Late meme
1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
Went to New York.
Went to Disneyland.
Went to Japan by myself!
Filed a US tax return.
Attend an Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
Submitted a paper to a journal (not just a conference!).
Saw Turisas, Rhapsody and the Mountain Goats live.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
If I made any, I subsequently forgot them. I didn't make any "in time" this year, but I suppose I may tack some on throughout January if the need grabs me.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Ria did! I'm pretty sure some people I work with did too, but I'm not close to them other than by physical proximity.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
Japan!
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Motivation.
7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
While I'm sure several events will, I'm not sure of any actual dates.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Geez, that's though. It certainly wasn't a big achievement, whatever it was.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Being productive at work, which is terrible. A whole year at one of the world's leading research universities, a field-leader as a mentor, and no classes or teching obligations to distract me and I still manage to barely get anything done.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing seroius. Some fillings, probably a few colds. Loss of hearing in one ear due to excess wax, which was pretty gross.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Nothing is really immediately springing to mind. Which is not to say that nothing I bought was worth buying, just that I guess they were uniformly good but not really outstanding?
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Kirsty's, for putting up with me.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Nobody's, really.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent. Given that this is just under half my salary, and that I have to eat a certain amount of food to stay alive, it would be literally impossible for me to spend more on anything other than rent unless I bought ridiculous quantities of food. Most non-necessity money probably went on electronic parts to think about playing with instead of working.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I'm not sure I ever get excited enough to warrant three "really"s.
16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
I'm not sure any will.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Perhaps sadder, but only by a little?
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner, I think, but probably not by much.
c) richer or poorer? Richer.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Work.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Sleeping.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent it at home with Kirsty, because what else would I do here? We stayed home and did the things we usually do, albeit with Christmas music and better food and drink. We Skyped with Kirsty's mother, but no other family on the actual day.
21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
I stayed in love.
22. How many one-night stands?
None.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Probably "The Office". Which for the most part had nothing to do with 2012 at all, but we smashed the whole show in like a month via Netflix and got pretty into it. Oh, that or "Firefly", whih I finally finished watching. As you can see, I don't exactly keep up to date with television.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.
25. What was the best book you read?
Probably "Diaspora" by Greg Egan. But it was the best of a pretty small bunch.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
This has actually been the most musically expansive year I've had in a long time, possibly ever. I made a pretty thorough survey of the field of electronic music, which probably has even more ridiculously specific specific sub-genres than metal. To no great surprise, I have decided that the vast majority of it is total crap. To be fair, most of it seems designed solely for either dancing to and/or taking drugs to, neither of which I care about, so I would think that. Nevertheless, I found some stuff I could tolerate. I liked a lot of stuff by Yellow Magic Orchestra, and some but definitely not all of Kraftwerk. I quite like the "Berlin School" of electronic music, perhaps best exemplified today by Redshift. I can enjoy a lot of ambient/down-tempo/chill/whatever stuff. Also, this wsa the year my long-standing flirtation with chiptune turned into a full blown love affair. For the last week or so Kirsty and I have been listening to very old (60s and 70s) music on internet radio and I've actually found it much more tolerable than I ever would have imagined. I spent a lot of time this year reading about audio electronics, synthesis techniques and music theory, and I suspect this may underly my broadening tastes.
27. What did you want and get?
Lots of things.
28. What did you want and not get?
Also lots of things.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Hunger Games.
30. What did you do on your birthday?
I intended to visit the Cold War missile base north of SF, but it turned out ot be inaccessible by public transport, so splat went that. Instead we ended up visiting the Sutro baths, Lucasfilm headquaters, and other miscellaneous places around the city.
31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Money.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Not giving a single, solitary shit?
33. What kept you sane?
I think sanity was kind of a stable equilibrium for me. It would take something actively pushing me away from sanity to lose it, rather than something actively keeping me sane in defiance of some kind of drive away from it.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Bah.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
None, really.
36. Who did you miss?
Kirsty when I was in Japan, but that's mostly it.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
I didn't really meet anybody in any significant way.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:
That I don't necessarily know what I want to do with my life after all. Also the phrase "this too shall pass", whih I leanred about a few weeks before Ria mentioned it in (I think) her version of this survey, in that Bader-Meinhoffian way that stuff seems to happen.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I mostly listened to instrumental music this year. The stuff with words was mostly about 10th century warfare, which my year didn't much resemble. I'm thankful for that.