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So I'd also like to do some decade-wide roundups before we move on from the roundups. (I like roundups!) Now, some might argue that a new decade doesn't start until NEXT year and all, but it's still ten years since MOST people were doing decade (century/millennium) round-ups so we'll go by that count, for one thing. And for another thing it's been exactly ten years (ten years and a couple weeks) since I started dating this new, somewhat dorky and obnoxious but at least not BORING, guy, and when you look back at the beginning of that to today, you realize exactly what an interesting span of time that is. Who knew me giving that dorky guy a chance would result in two completely new human beings existing by the end of that decade?
So to start off, I have taken that Year-In-Review survey and edited all the questions, as best as possible, to make it a Decade-in-Review survey instead. This is how my answers change:
1. What did you do this past decade that you'd never done before?
I guess the most dramatic answer would be Give Birth. For that matter, Have Sex.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I can't see how to edit this question to apply to a decade easily. Let's say: "Did you meet the goals you had going in to the decade?" Hmm. Well, I am not yet published, and am hardly a success in any sort of career, but I DO have a family. That's more luck-related though.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
There was of course, ME, twice. Who else of note was born this decade? Ellie and Jack, Larry and Malcolm, Anna Leigh, Maureen, Jacob and Zach, and the miracle baby turned SuperGenius, my cousin Zoe.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
A grandmother; two grandparents-in-law, but that's more close by marriage than actually close to ME; the man who wrote my favorite song, and the woman who wrote my favorite book. The latter two are indeed very close to me, I'm just not close to THEM.
5. What countries did you visit?
Alas, the last I stepped foot on foreign soil was 1999. The farthest from home I got this decade was southwest Missouri. Went to Chicago once. West Virginia a few times. Ohio once I think.
6. What would you like to have in the 20-teens that you lacked in the 20-oughts?
a writing career
7. What dates from the past decade will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 27, 2003; April 14, 2007; and April 19, 2009. Those are when I gained close new family members of course! Now of course society makes dates like Sept. 11 2001 stick in the memory, but personally I'll stick with the personal dates.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the decade?
Hmm. Being a grown-up in general. Doing my own taxes. Not throwing chairs at my middle schoolers even when they threw them at each other. Learning how to write even when not "inspired."
9. What was your biggest failure?
Teaching. I should say, being a classroom teacher. I like to think I'm still capable of helping people learn in general!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Turns out I have a really crappy back. I'll count that as the overarching big thing.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The most dramatic life-changing thing I bought was a house, but it can be rather annoying at times, which takes away from the "best" thing. Two best Deals I got: my $120-retail wedding shoes I got for ten dollars; a $1.50 grocery store play ball-- I got my money's worth in like the first two minutes of Sam playing with that. Seriously, grocery store balls are the BEST TOY EVER.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Mine. I survived becoming a self-sufficient grownup!
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
All the terrible grownups out there. When you're a kid, you just trust that grownups know what they're doing. Then you grow up to discover just how many of them are shallow, rude, and/or stupid, and you wonder how society has managed to hold it together this long.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Buying a house, probably.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
How much I love library science?
16. What song will always remind you of this decade?
I think I'm going to go with Green Day's "American Idiot." It's indelibly linked to driving home from the middle school, and somehow that just seems the best way to sum up the whole decade too.
17. Compared to this time last, um, decade, are you:
a) happier or sadder? I don't know. I had just fallen in love, which allowed for a walking-on-air quality, but on the other hand I was feeling very up in the air and anxious about my future. I feel much more secure nowadays.
b) thinner or fatter? Probably fatter, but I had just started to get fatter then. Still, probably not as much as I am now.
c) richer or poorer? technically poorer, but I was still financially dependent on my parents-- I didn't have money, but I was quite comfortable, and had much more disposable... not income, allowance I guess is a better word! I, you know, went out to eat and stuff!
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Getting together with friends, and making a point of keeping in touch and starting traditional get-together opportunities.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
wandering around and/or staring into space trying to figure out what I ought to be doing instead. Hey, I'm keeping this answer exactly from the Year-end survey!
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Okay, this question is odder for a whole decade for sure, but because I got a husband this decade, we ended up having to develop which-holidays-do-we-spend-with-which-families traditions. My family gets Christmas Eve, his gets Christmas Day.
