly lessons learned.

2005
The early part of 2005 was an extension of the breakup situation, but in the summer I traveled to Italy and Germany. I also started work at the Co-op warehouse this year and really came into my own, independence-wise. I questioned my education choices, but did nothing to change them. All is not lost though, some pretty key friendships start near the end of 2005, although I associate them more with the year(s) to follow.

2006
In 2006 I was no longer a teenager, I turned 20. In winter semester of second year, Team Lift assembles. Although Reegan was an original member, let’s face it: it was a tripod, standing on the legs of D-dub, Dan and I. Reegan was along for the ride, but I never felt any real commitment out of him. Team Lift worked both for and against me. For me, in the sense that we had awesome fucking times when awesome times were getting a bit hard for me to come by, and against in the sense that Dwayne and Dan are much smarter than me, and thus had to do much less schoolwork to get by. I tried to adopt a similar approach, but couldn’t hack it, and I failed my first thing ever: PHYS 226. Ouch. But I got over it quickly (except for still hating Hussey with every ounce of my being), worked night shifts at the Co-op, had a kick ass summer(complete with a fling), and cut my cord from Jamie to move in with my new BFFs. This was also the year that I met Ryan on his birthday pubcrawl, and an everlasting bond of BFFery was forged. Unfortunately he chose this year to move to Edmonton, but for the safety of Saskatoon and surrounding regions, that was probably a good idea. I’m not sure how much crazier my life could’ve gotten at this point without caving in on itself, so having Ryan 5 hours away probably kept us all out of jail.
All of these friendships have equally weighted importance in my life, and I treasure them very much to this day. 2006 was definitely the year that I found my second family and those totally cliché friends from college days: the ones that you visit and talk to forever.
Also, due to my extreme workload that year, extended sickness and stress factor, I was very skinny. I still miss my 2006 physique.

2007
Dwayne and I spend New Year’s Eve of 2006/2007 moving all of our shit into a new place to live. We had trimmed the fat, remedied a shitty roommate situation and move Team Lift into a new place, Edward Ave. In January, I had my first “date”, with Matt and around March, I am fairly certain that Matt is someone I might like to keep around. That same winter, we had our housewarming party + EP grad. It was awesome. I opted for more rebellion in 2007, getting two tattoos. Dwayne was gone for most of that summer, but I bought my first car (the Bumblebee) and had a fight with Dan. By the fall of 2007, I was ready to GTFO of Saskatoon. School was driving me crazy, after switching back to day shifts at work, I was starting to hate even my beloved Co-op. Matt has the idea to move to Asia and teach English for a while, and I was all too ready to take a break from school and figure out what the fuck I was doing with my life. Tattoos, plans for dropping out of school and moving to Asia to live in sin? I think it’s safe to say my parents were shitting bricks by the end of 2007.

2008
A lot of planning was done in the first few months, so that on April 28th, Matt and I were officially living in Bangkok. Naturally, I was a bit concerned about not only moving in with, but moving across the Earth with someone I had been with barely a year. Putting myself in this situation, and being so far from my support system of BFFs and family, if shit went bad with us, shit would go REALLY bad for me. Although Matt and I had been friends since 2005, I’d never lived with him, (or any boyfriend), and I’d certainly never lived in another country. This move would be the test of a lifetime on a pretty green relationship. Luckily, it seemed like there was no adjustment period, things were pretty great. We had only each other to lean on, to talk to, to travel with. And so that’s what we did. After traveling and vacationing for a few months, we find teaching jobs… at the same school. After about 6 months of teaching, I was impressed. We lived together, traveled together and now worked together (although we had worked together before, at C0-op). At this point, after the shit we’d been through, and even thinking about it now, I’m sure there’s nothing that we can’t handle together. We had barely a fight at all, and we spent Christmas in Laos at a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was also in this year I realized I do not want to be a teacher, AND the year that we find Meez. Fucking love that cat.

2009
I rang this new year in on a bus back from Laos. Getting pretty fed up with excessive heat and humidity, Thailand’s prevailing laziness and shitty school system, we make plans to come home. During a visit from Ryan in April, I was hit by a ton of bricks: I’d love love LOVE to be a publishing editor. So back to school I went in September, only to find out that the Linguistics program is no more, and I must reconsider my life choices yet again. Minnie entered our household in the fall and Matt landed a fantastic job at Saskatchewan Research Council and finally seems content with using his education in his occupation. I got a job at Pier 1, and things started to really fall into place, much needed, after a few months of questioning our move home.

So 2010. As it stands, I am applying to SIAST for the X-ray tech (MRT) program in the fall of 2010. We’re hoping to move out of our shithole basement suite in the summer. I’m looking forward to another Saskatoon summer, and hopefully meeting Matt’s dad at his home in Pennsylvania next Christmas. I’ll probably also take a few hundred more pictures of the cats.

Long term, after doing the MRT schooling, I would like to upgrade to MRI tech, then work for a few years until we can feel financially stable enough to move out to BC and leave Saskatchewan winters behind forever. There, I can hopefully complete the Linguistics program and start on the road to editor. Either that or have a couple of kids I can resent later because I had to forsake all of my dreams. We’ll see.