My 2010 Year In Review

Ok, so this was originally going to be titled "My Crazy, Nutso, Chaotic Year...In Review." In it, I was going to say why my 2010 year absolutely sucked and how I hoped 2011 was going to be so much better. I thought it seemed a little bit whiny, but I didn't care. Then I went to a party at my grandparent's new house, and as I was talking to all of my friends, I noticed that all of my friends had really crappy years too. I felt a bit reinforced in what I was going to write about today. But then after the party, me and my girlfriend were laying in bed together talking, and she made me realize something, and I think it has greater meaning and isn't quite so whiny.

The realization was that for every bad thing that happened to me this year, something good came out of it. And I think that this is more signification than any of the other ideas I had for this post. So here is the major highlights of my year, in no particular order.

1. My grandma got cancer. 
Colon cancer to be exact. Yes, this sucks something quite fierce. The doc gave her just three months to live. She had blood clots in her legs and couldn't walk or get out of her bed. She was on Hospice. Things were not looking good. But then we looked into alternative medicine, and we got her on some herbs that were supposed to help out the clots and stuff, and she got good enough that we could move her from Alabama to where I live in Tennessee. Once we got her here, we set her up with an amazing cancer specialist, and he said that the docs in Alabama should be shot. She still had plenty of hope. Now she is doing much better and is fighting it quite well. But that isn't the only good thing to come out of this. I have always lived no closer to my grandparents than a seven hour drive. Because of the cancer doctor and the amount of time it will take to beat it, she decided to move just down the road from me, so I can literally walk to my grandma's house. But this is the really weird thing: a few days after my grandparents closed on their new house, their house in Alabama got broken in to. They live in a high crime area, full of murders, rapes, prostitution, drug dealing, gangs, and all that fun stuff (<-sarcasm). They had an alarm system installed on their house, but the idiots who put it in did something wrong, so when the alarm went off, the cops got sent to the wrong house. As in, a house somewhere in MISSISSIPPI! And on top of that, no one knew about the break in until several days later. So if she had somehow survived long enough to be in the house still, or if she had stayed and died and my grandpa had been staying there alone, they could have been murdered. Now, nothing could have happened as well, but with the crime rate there, it's more plausible the expect the worse. So, on a certain level, it was almost good that my grandma got cancer and now she is doing quite well.


2. I almost broke up with my girlfriend several times
Yeah... See how this could have gotten very whiny very quickly? It's true. We almost broke up several times. We've been dating for about 19 months, and we've been friends for at least 4 years before that. Most of the things that we fought about that nearly broke us up were my friends and family. Both do not particularly care for her. But then, before I left for Disney World for a family vacation, we really did break up. And then all hell broke loose. We realized #1. that we really do need each other and #2. while people on my side of the fence openly don't really care for her (except my family and bestest of best friends, who have come around to liking her), people on her side of the fence had both of us bamboozled and her family hates my guts and just didn't say anything. The break up (that lasted all of about 4 hours), the getting back together period (which lasted a week), and the return to some semblance of normalcy period (which is ongoing) has showed both of us where the real allegiances lie and who is really on our side.

3. I almost failed two classes and missed several deadlines
If you know me, you know that I have never failed a class and very rarely miss a deadline, especially one that has a $5,000 dollar consequence for not reaching. Thankfully, it all worked out. First, in my second semester of freshman year, I almost failed Biology. This was major. My advisor screwed me over in the registration while I was still in high school, so I shouldn't even have been in that particular biology. The class was about all the cell processes in detail, such as the Krebs cycle, the electron transport chain, every part of photosynthesis, and all that. It was almost a chemistry class, and I'm not good in chemistry AT ALL (which is why I'm a psychology major. More interesting, fewer formulas). Going into the final exam, I had a 43 F in the class. I needed at least a 70 to pass. The final exam could count as two test grades and replace my lowest test grade that I had. I had a whole lot riding on this one test. My girlfriend helped me study for SIX HOURS STRAIGHT before the test, and I was confident going into it. I'm not sure what I made on the test, but I do know that I went from a 43 F to an 84 B. In the process, I actually learned more than what the professor taught, and grew closer to my girlfriend. The second class was Experimental Psychology, which was basically a specialized statistics class. High school ruined any hopes I had of doing a math based career, and thus the engineering path that I was on (gotta love hick schools), so math is not my strong point. I studied so hard for the class that I almost missed writing a paper to keep a scholarship so I can stay in school. I got the report done (at the cost of an entire night of sleep), and I passed the class (barely), but I at least built a small relationship with the professor that I will have many more times before I graduate.

4. My roommates suck. But then they rocked.
My freshman year, I had roommates from hell. An alcoholic, a pot head/Jesus freak/Bible thumper/prep/douche bag, and a stereotypical frat boy. We almost got thrown out of our dorm, but that's for another post. In the end, one got busted for driving high and was expelled (or something to that effect. It was all handled quietly. Ah, how a little graft solves all problems...), one had a GPA so low he was asked (read: told) not to come back for another semester, and one made it through ok and is living in the ATO house now.
But now, I have a new set of roommates (who are also freshmen), but this time we get along fantastically. I really couldn't ask for better roomies.

5. Miscellaneous good things
But plenty more good things, major and minor, happened to me too. I got to go to Disney World, I have a pretty decent GPA (a 3.48/4.0), my family is happy, I set up this blog, (and even made a commitment to it, myself, and the world), and plenty of other small things that I can't recall right now that lead to overall happiness.

So in conclusion...
Yes, I had a lot of major bad things happen during my year. So did my friends. We were sitting around talking about how we hope 2011 would be better, and we got caught up in all the bad that happened. But I am choosing to look at all the good things that came of the bad, and in that light, 2010 wasn't so bad. So bring on 2011! I can make that year great too!