21. Did you fall in love this decade?
In a romantic sense, possibly-- I started falling at the very end of 1999, but I probably wasn't properly in love until 2000. Definitely fell madly in love in a non-romantic sense-- but harder than I ever believed possible-- twice, too.
22. How many one-night stands?
Don't think even any of the Performing Arts variety, either.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Of shows actually broadcast entirely this decade, well, Firefly, except I only actually saw one episode of that while it was on the air. I watched Freaks and Geeks mostly after the fact too, but I can't remember if that started in '99 or later. I made a point of catching Gilmore Girls and Heroes for a long while until I got tired of having to watch TV. And I was very fond of Netflix-ing The X-Files this decade.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last decade?
I really have felt even LESS hateful as time goes by, period.
25. What was the best book you read?
This whole decade? Gah. Well, see below for my Best Books OF the Decade list, but I also read some earlier books for the first time this decade, like The Dark Is Rising series, The Ear The Eye and the Arm, anything by Diana Wynne Jones, the earlier Young Wizards books... man, seriously, too hard.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Barrett-era Floyd. And the Nuggets II collection. Similar there, aren't they.
27. What did you want and get?
A husband and kids. Specifically, though of course I would have been happy with whatever kids I got, but I even got, for those kids, a sweet, brainy big brother and a spunky energetic little sister, which was exactly what I always wanted, so go figure.
28. What did you want and not get?
A book contract.
29. What was your favorite film of the decade?
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. what year did Almost Famous come out in?
30. What did you do on your birthday?
My most memorable birthday of the decade was... um, I guess none have been particularly memorable. I went to Mexican restaurants a lot.
31.What one thing would have made your decade immeasurably more satisfying?
If Jason had one steady well-paying job he liked enough that I could just happily set up a full-time writer's schedule. Okay, that probably counts as two separate things.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this decade?
To the extent that I tried to develop a personal fashion concept, I was going for a sort of flowy hippie thing. But what ended up happening was, I just pull on jeans and a t-shirt/sweatshirt every day.
33. What kept you sane?
Jason, online community building, and reading. Also, repeated bouts of counseling.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Wow, it's been a long decade. I don't know. Dav Pilkey or Ewan McGregor.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Education, and letting teachers teach.
36. Who did you miss?
All my college friends. Can you believe it's been a whole decade since I left campus for student teaching? College was The Life.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
Sam and Maddie of course!
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this decade:
Birth control is A Lie.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your decade:
The most appropriate is "I just found out there's no such thing as the real world/Just a lie you've got to rise above," but I hate John Mayer.
I do believe that's much more interesting over the course of a decade rather than a year-- it's much more dramatic to see how things develop. Can you imagine if I rounded up the 1990s that way? Or the 80s? It reminds me of when we went to Meadville when I was 14 and I saw a girl on the sidewalk and knew I knew her, then a moment later my mom pointed out that she was the older sister of a boy I'd been friends with in preschool, and it seemed SO INCREDIBLE that I had recognized someone I'd not seen in 9 years. But now it's been nearly ten years since I've seen most of the people I went to college with, but it seems like nothing ago. The difference between 32 and 22 is nothing like 14 and 5....
Anyway, while I was gathering book titles I'd read this year I also decided to do a Best of the Decade list as well. I'm not prepared to stake my life on the results, but I did make a rather nice list if you count that I counted all series as one title, so as not to monopolize the lists (though Terry Pratchett snuck on there twice, seeing as the one wasn't a series book). i think I've decided, then I see things I'd move around or that I've forgotten, so what the heck, here's something:
1. Pratchett, Terry. Nation (2008): While I'd say it's definitely the best book I've read in the past year, it sort of surprised me that I couldn't think of anything better than it to put on the decade list, either.
2. Funke, Cornelia. The Inkheart trilogy, particularly Inkspell (2005). I wanted to write these books, and I could never make it work. She made it work and made it AWESOME.
3. Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003). Though the series stretches back into the 90s, I knew I couldn't leave any of the rest of it out of these lists. And I don't care how over-long this one is, it's still my favorite so NYEH.
4. Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men (2003) and maybe possibly in turn Wintersmith (2007) (I was not as big a fan of Hat Full of Sky). The first was my introduction to Discworld and is just so wonderfully fun. I do love the, eh, grown-up Discworld books something swell, but Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle rock everybody.
5. Collins, Suzanne. Hunger Games (2008). The ability to inspire obsession must not be taken lightly.
6. Howe, James. The Misfits (2001). Sums up everything that is great about middle schoolers and everything that sucks about middle school, all in one book!
7. Snicket, Lemony. The penultimate peril (2005). This series may have been unfortunate but was oh so much fun, if at times uneven. THIS book was, though, by far the best, if only for the Dewey jokes!
8. Duane, Diane. The Wizard's Dilemma (2001). Is the pinnacle of the awesomeness that is the Young Wizards series.
9. Oppel, Kenneth. Airborn (2004). The buzz is that Steampunk is the next big subgenre. Perhaps this was the start of it.
10. Riordan, Rick. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (2005-2009). Not only is it another great fantasy-adventure questy deal, it's laugh out loud hilarious on top of that!
11. Fforde, Jasper. The Thursday Next series (2000-present? 07?). How do you convince me to read Adult Fiction? Tell me about a humorous mystery series featuring characters from classic literature.
12. Clare, Cassandra. The Mortal Instruments trilogy (2007-2009). I was pleasantly surprised by just what a PLEASURE it was to read this series. You get all your "Urban fantasy is so edgy and gritty!" folks, but forget them-- this was just so much FUN.
13. Stewart, Trenton Lee. The mysterious Benedict Society (2007). I am all about puzzles, sneaky cultural references, and nerdy boys inexplicably named after US presidents (even when they don't have superpowers).
14. Levine, Gail Carson. Fairest (2006). Takes place in the same world as Ella Enchanted, which I've always adored, but this one's darker and more heartaching but oh so awesome.
Oh, okay. A tie for 15:
15. Balliett, Blue. Chasing Vermeer (2004). Because puzzle mysteries that remind me of my mom rock.
and
also 15. Yee, Lisa. Millicent Min, girl genius (2003). Because yes, there are people nerdier than me, and to pull off writing someone like that and still make her well-rounded and sympathetic is awesome.
And there the list will stand for now.
I found the Billboard charts and thought of going through them to make commentary on the songs that charted in the past year and/or decade, to make up for me being unable to do that off the top of my head, but I don't feel like doing that now. I still might sometime soon. We'll get to that.
So to start off, I have taken that Year-In-Review survey and edited all the questions, as best as possible, to make it a Decade-in-Review survey instead. This is how my answers change:
1. What did you do this past decade that you'd never done before?
I guess the most dramatic answer would be Give Birth. For that matter, Have Sex.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I can't see how to edit this question to apply to a decade easily. Let's say: "Did you meet the goals you had going in to the decade?" Hmm. Well, I am not yet published, and am hardly a success in any sort of career, but I DO have a family. That's more luck-related though.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
There was of course, ME, twice. Who else of note was born this decade? Ellie and Jack, Larry and Malcolm, Anna Leigh, Maureen, Jacob and Zach, and the miracle baby turned SuperGenius, my cousin Zoe.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
A grandmother; two grandparents-in-law, but that's more close by marriage than actually close to ME; the man who wrote my favorite song, and the woman who wrote my favorite book. The latter two are indeed very close to me, I'm just not close to THEM.
5. What countries did you visit?
Alas, the last I stepped foot on foreign soil was 1999. The farthest from home I got this decade was southwest Missouri. Went to Chicago once. West Virginia a few times. Ohio once I think.
6. What would you like to have in the 20-teens that you lacked in the 20-oughts?
a writing career
7. What dates from the past decade will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 27, 2003; April 14, 2007; and April 19, 2009. Those are when I gained close new family members of course! Now of course society makes dates like Sept. 11 2001 stick in the memory, but personally I'll stick with the personal dates.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the decade?
Hmm. Being a grown-up in general. Doing my own taxes. Not throwing chairs at my middle schoolers even when they threw them at each other. Learning how to write even when not "inspired."
