Saturday, December 31, 2011

2011 in review

It’s the week of lists and reviews, the year in review, top 10 lists of the year past, and lists for the year that is just hours away.  Well, if newspapers can do it, then why not Embarkations?  So, forthwith and without pause, looking back on the past year.  (Skip to the end to see the most popular stories.)

Sparing for a last minute run-up in the numbers, 2011 saw:
·         3,385 visits from 2,346 unique visitors (about 9.3 hits/day)
·         The average visit lasted for a little over a minute and looked at 1.4 posts
·         68% of visits were from new visitors

Top countries of origin were as followed:
1.       United States
2.       Moldova
3.       Canada
4.       U.K.
5.       Romania
Although by far, the most interested readers came from Moldova, whose visitors stayed longest and visited the most pages.

Some surprises coming from the U.S., where I’m most popular in Tennessee, followed by California, New York, Texas, and then Illinois at #5.  Colorado came in ninth and Iowa fourteenth.  Overall, visitors represented 95 different countries and all 50 states.

In life, 2011 was a pretty awesome year, with a few strong highlights:
·         Friends: ringing in 2011 in Brasov with Amanda, Sinh, and Miranda.
·         Service: finishing my first year, and all of a sudden being the “experienced one” in the Bloc
·         Work (youth): Winning Plural+ Moldova with my students’ first short film
·         Work (medical center): opening our public showers and hygiene improvement project for the elderly who use the soup kitchen
·         Work (partners): seeing my partner teacher coach new partners through practice school and standing next to my nurse partner – who is terrified of public speaking – speak to a room of more than 80 women about breast cancer
·         Vacation: hard to choose, they were all so amazing, but I think I’ll choose Krakow and Berlin for the HIA conference.
·         Family: seeing Keith and Eugene get married in Korea (cheating, I know, it’s also vacation)
·         Integration: My host-sister Rodica’s wedding
·         For the Peace Corps family: Thanksgiving (integration points for killing a turkey)

I’m also critical of lists, of course, because they tend to wax over the daily flow of life and make it all about the big moments.  In reality, life, and most of Peace Corps, is what happens in between the big successes.  Still, when most readers are so far away, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to distill things down a bit.

And finally, what were the year’s most read stories?
·         Most read story written this year: Another Cup: follow-up on Greg Mortenson, with 523 views
·         Most read post of the year: My Peace Corps Aspiration Statement (posted prior to my departure with Peace Corps), with 1,467 views
The Mortenson piece also generated the most daily traffic I’ve ever seen, garnering 200 visitors in a day and earning first place as the most commented piece on the blog.  Maybe I should follow scandals more often in 2012. (Kidding)

This time last year, I had finished my first semester, and thought, wow, 25% done, looking forward to a productive year of new initiatives.  Now, I’m looking around and saying, wow, it’s almost done, but there’s still so much to do.  How am I going to tie it together?

So, with that, here’s to what has been a great 2011 of successes (and trials)! And here’s to a great 2012 ahead, a year of transitions.  And what could be truer to Embarkations’ theme than that?  Happy New Year and fiți sănătoși!

1 comment:

Jessica said...

So you're a big deal on the blogosphere, eh? I want to learn to do all those fancy analysis tricks.