2010: the year of death and other quirks

Year 2010: two very cold, snowy winters, one very hot summer. The details:

* Ten-year anniversary of perhaps the best year of my life.
* Tried to follow conversations in Finnish, Hindi, Arabic and pidgin English simultaneously.
* My first real 3D-film and female FaceBook-conspiracy.
* Learned (in theory) how to be a strong and true woman and what a good masseuse can do to you.
* Took a trip to Ireland and learned how to live deeply, live lightly and shine. Also found out what a head shop is and the modern way of lighting a turf fire.
* Found the most difficult relationship of all: that between a woman and her mother.
* New nickname: "me little Cockney sparrow".
* Realised my thesis supervisor in English lit has turned into an Irish fiddler, and not a bad one at that.
* Best book title of the year: Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
* "Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
* Mostly used phrase of the year: "Bloody hell!"
* Tried a new identity as a van driver with work gloves, heavy boots and dangly earrings, reading Newsweek in between loading heavy boxes.
* Obsessions of the year: CSI:NY and strong men with good hearts.
* Bought a Citroën and sang songs in French for a week.
* Made eye contact with a fox.
* Picnic at the bronze feet of a buddhist monk.
* Admired a mirage of Sweden and climbed Mordor.
* Tried being one-eyed.
* Gave up on learning Gaelic.
* Danced myself to one-third of a beachvolley ball. Danced some more.
* Inflatable mattress-surfing on a windy beach.
* Happiest moment: floating out to sea on a raft under a summer sun, reading Paul Auster and humming "her name was New York, New York..."
* Fell in love while spitting sand and getting bruises.
* Was accused of supporting African arms dealers.
* Revived my dream of running away with the circus. Practiced my psychic skills on FaceBook.
* Jazz, Picasso, the theatre, iPads and flirting - all the arts in one night.
* Drove an hour to attend the opening of the world's most boring exhibition at the world's most boring museum in a city that always gives me suicidal thoughts. The wine and company was excellent.
* Endured extreme temperatures: +95 and -27 degrees Celsius.
* Attended a football game and discussed unkissed body parts.
* Event invitations received on FaceBook: Crazy Sales Showroom at Consentido Bar-Lounge, Madrid, and Lughnasadh Tree Lore Weekend in Donegal, Ireland.
* Found that there are worse ways to spend a sunny autumn evening than watching 5000 cranes (my favourite bird) fly over a meteorite crater.
* Spare-time jobs can be rewarding. Learned more than I ever wanted about Indian pantomime, Israeli orphanages, dementia, Dead Sea mud cosmetics and something called the Quark Region.
* Dreams: 1. I spray-painted E=mc2 on the wall at my workplace (boss wasn't happy). 2. I created the new slogan for Finland's largest company (a power plant manufacturer): "The spinning wheel isn't the solution". 3. I was a singing algae (voice: bass).
* Dilemma of the year: can you be friends with a former wife-beater?
* Visit to the "village shop" of Tuuri, one of Finland's major tourist sites. (That fact says something about Finland.) Listened to Sibelius' "Finlandia" on the way home.
* Things I've never done before: taken sleeping pills, given a speech without the help of notes and eaten highland cow marinated in Coca-Cola.
* Got to know my brother.
* Lost my father.