2010. It’s being an absolutely amazing year personally and I’m sad to see it end, but as ever time marches on. This post serves to sum up everything I’ve done this year and what I’m looking forward to in 2011.
Work
In June I completed a 12 month internship with the excellent folks over at 383 Project (who are hiring!). This was a great experience and I continue to work for them alongside my University studies. While there were some hard times as with any job, overall it was a very positive experience and I miss the team so much I’m in the office most days working on coursework.
On a more personal level I finally got around to releasing some of my various code projects, including two WordPress plugins (HL Twitter and HL Xbox) along with an export script for Plex/Nine called simply Plex Export. While I haven’t updated them recently they’ve managed to garner a few thousand downloads cumulatively which I’m more than happy with.
Health
I’ve always being a bit on the heavy side, never much of an active person. After 12 months of sitting at a desk eating take away for dinner it’s fair to say I’d put on a bit of weight. So when I finished at 383 I set myself a new challenge, lose that weight.
Being a geek, I approached it like I would any other challenge. First I built a WordPress plugin to track my weight, then I worked out what I needed to do to achieve my goal. Two and a half months later I had lost nearly four stone in weight (dropping to a much better 12 stone). Admittedly this probably wasn’t the healthiest way to go about it, but I can’t stand people who continually talk about losing weight and never stick to their convictions.
Alongside the weight loss I stepped up my running, getting a GPS-based Garmin Forerunner watch to improve my tracking and reporting. I obliterated my targets for 2010, mainly due to a healthy bout of interval training and running 20 kg lighter.
- Fastest mile: 5:58 (down from 8:32)
- Fastest 10K: 50:53
- Distance run: 450 km (in 83 runs)
I also started swimming, after almost a decade out of the pool. Barring a two week stint at another pool (not my local baths, nor the best) I managed to improve from the equivalent of a beach ball into someone who can at least manage a few lengths. At the moment my personal best is a mile (64x25m) in 43 minutes.
And finally; I haven’t drunk any alcohol this year. Not a drop. This was always going to be my hardest goal to hit, I don’t even know why I started except to prove to myself I can do anything I set my mind to. Needless to say as the clock tolls 12 tonight I’m going to have a drink in hand, but it’s been very weird (both socially and physiologically) not drinking any alcohol.
Play
This year I went to the cinema. A lot. I’ve been to the cinema 102 times since January, to see 99 different films. I put up a blog post about my Top 10, so I won’t go into too much detail. It’s doubtful I’ll carry on at this rate, mainly because other duties are beginning to intrude.
I also went to my first live music gigs, starting with Download in June. There I finally saw Rage Against The Machine, one of my favourite bands since I first heard them more than a decade ago (which made last years Christmas #1 more than humorous). I also saw Avenged Sevenfold & Stone Sour at the NIA and finally the Goo Goo Dolls at the Academy, all three amazing. Finally, I saw Ludovico Einaudi at the Town Hall, a very different kind of performance but still a great experience.
Another first this year, I saw my first football match (heck I’ve never even watched a full one on TV). Having never been much of a fan, I decided it was about time to tag along with @dacanning and @mikemike11 to the Villa/Blues match on Halloween. Unfortunately there weren’t any goals but it was a good day nonetheless.
Finally, I had planned to be in New York just before Christmas but a combination of heavy snow and French airports put paid to that idea. Maybe next year?
2011
It’s hard to think 2011 is only a few hours away. By this time next year I’ll have (hopefully) graduated from University with a degree in Software Engineering and entered the working world. The big thing I’m aiming for is travelling abroad for a few months before committing myself to the next forty years in an office. But hey, who knows what might happen?
I’m not going to lay down any specific goals, only to say that I hope 2011 will be as good a year as 2010 has ended up being.
