Looking back at my Blog Plans for 2012, it seems that I only accomplished about half of what I had planned.  I read Anna Karenina and The Hunger Games, but my discovery of the Brontës made me forget about Hemingway.  I didn’t get to Shakespeare this year, but I did go see a few theater productions (two Broadway plays, two student productions, and a local theater production).  I finished the Errol Flynn-Olivia de Havilland films and watched more Chaplin but didn’t get to write about them.

Next year, I hope to finish those things from 2012 I didn’t get to.  I have a copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and will read it next year.  I will read at least one Shakespeare play next year.  I will write about the Flynn-de Havilland films, and Chaplin will be the subject of February’s Discovery post.

In addition to those, here is a sampling of some other things I plan to do and write about:

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The One Lovely Blog Award

A few days ago, I had the honor of being nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by Lindsey of The Motion Pictures.  I am a big fan of Lindsey’s blog, so it was truly a pleasure to receive it from her.  Thank you, Lindsey!

I’m posting about this since this is the first blog award I’ve received.  In the future, however, if any other awards should come my way, I won’t be devoting posts to them.

With the One Lovely Blog Award come the following rules:

• Include the award graphic in your post.
• Thank and link the blogger who nominated you.
• Share seven random facts about yourself.
• Pass the award on to 15 other bloggers. Be sure to contact and congratulate them.

As I tried to figure out which bloggers to pass it on to, I had a few thoughts.  I realized that I risked forgetting people, offending people I didn’t choose, or tagging people who didn’t want to participate.  And so, I decided to graciously pull out of passing it along.  I might be overthinking it, but I just feel more comfortable doing this.  Rest assured, though, that if I’ve popped by your blog a few times, I think you have a lovely blog!

That said, I feel that random facts put a human stamp on a blog, so I will answer the first part of the rules.  I’m not sure if this counts as a formal acceptance of the award, but the intent is here.  Without further ado here are seven random facts about me:

1. I am half Belgian and half Palestinian.
2. I love travel and photography; thus, I have a few thousand travel photos sitting on an external hard drive.  I’ll figure out something interesting to do with them someday.
3. I love language(s).  I’ve taken many linguistics classes, and I’ve had varying degrees of formal instruction in French, Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin, Scottish Gaelic, and Irish.  I’ve dabbled in Flemish and Welsh on my own.  Out of those, I only claim to speak French well.
4. I love olives.  Like, really love them – all different kinds.  I could probably eat a whole jar/container in one sitting if that weren’t a bad idea.
5. I used to really love astronomy and stargazing.  I haven’t entirely lost this interest.
6. More broadly, I used to be a total math and science person, but I eventually gravitated towards the humanities and social sciences.
7. I competed in the Fifth Annual Quidditch World Cup. I wish that people who haven’t seen the sport would see it played at its full intensity before belittling it.

A Few Other Notes

I have been quite pleased at the reaction so far to my first three Discovery posts, so I’ve decided to continue posting one each month.  Thank you to everyone who has liked or commented on them!  Before writing these posts, I do like to make sure that I have watched or read a good chunk of the subject’s work.  As such, most of these posts will be related to classic-era directors or stars since I already have several subjects whose work I’ve seen lined up.

I am also going to try to post one From Book to Film analysis per month, though I may not be able to do this every single month.  If there are several film versions of a book, I would like to see at least two before writing such a post.

One year ago today, I began the crazy adventure of starting this blog.  I had toyed with the idea for at least a year and a half before making the dive.  A lot of people I know don’t share the passions I have, and I felt as though I needed some forum to discuss works I wanted to talk about.

In this year, thanks to starting my own blog, I’ve discovered countless other blogs, which give me great things to read daily.  I have joined Twitter and, through it, had the virtual experience of watching the Oscars, television, and classic movies with other fans.  I joined the Classics Club and have begun to network with other people who love classic literature.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may know that I recently moved to New York for graduate school.  With studying in full swing, I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to blog.  I will, however, do my best to update at least once a week.

In the coming year, you can expect more musings, lists, and Classics Club posts, as well as the continuation of my Discovery series and the restarting of my From Book to Film series.  Also, now that I’m in New York, I should have plenty more opportunities to write about theater, which I am very excited to do more often.

Before I finish, I’d like to highlight five posts I’ve written in the past year that have, for one reason or another, become personal favorites of mine.

• Pseudoserialization in Television: The Key to Success?: I have always been interested in how stories are told, and television provides some interesting options.  In this post, I look at two shows that aren’t true procedurals or true serials.
• Roping in the Audience: Marketing Differences for Downton Abbey: When I became massively interested in Downton Abbey while the first season was airing in the U.S., thanks to YouTube, I saw trailers from the U.S., Britain, and Australia – and they were so different that when I started my blog, I wanted to write about it.
• The Beautiful Drama of Mathematics: Three of my favorite plays – Arcadia, Proof, and A Disappearing Number – all involve mathematics, so I decided to look at how they all treat the subject while still being excellent stories in their own right.
• Review: Where Do We Go Now? (2011): My personal favorite of the reviews I’ve written on my blog, this is also about a film I think a lot more people should see.
• Reading the Book Before Seeing the Movie: When Does It Matter?: I have always been interested in the relationship between books and their movie adaptations, and in this post, I muse on which should be experienced first.

And, finally, I’d like to give a big THANK YOU to all my subscribers (and followers on Twitter), as well as anyone who has liked or commented on my posts.  I love discussing great works and media in general with others, so I welcome any and all feedback.