It’s that time of year… the old year is almost over and the new year is fast approaching. TV stations, newspapers and magazines look back at the year that was, so I thought I’d do the same. I’m not going to lie, I had forgotten about some of the stuff that went on during the year. See? This isn’t just a gimmick… it was helpful!
Here we go!
January
Jan. 11 will be a night that I’ll remember for a long time. I went to the Switchfoot show in Portland with a couple friends. I came home later that night with some drum sticks and the incredible memory of playing drums with my favorite band! (And I’ve got the video evidence as well!)
See this post for the whole story.
I also began coaching track and field at Corban College. It was a job that truly fell into my lap as an old assistant coach from high school called me up to see if I was interested. Uh, yeah. It was a fun year… more on that later.
February
Biggest news of the month was getting a temp job… and again, this came out of the blue. Got a call from an old co-worker about a temp job. Within a few days, I started a job that lasted for about four months. God certainly provided for me. (Read about the whole story here, which also provides a spoiler for March and April as well…)
March
I scored my first hat trick, turned 25 and coached my first meets of the year for Corban. I also drummed in my church’s Easter program at the end of the month. Not a bad month.
April
A pretty slow month. Scored another hat trick. One of my athletes qualified for the national meet, ensuring that we would be traveling to Indiana in May. Also, we started our meetings for the mission trip I went on to Oaxaca, Mexico.
May
The main thing was the trip to Nationals in Marion, Indiana, at the end of the month. We sent a sizeable group to the meet, which was great for the program. Corban’s track program is slowly growing, so to send a dozen athletes and coaches is great for the development of the program. (Read about the meet here and here)
Personally, it was cool to go to Nationals in my first year of coaching. It is certainly an accomplishment, but I don’t expect it to happen every year, so I made sure to enjoy the experience. And come on, a free trip is always fun… whether for business or not.
June
Another slow month. Ramped up the Oaxaca preparation and began playing on a new hockey team for the summer session.
July
Two words: mission trip.
Had an amazing week in Oaxaca, pouring concrete floors for local families and distributing food boxes. Saw a lot of people accept Christ while we were there. Just an incredible time. Made new friends and deepened existing ones with those who went on the trip.
Link city: The official Oaxaca blog that I maintained during the trip here; Reflections on the trip from this blog here and here.
August
Slow month. When I returned from the Oaxaca trip, I was on a blogging kick… so I increased the amount of posts on my personal blog. I wanted to turn it into a journal of sorts. Something I can look back on and track my progress in life and spiritually.
I played more hockey and rode out the remainder of the summer.
September
An eventful month. Gave up on receiving unemployment benefits, started working on a freelance basis at the local newspaper and was involved in a little slice of Hollywood.
The job story is a long one, so let me refer you to blog posts where I explained the whole deal. Basically, it was a foot in the door situation with potential to get hired permanently… plus it was a paid job. Win win. See these links:
ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to Salem and did a project at the Oregon School for the Deaf. I volunteered with a friend one night and went on “reveal day” at the end of the week. See my recaps here and here.
October
Biggest news of the month was getting hired on permanently at the Statesman Journal as a sports assistant. I also covered my first sports event and made my debut at a journalist.
I should explain something. As you can see from the date on this blog post, I got the job offer in September. However, because of errors outside of my control, I had to take three drug tests in order to pass and become officially employed.
I was assigned to cover a cross country meet in the middle of the month. It was an exciting opportunity. This post explains my initial reaction to covering the meet (and explains the drug test debacle).
More links:
- I described the experience of covering my first event
- The article from the meet I covered
- I covered another cross country meet the next week
November
I continued to get more and more writing assignments for the paper. I wrote an article on a local marathoner, covered a state playoff volleyball match, and wrote feature stories for the boy and girl cross country athletes of the year.
And it snowed! In Salem! In November!
December
Wrote another athlete of the year story (this time for volleyball) and wrote feature stories on a weight lifter and a local club swimmer. I also wrote preview stories for the winter sports season — for wrestling and swimming.
On the hockey front, I scored four goals in our last game of the calendar year. Not a bad way to end the year, eh?
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Well, it’s been a good year. It was fun to go through my blog and my calendar to dig up the events and happenings of 2010. It’s not officially over, but 2011 is just around the corner.
I’m just curious how many times I’m going to have to scratch out 2010 and replace it with 2011 after Jan. 1. We shall see.
Happy New Year!
