Celeste LeCompte

I’ve received some amazing year-end letters from college friends this year, and marveled at what incredible things people have done with their lives recently. I wouldn’t say any of the individual things I’ve done this year have been terribly impressive, but taken all together, what a year it’s been!

My itinerary since December of last year has included:

San Francisco, Chicago, Guangzhou and Kunming (China), San Francisco, Portland, San Francisco, New Orleans/Baton Rouge, San Francisco, Tokyo/Kyoto/Hiroshima/Matsumoto, (a farm near) Yosemite, San Francisco, New York, San Francisco,* Guangzhou, Athens/Hydra (Greece), Panama City & Bocas del Toro (Panama), San Francisco, Reno, (actually) Yosemite, Portland, Black Rock City (Burning Man), San Francisco, New Orleans/Baton Rouge, San Francisco, Guangzhou (and several other cities in China), the Philippines, Kiel and Berlin (Germany), Ortisei (Italy), and now I’m back in Guangzhou.

I’ve traveled by airplane, train, high-speed train, narrow-gauge rail, long-distance bus, ferry boat, ski lift, bicycle, electric unicycle, open air jeep, water taxi, rental car, taxi, streetcar, subway, city bus, outrigger boat, motorboat, RV, motorcycle, and (terrifyingly) snowmobile, and shoe.

I walked, hiked, biked, swam, rode horses, kayaked, kiteboarded, skiied, ran two half marathons (and plenty of non-race miles), and snorkeled.

I attended 5 weddings, 3 bachelorette parties, and said hello to at least 8 new babies among my family and friends. I spent $9,053.70 on plane tickets and added 286 new Facebook friends. In China, I visited 6 factories, 1 creepy mountain bunker, 1 nuclear power plant, and markets for everything from food to textiles to electronics to jade jewelry.

According to Facebook, my most popular post of the year — with 74 likes — happened on an airplane:

Professionally, I published a couple of research reports, a portfolio of sustainability case studies, an annual report, signed on as the editor of a book (with Oxford University Press), worked on a travel guide to SF, and wrote some articles, poems, and a chapter of a novel (and, no, you can’t read it).

It’s been a good year, but so long, 2012! Hello, 2013!

* — Thanks, Colin, for reminding me that I got to catch up with lots of lovely friends and work contacts on a trip to New York in June!