2009 flew past, didn’t it? Quite a bit better than 2008 I must say, and I’m looking forward to what 2010 has in store.

Well, first things first. 2009 was definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dominated by the one we call G-Man, G-Money, the gooch, the goon, Mr. Moo, and every so often we actually use his name: Grey. He arrived late morning on May the 4th and it would be cliche’, stating the obvious, and completely accurate to say that life hasn’t been the same since. Being a parent is exhausting work but we have a great little boy with a very easy going disposition. He sleeps well, he eats pretty well, and he’s all-around healthy and happy, and for that we are truly grateful. All of our friends assure us that things don’t slow down from here, so we’re bracing ourselves for the first steps, first words, and all the other many firsts that tumble out of babies. 2010 will present Grey with a number of firsts inflicted upon him as well. He flew well back in October, so we’re upping the ante by traveling internationally just after his first birthday. We’re heading to Switzerland to visit Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Todd and who knows where side trips might take us. Germany? France? Who knows? One thing we do know is that wee man will get some English culture in him as we’re spending another few days in London on the way home. Have baby, will travel.

Writing has been a great year despite an extremely low output for me. The year started with a bang as my story “Eskhara” was selected for John Joseph Adams’ anthology Federations, and then I was blown away to find out my story “The Hodag” had been chosen by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror of the Year #1, which is by far the most significant achievement of my still-young writing career.

2010 will also start out with another publication, this time in Zahir, a smallish magazine that I’ve always admired. They’re going entirely online this year and my story “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” (which was part of my Masters final project) will appear in the first issue of the year.

I’ve got big ambitions for 2010. This includes submitting a bunch of new stories as well as making the final revisions to my first novel and shopping that around as well. 2009 did not afford me much time to write at all, but with school work winding down I’m looking to rectify that situation.

Speaking of which, I submitted the last seminar paper of my graduate school career a few weeks ago. No more coursework (ever) for me, but I do have my preliminary exam in the spring. I’ve mentioned this exam before, but in brief I’ll have three days to write three, 15-page papers that cover a book list of about 100 or so titles. I have it on good word that it is not nearly as bad as it sounds, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Three of the four courses I took in 2009 were in professional writing, a discipline that makes many of my colleagues shudder but I find it pretty interesting. Once I put a final portfolio of my work together (also this spring or even in the fall) that means I’ll have fulfilled the requirements of getting a special emphasis in professional (i.e. business and technical) writing with a specific focus on information technology. I should teach my first professional writing class next fall too.

I also taught two new courses this year, one in creative writing and the other in college research writing. I’m teaching these again next semester and have a good idea of how I plan to improve both of them, although my students seemed to like them both as it was. The old saw that teachers learn from their students is pretty true, and I hope to be getting better with each passing semester.

‘Twas a dreadful year for reading—only 43 books in a list that includes 10 graphic novels. That’s down from 54 books last year and 64 (!) the year before. There are many reasons for the decline. The biggest is that my courses in 2009 assigned way more articles than books; I probably read nearly 100 articles this year, or the equivalent of about 10 books. The second big reason is that I starting listening to footie podcasts rather than audio books, so that counts for at least another five or so. The final reason is that normally I cram some pleasure reading in over the summer, but see the first item of this blog post to understand why I spent my free time sleeping this past summer.

Even though I read fewer books, there were some doozies in the list. M y favorite were Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (I finally finished every story), The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, and probably my favorite of the lot, Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar, which I finished today, the last day of the year. I plan on hunting down the rest of Cortázar’s short fiction this year.

There’s way too much to sum up succinctly about the beautiful game, but it’s worth noting that Spurs’ stock has steadily risen over the last twelve months, even though I fight back any kind of optimism whatsoever. They lost to Wolves and Stoke at home for God’s sake, so you can’t get too carried away even if they did stuff Wigan 9-1, tying a Premier League record for biggest win.

Long-time readers of this site will know that I lean towards Real Madrid if forced to choose between the Spanish giants, but I (along with everyone else on the planet) have to admire what Barcelona has accomplished this year by winning everything in site. I get very tired of Barcelona fans, but I can’t say that I dislike any of their players now that Eto’o left (although Zlatan Ibrahimović’s ego is enormous and annoying) and the football they play is pure class. Unlike some teams that I will not name here, Barcelona plays the most beautiful football on the planet, they win things, and they remain humble. There’s not much here to dislike.

The US National Team had more lows than highs in my opinion. The Confederations Cup run will live long in the memory, but just like 2002, the team needed a hell of a lot of luck to go their way. They looked pretty dodgy and uninspiring throughout qualifying despite winning the group, but is it because they’re an average team or because they play down to their opponents? Either way, they were gifted a lovely draw for next summer’s World Cup and the need to figure out how to play better more consistently if they want to take advantage of it.

That should wrap it up. This past year was not great for blogging either and I expect that to continue, but thanks to all of those folks who read this space, whether it’s through our past friendships, through following links from Facebook, or via f-lists on LiveJournal. Happy holidays, hope your 2009 was a good one, and all the best in 2010.

Current Mood: Fine |