An update to this blog is way overdue. My apologies for not doing it sooner. For now, I start by saying that 2012 was a year that was everything I wanted and more. If this was truly going to be the end of the world, this is how I would have wanted to go out…not with a fizzle, but with a giant bang.

Rewind to January of 2012. As January 1 of 2012 began to rise, I found myself at home in Baltimore with my parents and many of my friends. 2011 had been a blast and 2012 held promise that it would be better than any previous year. And sure enough, it was.

Not long after New Years, I found myself on the first adventure of the year. Jackie and Esther and I found myself at the shooting range. Now, you might be wondering why three lovely girls such as ourselves made it a point to go to the shooting range. The reason is rather simple. We decided that it would be an adventure…and it was. I had never held a gun before and it was both terrifying and amazing. I also had the amazing opportunity to work an event at AU where I heard former President Bill Clinton speak. He was phenomenal  January also brought the start of my second semester of grad school. It was not as exciting as the first, but I did have some interesting classes (Public Diplomacy, Cultural and Communication Policy, Web Development and Dynamic Websites). This semester also brought the start of Hamlet. An amazing show that I would stage manage, but would eat a large chunk of my life. But, more on that later.

Things went on pretty usually for the rest of January when February rolled in. There was another birthday of mine, and then Katsucon. It had been a while since I had participated in the fan convention scene and it was good to be back. I dressed as Irene Adler from BBC’s Sherlock and just had a blast with my friends. It renewed my love of fandom to an even greater extent.

March brought an Oscar party with friends and more food and drink than we knew what to do with. It also started a texting friendship with Cait, who I had met online. March was also super exciting because this was when Esther, Geoff and I made our way to the UK to visit Chelsea who had been away since August. We saw Edinburgh, the Highlands and of course London. London was an amazing city and it made me want to see visit and/or live there for a much longer time. When I returned from London, this brought tech week for Hamlet and then the Hamlet run itself. It was spectacular. One of the best shows that the Rudes had ever put on. I am forever grateful that I was able to be a part of that project, but sad that it would turn out to be my last show with the Rudes.

The stress of a typical year in grad school hit in April and I didn’t actually do any adventuring. It was sad, but it allowed me to finish my semester with decent grades and some new skills. I did participate in Relay for Life, where I was a member of the “Bohemian Bear Baiting Team” (an inside joke amongst the Shakespeare nerds).  And then there was May. May saw Geoff’s graduation as well as the airing of the new Sherlock series here in the states on PBS. Every Sunday, I would go to Esther’s and we would watch with tea and cakes. It wasn’t an adventure, but it was so much fun. May also saw the start of the reenacting season with the Battle of New Market as well as a summer class on the global perspectives in public diplomacy.

This brings us to the first week of June, where I once again gathered the troops of Awkward Trio Productions and we worked for 48 hours to make a film. This year’s genre being a thriller provided us with a bit of a challenge as most of my team is a comedy team, but they pulled it off really well. We may not have won anything, but we surely had an awesome time making it.

As soon as the 48 Hour Film Project was over, I started work with my new internship at Velocity (a part of Discovery Communications) in the production and development department. I had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects and I learned quite a lot. The mash-up I created can be seen below and it’s posted on Velocity’s YouTube page!

I continued to reenact throughout June and then at the very end of the month, Cait came to visit and she helped ring in July! We went to the Newseum, the American History Museum, the National Gallery of Art  and we even saw the monuments at night. It was so much fun and I didn’t want to see her leave. It was an amazing time!

Then came the 4th of July celebrations with my parents and a brief visit with Manya and Emma. All of this followed by the first time I would take Geoff with me to a reenactment. The 149th Gettysburg. It was a hot and sticky. It was long and tiring. But, he went and the best part was that he said he would do it again. It wasn’t as exciting as it could have been, but we danced and battled and made the best of it.

The end of July brought Otakon, which usually signifies that summer is coming to a close. Geoff, Emma, Manya and I ventured to Baltimore dressed in our various costumes to participate in the convention world. Even though I didn’t get to any panels, it was still a blast. I met a lot of friends and I’m looking forward to cons in the future.

