2005: A Year in Review

2005 wasn’t a particularly productive year for me. My list of personal projects for the year is rather pathetic and makes me wonder what I was doing with my time. But I did make a number of important personal discoveries, and I came to many exciting new conclusions philosophically.

There were also some great changes in my life, as well as some exciting arts discoveries. Definitely a fun year on the whole, if not quite so productive as I might have hoped.

Best CD

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth

Best Book

Sock, a novel by Penn Jilette

Best Feature Film

Crash (2004). Hands down.

Subjects Consuming Most Brain Power

Note: blog entries on many of these subjects are forthcoming.

• The personal aesthetic
• Human sexuality / relationship patterns
• Personal standards of progress
• Foundations of morality
• Metaphysics and philosophical uncertainty
• Decriminalization of illegal drugs
• Bodyart, both culturally and personally
• My future
• Moral foundations of government
• Programming language design
• Multiple-entry flexible hierarchies in software

Projects

• mail2ics
• metadate.py
• Ridiculous amounts of work on my .emacs
• Setting up new blog
• Boring work scripts

Notable Personal Events

These are roughly chronological, but there are likely a few mistakes in the ordering.

• My father going to Iraq
• Balcony nights with EB
• Realizing my appreciation for body art
• Getting to be friends with E and M
• Breaking up with J, J moving out
• Self-imposed non-dating period
• Turning 21
• Redefining and solidifying views on relationships
• Getting pierced
• Visiting Boston, MIT, and moving my brother into a 4th-floor apartment
• Server getting hacked (and subsequently learning a great deal about security in a very short time)
• Dating M
• My father returning from Iraq
• SSA Conference
• Getting in a big argument with my boss, redefining work boundaries
• Bocktoberfest
• Getting new laptop (iBook)
• Seeing Stroke 9 live
• Studying Lisp again
• Starting on a tea binge
• Getting into Python
• Sisters asking me if I believed in god