As young as I can remember, at the end of each year my father would talk about the “top ten”. Always a man for striving and measuring, my Dad would turn to the local newspaper and share what the Deseret News considered the most notable stories of the year. At some point my father started asking us to create our own top ten lists. This has since become a tradition in my family, but one that I have never shared here.

Between school and work, and all the extra commitments I masochistically piled on, this year I have had precious few moments to stop and catch my breath. When my sister demanded that I stop “for just thirty minutes!” and reflect, I was surprised at the list. So without any more explanation, my “Top Ten for 2008”:

1. My condo finished getting remodeled near the beginning of the year. I didn’t share the details of this disaster on my blog, predominantly because it consumed every moment of the “real world” that I resented it taking over my e-world as well. To sum it up and spare you the pain, my ceiling collapsed from water damage… twice. My mattress? Replaced… four times. I was sleeping in strange places for over a month, but only had to sleep in my car once or twice. In the end, my condo got remodeled, I played kitchen designer extraordinaire, hardwood floors were installed, and the color scheme was young-dupont-ified. It is nice to no longer be homeless.

2. gnovis, the graduate journal sponsored by the Communication, Culture and Technology program at Georgetown, published my first graduate-level academic article entitled “wants moar: a comparison between LOLcats and intertitles in the framing of visual media”. While I am happy with this piece, I typically explain it as “the most ridiculous thing I ever wrote.” By the end of the project, my friends had banned all LOLcat references. (Even though they are SOOO cute!… yeah, I am kind of over them too.)

3. My first chapter, entitled “I judged you at Starbucks: Confession and regulation of the non-persistent subject on craigslist Missed Connections” was selected for inclusion in New technologies of the self, mobilities and (co-)constructions of identities, edited by Fred Dervin and Yasmine Abbas. Edits are almost complete, and it will be headed to press soon.

4. Conference presentations on peer regulation in online spaces at quickanddirty IV at the University of Maryland, and Space, Place and the Imagination at the University of Rhode Island. Both of these presentations were actually related to the topic I wrote about in my chapter. Thanks to everyone who gave me great feedback!

5. Spent a week in Chicago this summer doing as little as possible, but falling in love with the city. I went up there for a work conference, but we accidentally were there during Pride as well. I still love this photo:

6. Hired as gnovis’ New Media Editor, trying to sort out what blogging can and should mean for an academic community. This may have been one of most insightful (and by that I mean accidental) statements: “the blog is just an artifact of my commitment to the various communities with which I participate.”

7. Spent a week at the Frost farm in the fall, gallivanting around Vermont and New Hampshire. Racing go-carts through corn fields doesn’t get old.

8. At the AAMC, Mike Suman and I developed the “Learning Group” in our division to foster internal learning and topic-oriented communities. After some amazing success, this idea was later (and a bit to my surprise) adopted by the entire organization, rebranded as “Learning Circles”. There are little circles popping up everywhere now!

9. One of the learning groups I sponsored starts the process of developing into a User Experience Competency Center that is introducing user-centric approaches to design in the development of our applications.

10. Attended CSCW 2008 (the annual conference dedicated to computer supported cooperative work, whatever that is), really felt like I found my academic niche, and managed to meet the majority of professors I am applying to work with during my PhD.

One to grow on: PhD Applications in progress. Northwestern, Cornell, and UI Urbana-Champaign down… four more to go.