Year-in-review meme

As seen over at Adventures in Ethics and Science.

The rule: post the first sentence of the first post for each month. (Note: I'm cheating a little bit, here, because halfway through doing this post, I realized that the majority of my first-of-the-month posts were those announcing that the new Scientiae carnival had been posted. So instead, when that's the case, I'm including the first sentence of the first non-Scientiae post.)

January: I don't remember where I first saw this, but I last saw it at Dr. Crazy's. [New Year's meme]

February: Greetings from Top Secret Location!

March: As a way of getting past the journal article block I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm revisiting some of the papers that I've cited in most of my own papers, sort of as a way of reminding myself what differentiates my current work from others' work in the same space.

April: It's Monday.

May: In my last post in this series, I set out a series of three questions that I've identified as central to deciding whether I should stick things out until tenure or go look for greener pastures.

June: Back in the day, when parenthood was still an abstract concept, I looked forward to the arrival of Hypothetical Future Child as a time where I could take a nice little hiatus from my professional life.

July: So the first big post-baby conference trip/trip with Baby Jane went very well.

August: Subtitle: If you've seen my brain, could you please return it to me?

September: I spent a blissful long weekend sans computer access, hanging with family and friends. [This was actually the third sentence; the first two had to do with the latest Scientiae carnival.]

October: I am at an exciting phase in my work right now. [See note for September.]

November: Sometimes I really need someone to give me a good swift kick in the seat of my pants. [This post was about the importance of mentoring.]

December: OK, so, today was the big day: my first day back at work, and Baby Jane's first day at daycare. [See note for September.]

Strangely, I think this sampling of posts is actually quite representative of what's been on my mind this year. Since I was out of the classroom for the entire year (first on sabbatical, then on maternity leave), I was much more focused on research, and much more introspective about my research work. (The latter is a luxury I often can't afford while I'm teaching!) And of course, having Baby Jane made me much more keenly aware of work-life balance issues, and I think I probably blogged about those more than any other topic in the second half of the year.

It was definitely a full and exciting year, that's for sure.