My 2009 Achievements

These are my biggest achievements of 2009 in the order of their importance to me:

1. Found a tenure-track position at a great university.
2. Published 3 scholarly articles.
3. Taught my first Hispanic Civilization course. This is a perfect culmination to the decade that I spent in its entirety dreaming about how I will one day teach this course. It might seem like a small enough thing to other people but I spent exactly ten years working like a maniac towards this goal of walking into a classroom and being able to discuss any aspect of Hispanic Civilization without notes or preparation. Finally being able to do it makes me very happy.
4. Read 71 books. It's somewhat less than usual but I did have to move twice this year, so I have an excuse.
5. Started this blog.
6. Submitted my book to a publishing house.
7. Moved twice and survived it. Do you know that moving is considered to be one of main depression-triggering factors, alongside with the loss of a job, divorce, and major illness? Of course, I am so used to moving by now that it's not nearly as traumatic for me.
8. Learned to live in Southern Illinois and even started to enjoy it.
9. Assembled a lot of furniture on my own.
10. Learned to use a dishwasher. (You may laugh, but when I moved into this new house and saw a dishwasher - for the first time in my life - I had to take my time to figure out what it was. Thank God for the Internet, or I might be trying to get it to do the laundry or heat the house right now. This kind of upward social mobility makes me extremely uncomfortable).
11. Baked a cake which at least looks good. (I will share with my readers whether it tastes decent after out New Year's feast** tonight.)

I hope that 2010 is as productive for me as 2009 was. Although, I'll gladly do without moving or furniture assembly.

Happy New Year to everybody!!!!!!!! May your boldest wishes, hopes and desires come true in 2010. May we all find ourselves happy, healthy and fulfilled in every possible way.

** New Year's is the holiday of the year in my culture. We don't do anything special for Christmas, but New Year's is a really huge deal.