Top 5 posts of 2010

One of my greatest joys with Straight From The Curls is that it acts as a virtual diary to my life. Coming here and jotting down thoughts not only allows me to share my experiences with you, but it also gives me a chance to revisit these thoughts at a later date and time. For someone who tends to be rather introspective, this is quite helpful, and on many occasions it's been rather healing as well.

Since moving back to Toronto I've had a lot of time to sit back and read posts from the past year. I've had a chance to relive my exciting rendez-vous with Asia. More often than not, the posts always put a smile on my face, and I have moments where I think, "Yea, that really did happen!"

So in the spirit of celebration and reminiscing about the year that's been, here are my top 5 posts of 2010.

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5. Gumption - I wrote this post in January 2010. Obviously lulling in a low moment and in search of inspiration. And I was just getting into Mad Men at this point, so I was quite fascinated with the women at the Sterling Cooper Draper Price ad agency, and with the way they carried themselves. I still am. We could all use a healthy dose of some good, old-fashioned gumption! I'm glad I was reminded of this.

4. The world in my shoebox - My best friends in Seoul came from all over the world. This post is a reflection of my relationship with all of them, and about how we came to be friends. I will always be grateful to Korea because my experiences there gave me a wonderful group of international friends who I know I'll always be able to count on.

3. Finding my smile in the Land of Smiles - Written after a two-week romance with Thailand. I fell in love with the country, and long to go back there someday. This post is a reflection of my experiences in the Land of Smiles, as we backpacked through a handful of cities. The trip was therapeutic and came at a very pivotal time in my life.

2. Beauty, V and Me - This was an eye-opening moment for me in Korea. I wrote this post out of frustration and shock, and with hopes that people would stumble across it and learn from my experiences. My middle school students taught me a lesson in beauty, and about which traits they considered beautiful in women. Needless to say, very few of them believed the old adage that 'beauty comes from within.' This post outlines my experiences with this shock -- how I learned about it, how I dealt with it, and how I hope it will change in the future.

1. Love always wins - This is my first choice for the top 5 posts of 2010. Those of you who've become familiar with Straight From The Curls will probably agree with me when I say I've got a strange relationship with the word 'love'. There's posts on here about good love, bad love, healthy love, and downright painful love. But this post was a bit of an epiphany for me. It documents a couple of conversations I had in Seoul about the topic -- one with my teenage student, and one with a bar owner in Seoul's western neighbourhood of Itaewon.

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So there you have it -- my top 5 posts of 2010. I chose all of them from my experiences in Korea, because I was there until September of this year. Do you have a favourite post from the past year? If you do, please don't hesitate to share it with me. I'd love to hear about it.

Till next time, Cheers!

xo
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