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Your Finest Accomplishments 2010
It's a new year, it's a new thread! This is the sequel to this thread. As I said last time, this is basically the "Boo-Yahs of the Year" thread. I'm going to try to be more succinct this time around.
1) Got a better job
It's interesting how last year I was so happy to have the job that I did, yet now it pales in comparison to what I'm doing now. If nothing else, this year proved to me that I was always meant for small business.
2) Survived for almost seven months without income
Built up a lot of debt in the process, but I managed to keep my apartment and handle a few crises.
3) Cleared more of my backlog than I added
According to my stats, this year I watched over 85 movies I hadn't seen before, played and finished 20 video games, and watched at least 12 seasons of TV shows. Read a few books too.
4) Got a new car and computer
More debt, but they were necessary.
That's about it. I do understand that #2 really is a big deal, but I don't feel like it's something to be proud of. It's simply a choice I made, and it came with positives and negatives. Mostly negatives so far, I don't expect the positives to come until next year.
1) Got a better job
It's interesting how last year I was so happy to have the job that I did, yet now it pales in comparison to what I'm doing now. If nothing else, this year proved to me that I was always meant for small business.
2) Survived for almost seven months without income
Built up a lot of debt in the process, but I managed to keep my apartment and handle a few crises.
3) Cleared more of my backlog than I added
According to my stats, this year I watched over 85 movies I hadn't seen before, played and finished 20 video games, and watched at least 12 seasons of TV shows. Read a few books too.
4) Got a new car and computer
More debt, but they were necessary.
That's about it. I do understand that #2 really is a big deal, but I don't feel like it's something to be proud of. It's simply a choice I made, and it came with positives and negatives. Mostly negatives so far, I don't expect the positives to come until next year.
Comments
Yeah, that, uh... pretty much consumed all of my personal growth and achievement for the year. I still have a lame job, a lot of debt, and several steps to take before I can take a shot at going back to school. I'm afraid 2010 hasn't been a banner year for me in most ways. It's fine; I needed to recover. I just don't have a lot to brag about.
For little stuff, I guess I brewed some pretty killer beers, and I've started GMing a pretty successful tabletop game, which is the first time I've managed to pull one together in a few years.
The lady and I also went on a killer road trip for most of the month of September. It was a cool experience! I can't say that all that much truly came of it but it was a great trip.
I did a strength training program with my brother a few months ago that worked out really well. We both put on some muscle and got quite a bit stronger, and it felt like an accomplishment.
I got goals for next year, though, y'all. For serious. And this one ain't done quite yet.
2) Pretty sure I've settled on my grad/professional schooling plans. Also incredibly important.
3) Actively started searching for lab jobs and internships, even if I didn't get the one I wanted.
4) Living by myself. Getting by, and I've just about finished adjusting.
5) Built a gaming rig.
6) Started drawing/writing again.
7) I'll also probably be painting 40k stuff again before the year is out, but that can be a fail depending on how you cut it.
//nuff said.
2) My game company grew by 3x, in part because of a game I helped make! Currently making a big game!
3) Built a Nice Computer with my own two hands!
4) Took a course in Japanese about history. Got better at Japanese. Read a couple Japanese novels.
5) Beat my best time on the soccer warm-up 1.5 mile run from High School.
6) Got better at cooking! Made dinner a handful of times every week.
7) Made the most progress on my film since graduation.
1. Got engaged to my lover and best friend, Jed.
2. Went back to school.
3. Did better at this semester than the last.
4. Kicked panel ass at Anime Boston.
5. Moved then painted and decorated a new studio apartment into awesome stylish geekiness!
6. I think I got my signature mohawk this year?
7. Got +~**SUPAH STYLAASH!**~+
8. Went to clubs and parties more than ever!
9. Got better at composition and critique.
10. Made progress on my script a lot.
11. Did a podcast and a panel with a fandom hero of mine.
(Or did I dream that?)
A) Used the phrase "In my professional opinion..." once when talking about a video game.
2) Finished graduate school (basically.)
3) Presented a panel about comic theory at a convention.
4) Made a video game comic (or comic video game.)
5) Met Amy Hennig at GDC.
2) Read some books.
3) Wrote some essays.
4) Became a college student.
5) Got so much AP credit that I have Sophmore standing after first quarter Freshman year.
2. Had enough credits to start as a Sophomore
3. Got a 3.5 for my first quarter of said college.
4. Got a girlfriend.
5. Graduated from High School (pales in comparison to all the above, but still, it warrants being mentioned)
That's about it, but all pretty kewl stuff. Overall, it's arguably my best year yet. XD
1. Moved to NYC. There are jobs here, and cultural things going on.
2. Stopped doing tech support entirely and switched to web design / development. This was a pretty hard move, but I'm enjoying my day-to-day work much better.
