Those who have known/tolerated me for at least a year probably know this story. It’s the same one I told last year. As children my dad would make us play a game — guess what the local news thought the 10 most notable stories of the year were, and then try creating  a list of our own news.

Top 10’s were popular this year, perhaps inspired by the end of a decade: Top 10 LOLCats, Romantic Comedies, One Hit Wonders of the ’90s, ’80s, ’70s and so on.

One might almost think top 10s passe, but as one friend of mine explained: “I’ve been loving it! I have been looking at all these top 10 movie lists, revisiting favorites, and catching the ones I never got around to.”

Last year was particularly important for me. Particularly with my graduation from Georgetown, and a move to UC Irvine, a lot has changed. How funny — I just realized that a decade ago (1999) was the year I graduated from high school and moved away to college. New beginnings, new opportunities, I suppose.

Well, without further delay, 2009 in 10 bite size pieces.

1. Carly & Kyle’s Wedding

Early this year, Steve and I flew to Walt Disney World where I was the man of honor in Carly’s wedding. It was not nearly as cheesy as I am sure they can be, and we had the added benefit of great January weather and world-class theme parks.

2. Inauguration Day

It might have been freezing as we walked towards the National Mall on that January morning, but there was something in the air. Gathered with throngs of people from near and wide, Steve and I were there to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama.

3. A PhD Tour

After applying to a variety of PhD programs, March and April was full of visits to various programs to find just the right fit. In the end, UC Irvine was the right place for me. Of course there is a down side to visiting so many wonderful places: I still feel sad that I somehow couldn’t smash all the schools together into some super-awesome-omni-uber-program. Le sigh. I suppose that is what conferences are for.

4. “Intertechnical Bodies” at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference

This year I co-chaired a panel at the ACLA conference at Harvard University with Dora Danylevich and Megan McCabe. The conference was great, of course, and the panel and my paper were received well. However, most important were the long conversations with good friends, and the opportunity to see first-hand how some of the humanities approach their work.

5. I am an ID, sure, but mostly I am done.

“I am an ID” was the title of my Georgetown thesis. Two years in the making (with one grueling semester there at the end), my thesis examines how the ability to persist our personal data with technologies like databases changes the ways we present ourselves, and perhaps how we think of ourselves as well.

6. Georgetown Graduation

After two years it was time to thank Georgetown, throw a big party, and move along. Don’t we look fancy?

7. The most direct route from point A to B never involves a rental truck.

This summer I packed up my Dupont condo, and moved across the country in a 16′ truck. I-80 in Pennsylvania is not recommended, the people in Chicago are lovely, a stop in Utah was the perfect way to break the trip up, and most importantly, driving across the plains with a cat on your lap is the only way to go.

8. Welcome to UC Irvine

It was my friend Shawn King who drove with me for the last leg of the drive to California. We pulled in with that insane truck, and within hours had unloaded the whole thing and replaced it with a brand new VW GTI — such a sweet ride. Oh, and the school is nice too. See?

9. Apparently what I say matters!

Getting my research on craigslist and Foucault accepted as a chapter hit the top 10 last year, but it has taken until just this month to go through the machinery and hit the presses. It’s on Amazon and everything.

10. Made it through Fall Quarter – whew!

There are a bunch of different things that have happened since I got to Irvine — on their own, they each seem to small for the list, but they are important none-the-less, and so I am placing them here in this catch-all. Since I got to Irvine I have launched two research projects, applied for a fellowship, written a number of conference workshop papers, am halfway done with a full conference paper, and just last week found myself submitting a grant to the NSF with Gillian Hayes, Paul Dourish, and Janet Vertesi – a dream team, I must say. It has been a busy quarter, but it looks like 2010 is already headed in the right direction.