My Top Ten Moments of 2010.

10) My fund-raiser curry-que...well....the meat part of it. I just had an insane craving for mudd's thai curried chicken this morning. I remember distinctly that this dish was so bud-blowing that my father pulled on the shoulder on the highway, so he could eat before we got home. I will give credit just where it is due, and say that the man good for something.

9)Carnival this year was more enjoyable than most. I made particular effort to emerge myself in the idea of carnival as an art-form and the preservation of a culture, and that if one could get beyond the modern mainstream mess of a masquerade, there was still a richness to be found in there. From the Canboulay re-enactment, 3 Canal's Jam-It, Dimanche Gras with Shak inside and DCFA's attempt to remind us of the tradition, I'd say I had a good time this year.

8) Being accepted by youthspeaks to be part of the Future Corps. Program for bnv 2010. Despite the fact that this was also one of my bigger disappointments for the year in not being able to make the trip, the thought of it was quite cool.

7) U.We Speak's BLACK 'demonstration' on the promenade. I remember the fast I made that day, my visit to the Church in Grande before my father said he would drop me down to campus. The warning both parents had for me in the car, that this was entirely my decision with possible consequences. The coiling of my stomach when Amilcar asked us to make an individual decision of whether we were to go along with it or not. The way destiny screams in your head sometimes. The idea of me 21, student and in jail. CLR James' Letters to London in my hands, frozen, people questioning me getting no answers, a group of young girls playing in my hair. The police keeping their eyes on us from across the street. What a day.

6) Being the guest-speaker at my primary school's graduation. I had been living in a prior numbness before then and I delivered that speech to myself more than anyone else in that room. The freshness in their faces really inspired me to live again. They were so full of promises and energy. It reminded me what I was about, just when I needed it.

5) My fare-well thing that Gamma put together for me. I was super contented with the corn soup that only Shelly could master like that. Moreso, I was aware like wait...I have friends? Something I had been doubting for a while, and it was encouragement for me that some things are worth pursuing.

4) It was the greatest relief for me to complete my bachelor's with my final exams from London. My mother could now be satisfied and can boast all she wants, (mothers really enjoy that kind of thing). I thank God for allowing me to get through those three excruciating years of legal studies that had zero application to my desired way of life.

3) Nobody that was there can deny the magical reality that was the closing night of the 'March to Caroni' play. The play stopped being a play in the second half of the show and I am sure that all who were present felt it. Sold out and crowded even in the aisles, there was a dead silence throughout the auditorium when the stories of the revolution came forward after the play. That night changed my life. That production changed my life. My pores raise now even thinking about it. 1970 is a restless spirit.

2)My acceptance into Brooklyn College changed my life and the life of those closest to me. Some changes were obviously some painful ones, but some things have to happen for other things to happen. I have no doubt that this is where God ordained that I should be right now in his plan for my life. I sometimes doubt even that and often ask how did I find myself here, but this move was hardly my doing. God is the shifter of universes, and may it be done to me according to his word.

1) To have love and to share it. There are two men in my life that have carried me throughout every one of these moments this year, and I owe so much to their encouragement and prayers and faith, and love..yes there was love. My father and my boyfriend are beyond any possible way of me thanking them. They knew my moments of limitless happiness and my moments of doubt and depression, and have kept watch with me every single day. What I appreciate most about this year, is how they have both recognized and accepted the role of each other in my life, and I thank God for them.