3. Found a pretty cool startup to hire me. Learning a lot at work and having fun.
4. Went to PAX (east) for the first time!
And more recently, I've been feeling a lot more secure and confident, now that I don't have to worry about money every week. I've met a few interesting people, and I'm sure I'll meet more as time goes on.
On the eve of turning 21, I'm kind of proud that I've lived on both coasts, and in some of the best cities in America. I've found my niche in the industry, and honed my skillset. Hopefully I'll be able to get a degree or two under my belt, and eventually I'd like to live in the EU, but I'm content with my life so far.
2. Built a half ton robot for my senior design project on someone else's dime.
3. Landed an amazing job doing robotics research on campus, who will pay my way through graduate school.
4. Applied to the Ph.D program on campus.
2. Started to get my credit back in order.
3. Paid off my first official car, to later on crash it 3 weeks later. (The latter is not an accomplishment. ; _
4. Went to PAX East to where I met a lot of awesome people whom I've befriended.
5. Became and Enforcer again and enforced not once but twice this year.
6. Successfully lived in an apartment for over a year without having the need to move due to circumstances beyond my control.
7. Am actually consistent in updating blog frequently.
- In January, I discovered NerdNYC, where I met many great new people, a cool forum, and a place to play board games at least once a month
- In February, a friend approached me with an offer to help him run TheModernDayPirates.com. I'd never written anything outside of work and school, but fell in love with it. (Look ma, an engineer who can write!) Since Feb, I've written 125 posts, gone to Toy Fair, PAX East, Internet Week NY, PAX Prime, and NYCC all for free as a media attendee, and been able to score approximately $1,000 in free review copy board games, video games and DVDs.
- In March, I started regularly listening to podcasts. Among many others, I discovered GeekNights while preparing for PAX East. Now even when I don't talk to any else in my day that I can have an intelligent and geeky conversation with, I can at least hear other people's convos, and can post on this here forum.
- In September, I was offered a side-job as the hobby gaming writer for a new MTV website, MTV Geek. Check out my posts here
- In October, I found out I will be having my first child next year!
WARNING! Stupidly long blog post about what I've done in 2010, written mainly as reference material for future Luke.
Back at the beginning of the year I made a list on my blog of many plans and goals for 2010. The list wasn't very well thought out, I just wrote it as I went, putting down things I wanted to accomplish in various areas.
When I later counted them up, the total number of plans and goals randomly came to 50. After a while I started tracking these in a spreadsheet, and at the end of every month I would take off what I had accomplished (Win), what I was working on (In The Works), what I intended to get to in the future (Future Win), and where I had failed (Fail).
This would be very helpful, except that every win or fail was worth an equal number of points in this spreadsheet. For example, I decided to write an album's worth of songs for the year, and this was worth one point, and at the same time I wanted to check if my iPhone could record audio as a dictaphone to use in podcasts, and this was also worth one point.
Going to four conventions? One point.
Playing a computer game? One point.
Writing a novel? One point.
Buying a new camera bag? One point.
Also, for some reason, I listed doing more juggling podcasts under both the juggling and podcasting sections of my stated goals.
So here are the results.
At the beginning of the year there were, of course, 50 things in the "future win" column and the other columns were empty. By the end of the year:
Fail: 12.45
Future win: 0
In the works: 2.5
Win: 35.05
Not bad, I think.
In fact, I don't know if this is good or bad, because I've never tracked personal projects quite so specifically before.
And, to be very clear about this, I did way more than I outlined on this list. Some of the most interesting things I did this year, and some of my biggest accomplishments, I didn't foresee in January. How could I? I might write a whole other blog post about the things I've learnt in 2010, and how I've developed to the person, as they feel that is way more important than ticking boxes on a hastily and shoddily compiled a list.
Anyway, let's take these one by one. Or at least section by section.
Work and travel section.
"Keep working on cruise ships, though structuring the my time away better than last year to maximize time in Berlin/with friends/doing my own thing."
Win! I could have structured my time at home better than I did, but at least I did it better than 2009. I took all of May and June off work, which was a bit unfortunate due to the bad weather in May, but it was nice to have my parents over the nine days.
"I already know I'll be visiting, on various cruises, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, India, and Dubai for the first time, along with a few other places. I may be going to Antarctica again too."
Win! Although this was a general "I want to see new places" kind of wish, rather than a goal in and of itself.
"On top of work travel, spend some frequent flier points and travel home from various gigs independently. In this way I hope to spend a week in New Zealand, and a week in Japan."
Win! Although I decided against New Zealand and Japan. I did, however, use my work travels to visit more places, and see more people, and not always try to get home as quickly as possible. I spent frequent flier miles to visit Rome for three days in November, but all my other travels I either arranged for free through work or spent my own money.
