A Decade of Favorites

In 2000, I was a sophomore in High School. I weighed a cool 145, soaking wet. SimCity was my drug. I was unable to drive, I loved math and choir, I was socially awkward, and I worked as a paperboy. It would be two years until Tyler and I came to the realization that we enjoyed writing music together. Another two years before I owned and operated a cell phone. Two more before I was eligible to create a facebook account. Two years after that I had my very own 401(k).

And now, here we are. I can drive. Math and music still make their daily appearances. Social awkwardness is relative, I suppose, but I'd like to think I've made at least some progress in that department. Tyler and I have released 4 or 5 albums under 4 or 5 different monikers. I've received a few different pieces of paper that represent 4-year-chunks of my life. The 401(k) has been ravaged. Jobs gained and discarded. Frisbee and Softball games won and lost. Relationships have blossomed and fizzled out. I bought big TVs and sold them. I lived with my family, with strangers, with best friends, and even all by myself. I've changed classes, majors, musical-tastes, dorms, cities, states, hair-styles, careers. I'm nearly twice as old, and I've got the belly to show it.

I honestly couldn't be more excited about what the next decade has in store. By 2019 I will hopefully have started a young family. Wherever I am, and whatever I'm doing, I know it will be informed and inspired by the relationships and experiences I've had in the past decade, especially in the last few years. For the foreseeable future that means teaching in Houston, something I've fallen quickly in love with. But I can't say yet where life will take me after that.

In the coming weeks, I'll reveal some of my favorites of the past decade. Since I'm not very good at nailing down a top ten given a broad topic (I've often commented that a movie is somewhere within "my top 100" or "top 250"), I'll instead focus on Top 5 lists in specific categories:

• Favorite Vacations of the Decade
• Favorite Albums of the Decade
  
• Favorite Movies of the Decade (Comedy, Drama, Action)
  
• Favorite Jobs of the Decade
• Favorite Parties of the Decade
• Favorite Intramural/Rec League Sports Teams of the Decade
• Favorite Guilty Pleasures of the Decade
• Favorite Nicknames of the Decade

Look out, oh readers few. It's list time.