2010: A Year in Review

What a year this was!
I like to review the end of the year by looking at the pictures on my iPhoto that I took during it. Even though my natural pace is a fast one, reviewing the photos made me go: 'Whoa, Nelly!, that's a lot of year, Bri!'
Last January, I remember reviewing 2009 the way it looked in music. You can revisit that piece here. Incidentally, that piece is also the one that attracted the largest number of traffic to date.

This time around I decided to go through it in picture. Most of this year up to late Summer, I was in Ohio, writing away, teaching courses in my area of expertise, and presenting at academic conferences. I got another article published, gave presentations on a few campuses, and, last but not least, managed to score some tickets to the Real Time with Bill Maher show out in Los Angeles.
Seeing Maher live was as much fun as presenting my latest article on 500 Days of Summer and how I see it as an example of suburbia's almost innate ability to whip most things into submission including punk art. But I see that I've now embarked on a non sequitur and this is not that kind of post.
Summer time had me traveling out West, the land that I love, then back East, the land that holds many of my special people and loved ones, and eventually out West again. This time to live and work in it.

I got to learn how to milk a cow, feed a calf, take a picture with an American Idol out by Rodeo Dr. in Los Angeles, and what else, ah and of course, I went to a bunch of concerts but that is not necessarily report-worthy again as it already got a good chunk of my attention here as well as in my quotidianity. This is not a post about music, neither.

So, what was the theme of this year? Well, the theme would be a soup of light and heavy. Sort of like 'light pop sauteed in substance'. Lightness and severity need to get mixed up, after all.
And the one picture that would do justice to this last paragraph as well as the year in general would be the one featured here taken in May in Los Angeles with me and Casey James, the singer of American Idol fame. No, I don't watch American Idol. Yes, it's the perfect visual of a year where light and heavy coexisted almost too beautifully.

Happy 2011, everyone! What better wish can I have other than to take it as it comes and do the best you can with it....