Goodbye 2012

Abstract:
I'll talk about my day on New Year's Eve 2012 and then I'll list the highlights of the year. It has most definitely been the year with the most (and largest) highlights so far in my life!

I woke up in the morning and then I felt sick. My stomach and my head both hurt really badly. I decided to go take a nap before we even had lunch and I took a rather long nap. I didn't wake up until a little before Rohan's friends were supposed to arrive. Justine also invited some friends over. Naxtens got here first, only a few minutes after he said he'd arrive. Scott and Kate, his girlfriend, got here about an hour after they were meant to arrive. Apparently that's normal for Scott. I can see why he and Rohan are such good friends.

We pretty much played games all night. They played Munchkin and Catan while I watched and then I joined in for Citadels. My strategy of almost always taking the Warlord was revealed even before we started the game, so I pretty much played randomly. It didn't really work. Kate then left at some point but Scott stayed.

At some point in the night, we went out and did some sparklers that Elise had bought earlier. My first sparkler was one of the flower shaped ones that she got. It was cool because the flame started at two points at the bottom and so it was two separate burning things that met at the end. Then I did some regular sparklers. At the end, Scott and Naxtens decided to make a sparkler bomb. I guess that's when you scrape off the sparkler stuff and put it in a coke can. Then they put more sparklers coming out the top and punched holes in the can. They lit it and it was pretty cool. (and I tried to just google it, but those are like massive explosive things and it wasn't that.)

The tv countdown to the new year was on in the background. Rohan didn't want the first song that he heard in 2013 to be whatever song that they had some artist singing, I didn't know the song or artist. Instead, he decided to go grab his laptop and have us listen to what he said should be the song of 2012... sugar rush. We thought that it would be Gangnam Style, but that was next. Then Scott and Rohan played Gangnam Style of Just Dance.

After that, they played one last game of Munchkin. There were six people playing, since Justine's friends joined, and it took about 3 hours. I was so tired and wanted to just go to bed, but I also didn't want to get up, so I was going to just wait until the game finished. It took forever. When it was over, the party was done and I could finally get to bed. It was about 4 by the time I got to bed.


So 2012 was undoubtably the biggest year of my life so far. Here's some of the highlights:

• spending my first New Year's with someone (2011-12)
• graduating from Hope College
• moving to Australia
• starting my Master of Public Health at ANU
• spending a month at Jillian's house so that I could watch Austin and Adrianna (my nephew and niece)
• becoming less germophobic. I can credit Rohan with this since he would eat off my plate and he also eats things off the floor, which is pretty gross. I don't think that my other friends are that bad and it sure makes life a lot easier when I don't have to constantly be telling people that I think it's gross if they try to share with me.
• learning to cook food other than hot wings
• the CU ball
• meeting Rohan's family
• spending Christmas with Rohan and his family
• meeting my new friends at ANU
• trip to Sydney with Janice and Bec
• the interesting stories about my stalkers
• joining CIF
• participating in an intercollegiate Quidditch tournament
• arranging Thanksgiving with my friends in Australia
• passing the torch onto the new exec board of Quidditch
• getting a job in Australia
• write almost 30 pages in my lifeview paper
• start my memoir