Saturday, January 2, 2016

2015

Whew, only one more year to go. Let's see, let's see, what happened in 2015...

1. The Year Parks and Rec Ended 
Figure from Google Images
This show is legitimately the funniest show I've ever seen and it ended this year. Well, last year now. Parks and Recreation beat How I Met Your Mother for my favorite sitcom ever. This show never fails to deliver. If you haven't checked it out yet, you definitely should. My sister gave me the complete series for Christmas this year so now I can watch it anytime I want! And trust me, I will be watching it all the time! If you have American Netflix, then you can watch it whenever you want! Definitely give it a shot!

I'll probably write a blog post on this show at some point in the near future. It's just too good a show not to share with others!

2. The Year I Bought a Bunch of Games

I got into a serious gaming groove this year. It's probably because I'm surrounded by a bunch of serious gamers now. I have over ten board games now. Considering I started the year with just... 5, I think. I definitely bought a lot of games this year. I think the list goes:

1. Dominion
2. 7 Wonders
3. Star Trek Catan
4. Takenoko
5. Red Dragon Inn 3
6. Sushi Go!
7. Anomia
8. Poo! The Game
9. Tokaido
10. Ascension
11. Tsuro: The Game of the Path
12. Qwirkle
13. Exploding Kittens
14. The Last Banquet
15. Shadows Over Camelot
16. Arkham Horror

Man, I was considering posting pictures of each game, but that was before I realized how many games I had now... Dang...

Anyway, from 6 to 16, I bought in 2015. Dang... I didn't realize I'd bought that much this year... Haha. Okay. I'll make a blog post about each of the games. Or send you to the Table Top episode. For now, I'll tell you the best game I bought ALL year. Drum roll, please! And my favorite game of the year is....

SUSHI GO! (Image from Google)
This is legitimately the best game I bought this year! And I bought some pretty good games! I started a game night for the grad students in my department and this is a favorite with newbies and hardcore gamers alike. This game is played almost every game night. It only takes about 10 to 15 minutes to play a game once you know how to play and it's always a good start to an evening of games. For more information, check out the Tabletop episode featuring it!

Tabletop Sushi Go & Roll For It

Besides, look at those cute sushi faces! How can you pass this game up?! Seriously, here's the link to the American Amazon page Sushi Go!. You should just go ahead and buy it. Trust me, you'll thank me later!

3. The Year of a Billion Weddings 

I feel like every time I turned around this year someone was getting married. Okay okay. It was only two people, but that's a lot of people for me. Especially when it means travelling back and forth from Canada to the States. That was a lot of traveling for me! But it was totally worth it! Congrats, Mom! Also, congratulations to my best friend, Jamie, for getting married too!

4. The Year of a Billion Conferences (Not kidding this time)

Part of grad school is going to conferences, and I feel like I went to a billion last year. Every time I turned around, I was traveling to some other conference. In some cases, I would spend less than a day back in town from a conference before traveling to another conference. It was kind of crazy, but seriously awesome.

I went to the Geoconvention in Calgary where there was a Porsche on the exhibition floor. That was crazy. It was a great experience though. I got to see what a conference in geoscience was like.  Also, it was interesting to see a lot of interactions between the industry and academia.

I also attended a workshop in Edmonton, AB where apparently one of the largest malls in the world is. I looked it up once I want to say it's 16th which seem small but it's bigger than the Mall of America. That was a good workshop too. I got a lot of exposure to other topics in geoscience.

I helped organize a conference for grad students at the University of Calgary. Let me tell you, that is a lot of work! I mainly helped with the grunt work, like extra jobs and the like. I can't imagine what making the big decisions would be like. Whew. Not sure if I really want to do that again. Haha. But it was a good experience

I went to a conference in San Francisco which completed my visiting the East Coast and West Coast all in one year. I got to see the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean in less than 2 months. That was pretty cool. I also visited the Redwood Forests in California. That was AMAZING. I loved it. My favorite place I visited all year!

Muir Woods National Monument
Muir Woods National Monument
There are people at the bottom of this picture for scaling purposes.
You probably hardly notice them. That's how big the trees were! 
People for scaling purposes. These trees were amazing!
This was probably my favorite experience of the year! I would love to go back! The conference was good too! I got to see talks by people famous in the geoscience and mathematics field and also meet people from all over the world. I really enjoyed that conference.

I finished out the summer with a trip to Minnesota for a workshop. This was probably the best workshop I attended all year. It was very informative! Also, a lot of fun. We worked on a project in seismic exploration. Very cool!

 During the school year, I got to go to New Orleans for a conference! The food was soo good and the conference was very educational! Also, beignets!

Finally, I ended the year with a small meeting in Banff. The mountains are pretty all year round but with snow covering them, they are just amazing.

5. The Year I Finished All My Prelims 

I heard back about my last prelim just before I returned to the States for Christmas! I passed! No more prelims for Heather! Also, I just have two more classes to worry about! And then my candidacy exam... Basically, it's a presentation on what I plan to do my dissertation on and then they test me about it. Eek!

6. The Year I Saw Star Wars The Force Awakens Twice

Okay. I'm legitimately going to devote a post to this one, but for a quick comment, IT WAS AWESOME. I knew JJ Abrams would do it justice! Okay. That's it for now. For further comments, see later blog post.

Image from Google Search
Well, looks like I covered everything! You're all caught up! Oh wait! I forgot! My mom got me a LEGO set for my birthday in 2015. It was...

Image from Amazon
I can almost reenact The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with LEGO figures now. One day... One day!!!

I think that's it! I kind of wish I'd finished this post yesterday but hanging out with friends preempted finished blog posts. Oh well. I'll try to do better about writing blog posts in the future... haha. I'm adorable right?

Until next time, happy readings!
Heather

2 comments:

  1. Hey, don't forget to mention that you had your picture made with Diana Gabaldon and bought your wicked auntie THE BEST GIFT EVER!!!!!!!

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