See you later, 2011!

Here is the year-end round-up! Books Read: 91 WHAT. This is way low for me, y'all. WEIRD. Comics Read: 0 Although I have a stack of comics read, all the sequential art I've read has been in graphic novel form. Huh. Concerts Attended: 2

• Esperanza Spalding's Chamber Music Society Tour [06 October 2011]
• Lupe Fiasco's Generation Laser Tour, with opening acts Sarah Green and New Boyz [30 September 2011]

Movies Seen in the Theatre: 11 Bridesmaids, Captain America, Cars 2 (3D), Crazy Stupid Love, Kung Fu Panda 2 (3D), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (3D), Real Steel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Source Code, Thor (3D), X-Men: First Class Movies Watched Outside the Theatre: 16 Classes Taken: 6 Empirical Research in Writing [Spring 2011] Composition Studies: Postmodern Rhetoric [Spring 2011] Public Rhetorics [Spring 2011] Rhetoric and Posthumanism [Fall 2011] Gender, Rhetoric, and the Body [Fall 2011] Assessment [Fall 2011] Classes Taught: 3 Two sections of First-Year Composition [Spring and Fall 2011] One section of Animal Breeding [Fall 2011] -- I didn't suddenly add a new specialty! I co-taught the writing portion of the course, so there were three of us: the Animal Science professor and two composition lecturers. Conferences/Lectures Attended: 3 Conferences:

• Composing Live(s): Writing the Self and the Other Within the Disciplines [Miami University, 25 March 2011]
• Conference on College Composition and Communication 2011 [Atlanta, April 6-9]
• Computers & Writing 2011, Ann Arbor, MI [19-22 May 2011]

2 Lectures:

• T.C. Boyle lecture and reading [29 March 2011]
• "Cancer, Culture, and Community," with guest presenters Noah Hutton and Seun Adibiyi [03 November 2011]

Festivals and Conventions Attended: 0 Huh. Museums and Monuments Visited: 7 Turner Field, Atlanta [07 April 2011] World of Coke, Atlanta [08 April 2011] Chicago Lake and River Tour, Wendella Boat Tours [12 Aug 2011] Highlights by Bus: Robie House, Chicago Architecture Foundation [13 Aug 2011] Art Institute of Chicago [13 Aug 2011] Skydeck, Willas Tower [14 Aug 2011] Chicago Theatre Marquee Tour [15 Aug 2011] Sporting Events Attended: 0 I totally skipped out on football and volleyball games this year! I clearly need to step it up. Theatre Attended: 7 Arabian Nights by Mary Zimmerman [26 February 2011] Blue Man Group [West Lafayette, 01 March 2011] Monty Python's Spamalot [27 March 2011] The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by Rachel Sheinkin and William Finn [23 April 2011] Little Shop of Horrors [27 May 2011] The Miracle Worker by William Gibson [02 October 2011] Iphigenia & Other Daughters by Ellen McLaughlin [19 November 2011] Road Trips Taken: 3 Atlanta [April 2011], Ann Arbor [May 2011], Chicago [August 2011] Best Film I Saw in 2011: Crazy, Stupid, Love and Captain America were both flawed, but entertaining. Other than fleshing things out more, I actually don't think I would alter anything about either movie to improve it. For me, that's pretty darn good. Best TV Shows I Watched in 2011: Series 6 of Doctor Who, any and all Community and Cougar Town, Parks and Recreation, The Good Wife, and Game of Thrones. This was...a really good year. Best Episodes of TV I Watched in 2011: Game of Thrones 1.10: Fire and Blood Doctor Who 6.08: A Good Man Goes to War Community 3.07: Studies in Modern Movement Best TV Moment I Watched in 2011: The very last moment of Game of Thrones 1.10--if you watched it, YOU KNOW THE ONE--gave me chills. And I wept. Because HOLY CRAP. Even though I knew it was coming. Best Books I Read in 2011: Diane Davis's Inessential Solidarity, which is just a gorgeously written book about the weird academic things that I love. Mira Grant's Feed, which just BLEW MY MIND, and was funny and heartbreaking and terrifying all at once. Favorite Albums of 2011: Lupe Fiasco's LASERS just filled me with so much joy every time I listened to it. Best Concert I Attended in 2011: Surprise, surprise: Lupe Fiasco's LASERS tour. I danced THE WHOLE TIME. It was magnificent. Favorite Songs of the Year: Ke$ha's "Blow" Glee's mash-up of Adele's "Someone Like You" and "Rumor Has It" Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" All-Around Best Things About 2011: I spent a lot of time with some very awesome people this year. I passed my preliminary exams and actually, possibly, maybe have some good ideas for my dissertation. I moved into an awesome, awesome apartment. I feel...more like myself than I have, ever. All-Around Worst Thing About 2011: Working until 6 was a great idea in spring, when home was a ten-minute walk from campus. This fall, when home was a ten-minute wait for the bus, a ten-minute bus ride, and a fifteen-minute walk up a hill? Not so much. Something 2011 Taught Me: No matter how crappy I feel, and no matter what crappy things happen, I am really good at what I do and, weirdly, people know that. Why 2012 Will Be Better Than 2011: I will keep on keepin' on, and I know that I'm on the right track.