Review of 2009 and goals for 2010

I haven’t felt like writing a blog entry in a long time, but I have been updating my friends, colleagues, and the world about my life in other ways. This morning, I feel moved to recap the previous year and look forward to the next.

I continue to take photographs and share them on Flickr. Some of my recent adventures include hiking Camelback Mountain for the first time, a weekend getaway to Jerome, going to the Arizona State Fair for the first time in the five years that I’ve lived here, going “full frame” by trading in my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and EF-S lenses for a used Canon 5D, and meeting a longtime Flickr friend from Brooklyn who visited me and my husband with his husband. It was great to bring the online life and real life together, and we all really hit it off. There are several other photo sets I’ve posted in months since my last blog post as well. The best way to keep up with what I’m up to in a visual way is to follow my Flickr photostream.

I’ve also really gotten into Facebook this year. I don’t add people I don’t know as Friends, and I don’t have a Fan Page, but I do enjoy keeping up with my friends through status updates, photos, videos, links, etc. I am sort of the designated photographer at gatherings of friends and coworkers, so it’s always fun to upload an album from a shared event and tag everyone in it who’s on Facebook– which is most of them. For a while there, I was spending a couple/three hours a day on Facebook, but I’ve cut back because I have so many other priorities. I felt I was neglecting my photography and Flickr social circle for a while there, so I’ve returned to spending a bit more time on that. One thing I love that Flickr added in the last couple of months is People in Photos, which allows you to tag your Flickr friends in photos the way you can tag your friends in photos on Facebook. Those friends have to be Flickr members in order to be tagged, so it’s most useful for photos from FlickrMeets; that is, when a group of photo geeks get together to go on a shooting spree. Not necessarily good for your neighbor’s family’s Thanksgiving party unless they’re all Flickrites themselves. Thanks to this new feature and my general hamminess, I can now point you to photos of me on Flickr. As of this writing, there are over 900, though I’m not sure they are all public!

Like many people, I also got my Twitter account this year. At first, I was frustrated with it and with the way some people twittered “too much.” After a while, I just learned to accept it for what it is. I must admit I only occasionally log in to check up on the people I follow, and I don’t follow a lot of people to begin with. I don’t really care how many followers I have or how many updates I’ve posted. I’m in no hurry to send my thousandth tweet or garner my thousandth follower, though I wouldn’t put it past myself to announce the milestones when they hit.

In addition to sharing my life publicly on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, I created my profile on LinkedIn this year to network with other professionals and share my professional achievements. My greatest professional achievements this year have been coordinating the Purple Communications booth and interpreting pool at the 2009 Arizona RID State Conference, being promoted to Video Interpreter / Trainer at Purple Communications’ Arizona Communication Center, and representing Purple as an interpreter at the National Black Deaf Advocates conference. Outside of my work with Purple, 2009 was the first year I developed and taught ASL interpreting workshops. I know I’ve already shared some of this in this blog, and I’ve even castigated myself for perhaps going overboard in tooting my own horn, but at the end of the year, I must say that I have a feeling of pride. I have been through some dark times in my life, and when you’ve been through that and come out on the other side of it, you cherish every win.

Tonight is the beginning of Chanukah, the eight-day Festival of Lights. I look forward to lighting candles, exchanging gifts, frying donuts and potato pancakes, and going to a party or two. I do think that, in some ways, the holiday season is the most wonderful time of the year. I love both Chanukah and Christmas for the festivities, the colors, the lights, the social events, the cold, dark nights, and yes, the gifts.

What do I look forward to doing next year? I hope that next year brings many more opportunities for me to train video interpreters at Purple Communications and in my own interpreting workshops. 2010 is a year for RID regional conferences, and I plan to submit presenter proposals in the hope of teaching my workshops at at least a couple of them. There is also the Conference of Interpreter Trainers in 2010, which I hope to attend and possibly present at. The National Alliance of Black Interpreters is hosting their conference right here in Phoenix in 2010, and I do hope to be a part of that as well.

What I wish to do in my personal life in 2010 is to show my family how much I love them, to show respect and support to my friends, clients, and colleagues, to take on new challenges and new adventures, to be happy relaxing and being, and to dive deeper into this rich experience we call living.