Has it really been a year since I started the blog?
The time seems to fly nowadays. And it’s only moving by faster. One of my high school teachers had a theory for this – he said that as you get older, each year of your life is a smaller percentage. For example, one year is 10% of a 10-year-old’s life. Now that I’m 21, one year is less than 5%. By the time I’m 50, it will be 2%. As such, the years become less significant and will seem faster. Anyway – I think it’s a good theory. It’s like how the beginning of the day can sometimes seem to drag on, but then it picks up pace and before you know it, you’re asleep. Or how the first mile of a run seems to take forever, but then miles two through five fly by.*
*You want an activity that slows down time? Try running five miles on a treadmill. You get a whole new perspective on just how long forty minutes is.
And yet as fast as the last year has been, there was so much that I did, so much that I saw, and so many people that I met that it’s hard to keep up. It was a year of thirds, and each third was completely different – one-third in the heart of Australia, one-third working in New York City, and one-third back at school in Boston.
There was Sydney. Coogee Beach. The Opera House. The Blue Mountains. Hunter Valley. Walks to Bondi, runs along the coast, 24-hour pancakes, King’s Cross, rugby games (Go Roosters!), Toohey’s, and so much more.
There were travels to other faraway places too: New Orleans and DC and Los Angeles and Atlanta and Melbourne and Christchurch and Queenstown and Wanaka and Te Anau. I spent close to 70 hours on a plane this year.
There was the summer in New York City – the rush of the morning commute, the pace of a working day, afternoons in Grand Central, nights at McSworley’s, the Philharmonic at Central Park.
There were concerts. John Butler in Sydney, Roger Waters at Yankee Stadium, The Wallflowers in DC, Bruce Springsteen in Foxborough, The Who in Boston. Not a bad year for a classic rock fan.
There was baseball. I’ll remember the games I attended – the feel of the Stadium as Hiroki Kuroda no-hit the Rangers into the seventh, Mark Teixeira’s home run against his arch-nemesis Vincente Padilla on a hot July night, Dewayne Wise pitching the ninth inning, blistering rain delays, Bryce Harper’s pinch-hit single in DC*, David Wright’s walk-off against Papelbon at Citi Field. And I’ll remember the many games I watched at home – Derek Jeter’s resurgent season, Mariano Rivera’s torn ACL, Raul Ibanez’s ridiculous home runs, bitter defeat in October.
*The first time I witnessed a player younger than me play in a baseball game.
There was football. An improbable Superbowl victory for the Giants. A lost season for BC.
Oh, and there were classes too – finance, organisational behaviour, indigenous studies, marketing, and a thesis seminar. I took more credits this year than in any other year.
There was food – kangaroo and steak subs and sushi* and Big Macs and all the meals I prepared myself.
*Not sure if I mentioned this before, but sushi was cheap in Australia. And chicken was more expensive than beef. The toilets aren’t the only thing that’s backwards down there.
There was a week of rebuilding homes in New Orleans. Two football broadcasts – one on the road against Georgia Tech and one at home against Maryland. A basketball broadcast against St. Francis. My Tuesday night radio show, Crowd Noise, returned after a long hiatus.
There were Saturday football games on the Heights. Tailgates and food galore.
Finally, there was all the crazy things I did – bungee jumping, white water rafting, helicopter riding, just being in Australia in general. Oh, and the start of marathon training.
All of this since I started the blog, one year ago. It’s safe to say that I was stretched beyond my comfort zone for most of it.
I am glad I was able to share my experiences with you here on the blog. If you’ve been following along the whole time or you’ve just happened upon it recently, I hope you have enjoyed reading about my thoughts and my travels. I hope to keep writing here for the next year and many more.
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