Owlet's Bests of 2015

I was pondering the other day about what I accomplished last year; I tried to come up with one main thing for each month. Here's what I came up with!

January

I went to Portland, OR to present a paper that my linguistics professor and our research group wrote together! (I also worked as a research assistant for this professor, working on this project and other related ones.) The linguistics department paid for most of the trip, which was sure nice of them. We got to stay in a fancy hotel and have fancy food (I had ginger-crusted Norwegian salmon with wasabi mashed potatoes one night!) and meet linguists from all over the country.

Other items of note:

• Worked as TA for an IT class
• Wrote and edited for the Board
• Helped with DUST

February

It sure took long enough, according to most people, but El-ahrairah and I got engaged! That was a pretty big deal. So we wrote it on the wall at Spoon It Up.

March

Planned wedding, did homework, stayed alive. It turn out I didn't do much in March, except hold everything in my life (well, most things) together. That's a feat in itself, I'd say.

April

Graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Linguistics and minor in Information Technology. I'm not sure if that's what I would have predicted when I entered BYU four years ago, but I'm really glad that's how things panned out. One of my major breakthroughs was realizing I love merging language and technology and using it to help and teach people. Yay!

May

It's hard to argue against getting married as the most wonderful thing I did in May! I also turned 22 and started my first grown-up job!

June

This was another busy month with simple things like moving in together, getting trained at work, etc., but June also included our honeymoon! We were so excited when we saw that our friends had brought all our gifts home after the wedding and had them waiting for us when we returned.

July

The Independence Day holiday brought with it an awesome extended family reunion (my side), during which I went actual ziplining for the first time! I even went upside down, but we don't have a picture of that.

August

This may honestly be more impressive than getting married: I learned to drive stick shift! While I always knew I'd get married someday, I never in a million bajillion years thought I'd drive stick. El-ahrairah was a great teacher.

September

In this month, I started my BYU blanket ... and even though I didn't finish it for another couple months, I'm just going to count it as my September Cool Thing I Did. I also accidentally killed our houseplant.

October

In October I finally got El-ahrairah back for that amazing scavenger hunt he planned for my birthday by throwing him an awesome Harry Potter Halloween Birthday Party! My main gift to him was a handmade choose-your-own-adventure story (he loves those things), including well wishes I had collected earlier from friends and family.

November

We were so excited to welcome home my sister from her mission in New York, NY! I got to pick out the balloons. :) El and I also carved a pumpkin and took a trip to Wisconsin. You know, typical November things.

December

I'm not really sure what else can be more exciting than Christmas! It was a very sweet wrap-up to a whirlwind of a year. Also, El-ahrairah's brother got engaged! Woo! It kind of made things feel like they've come full circle.

I'm so grateful for the opportunities I had last year. I know times are hard for a lot of people, so I don't want to brag or anything, but I also want to acknowledge the good times I have while they last! Right now, life is good, and I appreciate that. I'm glad I can face the coming ... well, whatever it is that's coming ... with my faith and family by my side. To 2016!