Halftime

I know it has been a long time since my last post and I apologize. During that time I was very busy working and stuying and frankly, tired and not in a mood to blog when I was done. I was also home for Thanksgiving (more on those observations in a futue post). And I celebrated my one year anniversary of living abroad! Happy Anniversary to meeeeeee. Briefly - my top 5 highs and lows from the past year:

Lows - in no particular order (boo)
1) When I went to a work party last Feb and could not understand a word of French and went home and cried
2) One day in April when I had a really bad day at work and then promptly lost CHF 300 in the casino and went home and cried
3) The day after Justin left in Sept and I went home and saw a glass he had used the day before and cried
4) January last year in the office when I got a bucketload of work dumped on me (promised to never happen again...we will find out in 4 weeks)
5) Hearing them sing take me out to the ballgame at a Cubs game on tv...I teared up

Highs!
1) Going to the top of Mt. Pilatus with Aimee and Chris
2) Hiking in First, Switzerland with Justin (and Aimee and Chris, seperately)
3) Snowboarding in Zermatt
4) The first time I ordered delivery in French
5) Martini and Rib (and singalong) night at Dave and Lisa's

Ok, well, I wrote this list in about 5 minutes. And it took me about 4 minutes to come up with the lows and 1 to come up with the highs, and I have so many more of those highs I could list. Actually the intent was not really to say that I have sooo many more highs than lows, because believe me honey, it don't feel like that all the time. It's pretty easy to get caught up in the lows and concentrate on that - same as in your normal daily life. I mean isn't it so much easier to get annoyed with some stupid idiot who sent you an e-mail than it is to get jazzed up about a nice e-mail a friend sent you a few days ago? Or more easy to get annoyed about having to stay late at work for a week than to remember the day you skipped to snuggle with your boyfriend. But I guess I do have more highs than lows, which is good!

So anyway, I guess my point is that this past year, while at times it has been super hard, and I have complained a LOT and cried to my mom, to Justin, by myself, to guys I work with that weirded them out...it has also been as well one of the most rewarding years of my life. Being all on my own can be hard, but at the same time, all the failures and successes are pretty much entirely mine, which makes them that much harder or sweeter. An interesting year for sure. Which is by all accounts better than an easy boring one.

Well well, I wasn't planning to post about this, but I guess my writer's block is over. My goals (briefly) for the next year:

1) Improve my French where I can talk to all my friends in the office easily
2) Learn to ski
3) Visit Ireland
4) Visit Spain
5) Visit Italian Switzerland
6) Read more books on my balcony (need visitors to help with this!!)
7) Stop leaving my laundry all over my bedroom floor

That's it for now. I am sure I'll come up with more, but I think these are good for the time being.