Every year, when December comes and we all get ourselves set for the New Year, many of us decide to reflect on the past year, come up with new 'new year' resolutions and think of ways to make the new year better, healthier, happier, and most importantly have it with fewer mistakes and more correct decisions.
As I was looking through some of the blogs and 2010 recaps I came across Danny Brown, who for instance writes of his personal highlights in 2010 here, while David Armano suggests to start moving the needle in 2011 in his creative post and Gemma Went spices things up with her own way to reflect on the past year here. All very interesting and creative, it made me think of my 2010 and my personal thoughts about it.
And so, I would like to share with you some of my highlights or the ones I 'borrowed' from one of the local Turkish news websites- NTVmsnbc, altered a bit with few personal touches and present it to you here.
And so here we go:
1. Earthquake in Haiti on January 12th 2010. The reports said that this was the worst earthquake the country saw in the last 200 years. Lives were lost, some were saved and the story of an 8 year- old Kiki inspired many that even at the worst time of our lives miracles can happen.
2. Wide- spread mass protests in Kyrgyzstan as people stormed government buildings. Situation was so dire that the authorities declared national state of emergency, enforcing curfews in some of the cities across the country. Hundreds were injured and the number of those killed is still not known. The president fled the country and was replaced by Roza Otunbayeva.
3. On April 10th, Poland witnessed its worst nightmare, its President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, died in an airplane crash. In total 97 people lost their lives that day.
4. I couldn't skip another important event that led to many my friends and I am sure yours as well to be stuck at the airports for several days- the Iceland volcano and its magical name Eyjafjallajokull! It was unpredicted natural phenomenon freezing much of air traffic across Europe.
5. The world's worst disaster was the explosion on BP's Gulf of Mexico platform killing 11. The leaks from the explosion resulted in loss of almost all of natural habitat in the region. The world is still talking about this huge disaster not to mention BP still fighting law suits brought up against it.
6. The WikiLeaks bomb! I couldn't have not mentioned this as it was perhaps the peak of this year's political development or contrary a set back especially for US diplomats and the country's diplomatic missions across the world. Whatever it was, I enjoyed reading up the reports and sharing them.
7. The world held its breath as we all watched Chilean mine workers getting saved from a 700 deep underground trap where they were stuck for 69 days as a result of an accident. Their final evacuation was a world relief.
8. Another natural disaster took place in Pakistan, where as a result of monsoon rain, the country lived through the biggest flood in its history. One fifth of the country was under water, approximately 2000 people lost their lives. In total around 20 million people were affected by the disaster leaving many homeless, alone, lost and deprived.
9. Perhaps the highlight for all those freedom of speech advocates out there, was the release of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi after 15 years of home arrest.
10. There were some memorable moments at home too. Release of my friends Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada from jail after having served half of their prison sentence. The two were arrested on faked up charges and sentenced to 2.6 and 2 years respectively.
11. I was absolutely overwhelmed (only in a good and positive way) by a city in northern Poland- Gdansk and its history for struggle for freedom and democracy. I was invited to attend the Blog Forum Gdansk (i actually wrote a post on the forum here) as a speaker where I met some incredible people, including Brian Solis and Sami Ben Gharbia.
12. I became one of authors at Global Voices Online.
13. I have discovered a whole bunch of new media tools as I was getting ready to give trainings, which made me appreciate the art of learning even more- you never stop learning, no matter what you do!
14. And finally, 2010 was a special year for me as I tied the knot with my lovely boyfriend of almost four years in July and became a married woman. I have lost few friends as I unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) learned of their true intentions and made lots of new ones.
It was an interesting year overall, and I look forward to 2011 as I take on new responsibilities professionally and personally and hope this year will be better, healthier, happier, and most importantly with fewer mistakes and more correct decisions and successes!
Happy New Year Everyone!