9. What was your biggest failure?
Teaching. I should say, being a classroom teacher. I like to think I'm still capable of helping people learn in general!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Turns out I have a really crappy back. I'll count that as the overarching big thing.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The most dramatic life-changing thing I bought was a house, but it can be rather annoying at times, which takes away from the "best" thing. Two best Deals I got: my $120-retail wedding shoes I got for ten dollars; a $1.50 grocery store play ball-- I got my money's worth in like the first two minutes of Sam playing with that. Seriously, grocery store balls are the BEST TOY EVER.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Mine. I survived becoming a self-sufficient grownup!
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
All the terrible grownups out there. When you're a kid, you just trust that grownups know what they're doing. Then you grow up to discover just how many of them are shallow, rude, and/or stupid, and you wonder how society has managed to hold it together this long.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Buying a house, probably.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
How much I love library science?
16. What song will always remind you of this decade?
I think I'm going to go with Green Day's "American Idiot." It's indelibly linked to driving home from the middle school, and somehow that just seems the best way to sum up the whole decade too.
17. Compared to this time last, um, decade, are you:
a) happier or sadder? I don't know. I had just fallen in love, which allowed for a walking-on-air quality, but on the other hand I was feeling very up in the air and anxious about my future. I feel much more secure nowadays.
b) thinner or fatter? Probably fatter, but I had just started to get fatter then. Still, probably not as much as I am now.
c) richer or poorer? technically poorer, but I was still financially dependent on my parents-- I didn't have money, but I was quite comfortable, and had much more disposable... not income, allowance I guess is a better word! I, you know, went out to eat and stuff!
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Getting together with friends, and making a point of keeping in touch and starting traditional get-together opportunities.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
wandering around and/or staring into space trying to figure out what I ought to be doing instead. Hey, I'm keeping this answer exactly from the Year-end survey!
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Okay, this question is odder for a whole decade for sure, but because I got a husband this decade, we ended up having to develop which-holidays-do-we-spend-with-which-families traditions. My family gets Christmas Eve, his gets Christmas Day.
21. Did you fall in love this decade?
In a romantic sense, possibly-- I started falling at the very end of 1999, but I probably wasn't properly in love until 2000. Definitely fell madly in love in a non-romantic sense-- but harder than I ever believed possible-- twice, too.
22. How many one-night stands?
Don't think even any of the Performing Arts variety, either.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Of shows actually broadcast entirely this decade, well, Firefly, except I only actually saw one episode of that while it was on the air. I watched Freaks and Geeks mostly after the fact too, but I can't remember if that started in '99 or later. I made a point of catching Gilmore Girls and Heroes for a long while until I got tired of having to watch TV. And I was very fond of Netflix-ing The X-Files this decade.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last decade?
I really have felt even LESS hateful as time goes by, period.
25. What was the best book you read?
This whole decade? Gah. Well, see below for my Best Books OF the Decade list, but I also read some earlier books for the first time this decade, like The Dark Is Rising series, The Ear The Eye and the Arm, anything by Diana Wynne Jones, the earlier Young Wizards books... man, seriously, too hard.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Barrett-era Floyd. And the Nuggets II collection. Similar there, aren't they.
27. What did you want and get?
A husband and kids. Specifically, though of course I would have been happy with whatever kids I got, but I even got, for those kids, a sweet, brainy big brother and a spunky energetic little sister, which was exactly what I always wanted, so go figure.
28. What did you want and not get?
A book contract.
29. What was your favorite film of the decade?
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. what year did Almost Famous come out in?
30. What did you do on your birthday?
My most memorable birthday of the decade was... um, I guess none have been particularly memorable. I went to Mexican restaurants a lot.
31.What one thing would have made your decade immeasurably more satisfying?
If Jason had one steady well-paying job he liked enough that I could just happily set up a full-time writer's schedule. Okay, that probably counts as two separate things.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this decade?
To the extent that I tried to develop a personal fashion concept, I was going for a sort of flowy hippie thing. But what ended up happening was, I just pull on jeans and a t-shirt/sweatshirt every day.
33. What kept you sane?
Jason, online community building, and reading. Also, repeated bouts of counseling.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Wow, it's been a long decade. I don't know. Dav Pilkey or Ewan McGregor.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Education, and letting teachers teach.
36. Who did you miss?
All my college friends. Can you believe it's been a whole decade since I left campus for student teaching? College was The Life.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
Sam and Maddie of course!