Additionally, July was also the month that the Capital Fringe Festival show that I was stage managing (Tent of Dreams) opened and closed. I am grateful to the director, Emily Todd, and the producer, Aubri O’Connor, that they allowed me to work with them on this show. I am sad that I didn’t get to take it to New York with them in September, but I hope that I am able to work on something with them in the future.

We now come to August where adventures start to peter out, but they didn’t disappear entirely. The first weekend saw a trip for Esther, Jackie, Sam and I as we made our way to West Virginia for a chance to go white water rafting. It was exhilarating, dangerous and I can’t wait to do it all again. Esther, Geoff, Jackie and I saw Frankenstein when it was rebroadcast at the Shakespeare Theater Company and then not long after classes for the hardest semester I have ever encountered began.

September blew-in in a hurry and in the middle of September, Geoff, Dan and I made our way out to Antietam, Maryland for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. I was made Sergeant by this point and had the opportunity to lead my own detachment out in the field. You can’t describe the feeling of being in the midst of a battle and being the one to give instructions.

At the end of September and beginning of October, I made my great escape to Canterbury, Connecticut to see the ever so lovely Cait! The flight there was super amusing as I ended up next to my Transnational Crime professor on the plane. While in CT with Cait, we went to Six Flags New England for Fright Fest, where evil person that I am made Cait do haunted houses. We also spent a day used book hunting, see Hotel Transylvania, which was surprisingly good and just generally hanging out. I didn’t really want to head back to the district as that meant a foreign language proficiency exam awaited. (I should mention I passed thanks to Cait who quizzed me a lot while we were waiting in line for rides!)

This then brings about October, which for as much as I had school work could not have been less busy. After returning to the district, I had spent sometime with Jackie and her boyfriend visiting a haunted forest in Maryland. The following weekends saw Howloscream with my parents at Busch Gardens, where my mother was convinced that I was conspiring with the creatures to scare my sister and her (fun fact: I was trying…) followed by the next weekend in Cedar Creek with Geoff and my favorite five year old (not my kid, I should add) for a Civil War Re-enactment. The last weekend of October was Halloween weekend, which consisted of a scavenger hunt of haunted DC with Esther, a Halloween party with friends where Geoff and I dressed as the Doctor and Donna, and then a cancelled zombie run due to Hurricane Sandy (next year). The hurricane also meant that Halloween this year was not as spectacular as it should have been or could have been.

November began with a small Halloween party at my place, which nearly ended in disaster due to people not being able to come and then the nightmare of classes took hold. I have never encountered a semester as difficult as this one and November really brought out the worst in it. I spent hours working on research papers and projects. I also worked overtime at work as we tried to launch a new system by the first week of December. It was a nightmare and I couldn’t wait for the month to be over, but I was dreading it at the same time as that meant that deadlines were looming. But, I made it through.

Which brings us to a wrap up in December. After finishing finals and helping a friend out with teaching young students of his to edit, Geoff and I wandered on up to Boston to spend the holidays with his parents. We spent the first week with them in the hospital as Geoff had caught Salmonella. But, I did have the opportunity to see the Boston Pops with his parents even though he was sick.

Once Geoff was released from the hospital we went to a Christmas party and then an action movie Christmas marathon with Chelsea, who had recently returned from London. Cait visited on the 24th and we took a trip into Boston. It was great to see her again before the year was up.

We spent Christmas with his brother, Maddie (his brother’s dog) and his parents just sort of lounging around the house. We went skiing with Chelsea on the 28th and then Chelsea and I ended the year on a high note by making a trek to DC and back in two days to pick up Esther for what promises to be a very happy New Year.

Thus ends the wrap up for my adventures in 2012. It was an amazing year with some ups and downs, but looking back on it everything was worth it. There is not much I would have done differently. I had an amazing experience working with Velocity, I met new friends and I continued to have adventures with old ones. I saw a lot of movies and read books that were phenomenal. I can only hope that 2013 will be just as spectacular.

I plan to make sure that it is. I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but I do task myself with projects. In 2013, I plan to make papers cranes for every adventures I go on and I plan to take a photograph every day. I’ll post them all to this blog in one year as a review. I am also going to try to keep this blog in better condition because I love writing and am sad that it always seems to fall by the wayside.

So that’s it. Happy New Year’s Eve!