A Slightly Preemptive Year in Review

Best Albums I Listened To
-Bon Iver—Bon Iver
-Iron & Wine—Kiss Each Other Clean
-Fleet Foxes—Helplessness Blues
-The Decemberists—The King is Dead
-The Civil Wars—Barton Hollow
-Radical Face—The Family Tree
-Black Keys—El Camino
-Blind Pilot—We are the Tide
-Paste Magazine’s Compilation of Free Christmas Music (not an album, but free, and Christmasy)

Best Books I Read (Limited to First-Time Reads)
-Best American Non-required Reading 2010
-The Raw Shark Texts
-Cold Mountain
-The Places In Between
-The Tiger’s Wife
-Johnny Cash’s autobiography
-The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
-The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
-Black Garden

Best TV and Movies (Incomplete due to Poor Memory):
-Midnight in Paris
-The Wire
-X-Men: First Class
-Homeland
-The Social Network
-Tron: Legacy (Almost Exclusively for the Soundtrack Award)
-Sherlock (BBC)
-Doctor Who Season Six
-Vacations in the Danger Zone—Nagorno-Karabagh region

Best and Only Trips (International):
-Scotland
-Istanbul
-Assume that trip back to the US fits here as well

Best Trips (National):
-Camping in Oguz (despite the rain and leaky tents)
-Evaluation Meeting in Sheki at the Sheki Saray Hotel
-Multiple Lahic trips (with PCVs, family, girlfriend, more PCVs)
-ABLE camp in Qabala, Training of Trainers at the campsite in advance
-Halloween in Barda
-Thanksgiving in Baku

Favorite Projects:
-ABLE
-Sheki Sumemr Camp
-Softball
-FLEX Preparation (Despite temporary failure)
-(Pending) Theater Club
-(Pending) Mural Exchange Program with Japanese School

Favorite New Hobby:
-Watercolor Painting
-Cooking (at least during the summer)

Saddest Moment:
-Burying a puppy

Happiest Moments:
-Weekends in Tezekend with sitemates escaping from daily life, but not the cold
-Playing with a new puppy (slightly less happy—serving as her chew toy)
-Welcoming my family, my girlfriend to Azerbaijan and to Ismayilli, and exploring Istanbul
-A student coming back from summer camp determined to try to apply for FLEX
-Justifying playing Christmas music early because of snow in early November
-Eating homemade birthday cake made by my host mother

Funniest Moments:
-Coaxing a stray dog into the cabin of the other PCVs during ABLE
-Being pelted with water balloons in the middle of the night in retaliation
-Having a dog that likes to perch on my shoulders like a mountain goat
-Speaking to my host brother about college life in America from Azerbaijan