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this decade:
Birth control is A Lie.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your decade:
The most appropriate is "I just found out there's no such thing as the real world/Just a lie you've got to rise above," but I hate John Mayer.
I do believe that's much more interesting over the course of a decade rather than a year-- it's much more dramatic to see how things develop. Can you imagine if I rounded up the 1990s that way? Or the 80s? It reminds me of when we went to Meadville when I was 14 and I saw a girl on the sidewalk and knew I knew her, then a moment later my mom pointed out that she was the older sister of a boy I'd been friends with in preschool, and it seemed SO INCREDIBLE that I had recognized someone I'd not seen in 9 years. But now it's been nearly ten years since I've seen most of the people I went to college with, but it seems like nothing ago. The difference between 32 and 22 is nothing like 14 and 5....
Anyway, while I was gathering book titles I'd read this year I also decided to do a Best of the Decade list as well. I'm not prepared to stake my life on the results, but I did make a rather nice list if you count that I counted all series as one title, so as not to monopolize the lists (though Terry Pratchett snuck on there twice, seeing as the one wasn't a series book). i think I've decided, then I see things I'd move around or that I've forgotten, so what the heck, here's something:
1. Pratchett, Terry. Nation (2008): While I'd say it's definitely the best book I've read in the past year, it sort of surprised me that I couldn't think of anything better than it to put on the decade list, either.
2. Funke, Cornelia. The Inkheart trilogy, particularly Inkspell (2005). I wanted to write these books, and I could never make it work. She made it work and made it AWESOME.
3. Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003). Though the series stretches back into the 90s, I knew I couldn't leave any of the rest of it out of these lists. And I don't care how over-long this one is, it's still my favorite so NYEH.
4. Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men (2003) and maybe possibly in turn Wintersmith (2007) (I was not as big a fan of Hat Full of Sky). The first was my introduction to Discworld and is just so wonderfully fun. I do love the, eh, grown-up Discworld books something swell, but Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle rock everybody.
5. Collins, Suzanne. Hunger Games (2008). The ability to inspire obsession must not be taken lightly.
6. Howe, James. The Misfits (2001). Sums up everything that is great about middle schoolers and everything that sucks about middle school, all in one book!
7. Snicket, Lemony. The penultimate peril (2005). This series may have been unfortunate but was oh so much fun, if at times uneven. THIS book was, though, by far the best, if only for the Dewey jokes!
8. Duane, Diane. The Wizard's Dilemma (2001). Is the pinnacle of the awesomeness that is the Young Wizards series.
9. Oppel, Kenneth. Airborn (2004). The buzz is that Steampunk is the next big subgenre. Perhaps this was the start of it.
10. Riordan, Rick. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (2005-2009). Not only is it another great fantasy-adventure questy deal, it's laugh out loud hilarious on top of that!
11. Fforde, Jasper. The Thursday Next series (2000-present? 07?). How do you convince me to read Adult Fiction? Tell me about a humorous mystery series featuring characters from classic literature.
12. Clare, Cassandra. The Mortal Instruments trilogy (2007-2009). I was pleasantly surprised by just what a PLEASURE it was to read this series. You get all your "Urban fantasy is so edgy and gritty!" folks, but forget them-- this was just so much FUN.
13. Stewart, Trenton Lee. The mysterious Benedict Society (2007). I am all about puzzles, sneaky cultural references, and nerdy boys inexplicably named after US presidents (even when they don't have superpowers).
14. Levine, Gail Carson. Fairest (2006). Takes place in the same world as Ella Enchanted, which I've always adored, but this one's darker and more heartaching but oh so awesome.
Oh, okay. A tie for 15:
15. Balliett, Blue. Chasing Vermeer (2004). Because puzzle mysteries that remind me of my mom rock.
and
also 15. Yee, Lisa. Millicent Min, girl genius (2003). Because yes, there are people nerdier than me, and to pull off writing someone like that and still make her well-rounded and sympathetic is awesome.
And there the list will stand for now.
I found the Billboard charts and thought of going through them to make commentary on the songs that charted in the past year and/or decade, to make up for me being unable to do that off the top of my head, but I don't feel like doing that now. I still might sometime soon. We'll get to that.
