4^2 + 3^2

On the occasion of my 25th birth{}day (intentionally misspelled to protect against spam robots), I will briefly enumerate the best things that happened in the past year:

  1. Spending the summer with Emily
  2. Surviving an Ottawa winter, without losing any fingers or toes
  3. Visiting Montreal and Toronto many times
  4. The well-attended party in North Van last December
  5. Taking about 10,000 photos (a few of them quite good)
  6. Meeting some friendly locals
  7. Being visited by some non-local friends
  8. Learning a lot about climate change, the environment, and government
  9. Adventures in beardedness
  10. Seeing both my parents in Ottawa
  11. Writing a lot about climate change
  12. Camping, canoeing, scaring geese, eating pike
  13. New Year’s at Nick’s
  14. Interacting with voles, bulldogs, Goliath beetles, groundhogs, and Mr. Mistoffolees
  15. NYC and Vermont
  16. Cycling along rivers and canals
  17. Moving from a cubicle to an office; mitigating an office flood
  18. Spending time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Bennington
  19. Paying down student debt (though not so much as to not get a new computer and camera)
  20. Reading several good books
  21. Seeing Obama get elected
  22. Formally graduating from Oxford
  23. Having 46,157 blog visitors, including 1,234 on August 4th, using 32,119 different computers.
  24. Introducing Sasha to roller-coasters
  25. Spending time with Tristan, Gabe, Alison, and Meaghan

Hopefully, the coming year will involve the same sort of contact with friends and family, though a few Grand and Operatic Events of Colossal Magnitude and Importance would not go amiss.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

11 thoughts on “4^2 + 3^2”

  1. Happy Birthday! Should you not enumerate 25 things in celebration of your 25th birthday?

  2. Dearest Milan,
    all the things that you mention on your impressive list cannot come close to the wonder of yourself. 25 years ago you entered our world with your irrepressible spirit, your keen mind and wonderful comedic personality. You were an incredible talking baby with blond hair like Einstein’s. I have more than 90 photo albums that document your journey so far and I m proud of you every step of the way. For the future, I wish you love, a sense of purpose and a passion to make a difference. You will always be my treasure. I love you so!

  3. Impressive list. I will to it add your continued maintenance of a very high quality and informative blog. I mentioned it to an engineer and inventor I know yesterday who was quite impressed upon viewing it and for how have consistently maintained it. This year marked your 100,000th visitor and probably 300,000 page view. Congratulations and Happy Birthday.

  4. Should you not enumerate 25 things in celebration of your 25th birthday?

    I have 21 at this point, but will try to come up with four more before the end of the day. Part of the difficulty is remembering precisely when particular things happened. Some things that did happen this year feel as though they happened a long time ago, while other things that happened more than a year ago still feel like recent developments.

    This is one reason why having lots of blog entries and date-stamped photo sets is useful.

  5. What sort of things would qualify as “Grand and Operatic Events of Colossal Magnitude and Importance?”

  6. A North American carbon tax or cap-and-trade system? A global commitment to phase out coal? The discovery of a technique to manufacture 80% efficient solar photovoltaic panels for $0.10 a watt? An end to tropical deforestation?

    Seeing a discrete and important effect from my own work? Spending time with many people who I regret not seeing or barely seeing this past year (Mica, Antonia, Kai, Alex, Astrid, Zandara, Sarah(s), Kate, Claire, Kelly, and others)? Taking a really amazing photo, or writing something very good? Travelling somewhere really interesting?

    I can imagine lots of possibilities.

  7. Come with us to China in the summer. I guess that would be next year already.

  11. I don’t plan to go to Vancouver this winter, because I don’t want to cause the emissions associated with a flight and I don’t have time to travel by other means.

    I also don’t have any vacation days at the moment.

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