2007: A year in the review. And 2008, too.

I put off doing this end-of-the-year thing because, after thinking about it, 2007 was, shall I say, lame. There really wasn't much remarkable, especially if you measure it to 2006. That year was part of a year-long celebration to another decade of my existence. I did many things I hadn't had the courage to do. But 2007 was a different story. Let me see if I can dredge up anything of interest...

In January I went to Europe for the first time. Because I had a friend living in Germany, I wanted to see her and travel to the northern part, where my father's family is originally from. Even though it had been more than 10 years since I had studied German, I was amazed at how easily it came back, or rather, I made up words. I ended up having to use it quite a bit. Some words, like Senf, never left my mind, and I had always wondered why I remembered "mustard." Then LB needed it for her pretzels. "Haben Sie Senf?" It rolled off my tongue with ease! The only problems I had were on the trains with conductors barking commands at me. A confused "Was?" did nothing to help matters. I'll get back to this in a bit.

I also went to Poland to see the Auschwitz memorial. I still can't wrap my mind around all the destruction. The night after we went to the memorial, a cyclone blew in with a vengeance (perhaps a reflection of how I felt). The power went out for a good part of the night, and LB and I had to be up early to make it to our train back to Berlin. Our Servas host, Jacek, drove us to Katowice in his "Green Froggy," and during our ride he mentioned that Germany had been destroyed during the storm. In Poland, train service was disrupted, so we weren't sure when we would be heading back.

After a short delay, the train taking us to Germany arrived. It took forever, though, because it seemed that after every 15 minutes of travel, the engineer had to consult about how to handle Germany's destruction. When we heard German in Cottbus, we were ecstatic, mostly because there was no dining car on the train and we hadn't eaten or had much water in over 7 hours.

It took even longer to return because we were given tickets on a supernice overnight train. The only thing about it is that passengers can only board and disembark out of certain cars. When we got to Frankfurt, we were ready to get off the train when another barking conductor came up to us and started spewing German at us. We just looked at him blankly. It was 4 AM. I was not going to understand anything. We missed our stop, had to go to a town an hour away and then take another train back to where we had to go.

We ended up making it back to my friend's home more than 12 hours late. It was amazing how Germany had pulled itself from the depths and recovered from the destruction...

Then I returned and worked.

In March LB and I went to the Grand Canyon. It was my first time hiking in.

There's a completely different perspective once you hike into the canyon. It's a much less daunting landscape.

Since it took me forever to hike down, I was scared it would take forever to hike out. All the warnings said something to the effect that it would take at least double the time to hike out of the canyon, yadda yadda. Not so. Not when you have someone who's afraid of heights and unused to hiking down first. It took less time to hike out. I'd do it again, this time maybe all the way to the bottom.

Then I worked.

In June I went to New England for the wedding of my friends Jonathan and Rachel. It was good to reconnect with friends from Marlboro College. Flying was not fun, though. I got stuck on very hot tarmac for almost three hours, got luggage lost both ways and landed during lightening in Dallas only to have my flight out of there cancelled.

I made it back, eventually. And then I worked.

I got a promotion, so I worked some more.

I finished a certificate in nonprofit management.

I worked. I worked so much I got my name on a plaque.

But, the best part of my year happened last week. My sister is an exercise physiologist and gave me a volume of oxygen (VO2) test, which determines one's resting metabolic rate, how much fat is burned at rest and during exercise and target heart rates. All I can say is that my metabolism has not crashed. It must have been insane before I turned 28. I can eat an obscene amount of calories and sit on my ass all day and not gain any weight. I just can't fall asleep.

But this leads me to 2008. My goal is to get into better shape and lose an unmentionable number of pounds. Should be easy if I stop eating the obscene number of calories. I'm doing a half marathon in Feb. and a marathon in June. I might do another half in April. If it all goes well, I'd like to try a sprint triathlon toward the end of the year. I got my bike out yesterday and fixed it. I want to try to use it more for errands. Which leads me to my second goal.

I want to lessen my ecological impact on the earth. One way is to walk and bike more instead of using my car. I'm going to try to take the bus at least one day per week. I'm also taking a vow to not purchase anything new, with a few exceptions (food, health products, running shoes, candles/incense-I have cats and they're nast). This idea is based on the Compact, a group from San Francisco who made vows a couple of years ago to not buy anything new. I want to start composting (in a serious way) and grow more of my own food.

Last, I want to take classes in the Master's of Public Health program at UNM. I know, I'm a perpetual student. Some things never change.

Have a happy 2008!