New Year's Eve Reflection

What have I done in 2012?

Well, first off, this whole New Year thing is kind of arbitrary, isn't it? Our calendar is already messed up because it takes (approximately) 365.25 days for the Earth to revolve around the sun. But even the whole leap year thing doesn't perfectly correct for this. See this article if you're really that interested. Point being, every day starts a new set of 365ish days, really. So if you really want to change something about yourself (i.e. a New Year's Resolution) you can pick any day to start; you don't have to wait for the calendar to read 01/01/XXXX.

And getting off the soapbox...

I was thinking about how much I enjoy travelling to new places. I realized that while I have visited 10 countries other than the one I currently call home (Mexico, Bahamas, Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Czech Republic), I've kind of neglected my home country.

As you can see from this handy little map I made on epgSoft.com, there is a huge hunk of this country that I have yet to explore. 15/50? Not too great a ratio in my book for nearly 22 years of opportunity. In my defense, I've averaged one new state per year since I started college. However, following that trend would mean I still have 35 years to go before I've visited at least one city in every state. That's longer than I've been alive. So I'm planning to use whatever vacation time I'm allotted from my future employer strategically to visit as many states as I can in as little time as I can while still visiting long enough to thoroughly experience each state. This, of course, does not mean that I plan to put my global travels on pause. It is just another goal that I am setting for myself.

Other than that, 2012 has been pretty good to me. I turned 21, totaled my first car, bought my first new car, spent my first summer away from my parents, started my final year of college, and found an amazing new boyfriend after nearly two years of searching (something about Russell Conwell...).