" Release my International Juggler 2009 video, the one I've been working on for the last year, which features me juggling in every country/place I visited. "
Win!
"Shoot, edit, and release International Juggler 2010, a similar video as above, of all the places I visit in 2010. I have some ideas about how to make this different/better than the 2009 video, but I don't need to think about that too much for the next few weeks."
Win/in the works.
I do have a project like last year's, which shows everywhere I travelled this year, but the way it's structure that is that it includes last year's destinations too. I pick the best shot from each country over two years to include in this video. However, this video is mostly from me to use in my show, and is not put up online.
What I did want to do is share my travels as I went along. In 2009 I shot lots of video in lots of different places, for example on my trip to Spain, I was there for weeks, but only the best five seconds of footage got into the international juggler 2009 video.
This year I released videos of me juggling in Antarctica, Papa New Guinea, Iceland, New York, and many other places. This way I could share more than just a few seconds, as a people could see me experiencing these countries too, rather than just standing in front of somewhere pretty and juggling five balls.
" Go to Poland. I live really close, but have never been. What's up with that?"
Win. I was invited to perform at a juggling convention in Poland.
" Go to the Berlin, British, and European juggling conventions. And a convention in September/October too. Maybe the Turkish again, maybe another. "
Partial win.
I went to the Berlin, European, Brussels, and Lublin conventions. I didn't get to the British juggling convention.
" Spend four to six weeks in New York. I've visited the city for a few weeks, but I want to get to know the city better. I hear so many people from there talk about it, and I want to experience it all first hand. "
Win. Actually, I was there the 27 days, not four weeks. But I think that counts. It was an amazing month away, and certainly the highlight of my year.
" Maybe, if I can sort the dates right, I might go to DragonCon, to nerd out with the scifi and podcasting geeks."
Fail. This was a spur of the moment addition to the list, and was never really a serious plan. I made sure that I arrived in New York before DragonCon began, just in case I got the motivation to go, but I never seriously thought would happen.
Nine plans and goals, 5.75 wins, 1.25 fails, and one project kinda still in the works. If I do release the video of all the places I juggled this year, it won't be called international juggler 2010.
I had 13 plans and goals in this section, which makes it the largest section of all. That's to be expected, considering I am a professional juggler, and juggling is one of my main hobbies.
" Keep improving my solo shows and performing skills."
Win. I'm getting better at performing all the time.
" Work on my Room show project, a juggling theater show. I plan to have all the set building work complete by March, and 20 to 30 minutes complete by May."
Partial win. I have worked a lot on my room project, but this constitutes many fails in this list. I never managed to get as far as I wanted to, mainly because it's too difficult to work on such a big project by myself. As soon as I invited somebody over to help with the project, I worked quickly and easily, but the entire thing was too much work for one person.
Therefore:
" Perform a short version of the Room Show at the Berlin Juggling Convention in June."
" Have an hour show finished by October, and put on a series of shows in my own home for invited audiences."
Two fails. However, I give myself a partial win for the first one about my room show because I did without a cool video in August, and did write a lot of material, even if the video was the only thing I managed to present to anyone.
" Finish other juggling routines I'm working on at the moment."
Win. Then again, I'm constantly working on new material, so I probably have more unfinished juggling routines now than I did at the beginning of the year.
" Run the British Young Juggler of the Year show for the sixth year. Also do a series of online workshops for those taking part, in attempt to raise the quality of the acts. Nobody has won a Gold Award yet!"
I marked this down as a fail, because I didn't run the British young juggler of the year. I didn't go to the British juggling convention at all. There are many reasons, really after running BYJOTY for five years in a row, I don't think I need to prove anything to anyone and continue when my inspiration is running low.
I have written quite a few workshops about juggling and performing for my blog though, so maybe I should give myself half a point here.
" I'm in charge of the Open Stages at the EJC in Finland. That means seven or eight nights of zero stress and easy work as my superior organization skills result in everything running smoothly, and every night's show rocking. Or so I hope."
A win. There was a little bit of stress, but nothing serious. I ran five nights of entertainment, plus I organised the fight night, and hosted the opening show. On top of that I took dozens of photos every day, and uploaded them to Facebook in my blog. I probably did a bit too much but the European juggling convention, to be honest.
" Generally rock out playing combat."
Win. Combat is one of my favourite things about juggling, and I think I'm getting better all the time. However…
" Beat Jochen in the final of a Fight Night 3 Club Combat tournament. I've won a tournament we both entered before, but I wasn't the one to knock him out. "
Fail. Jochen beat me in the final in Berlin, or maybe it was Flo, but I didn't win there. And then at the European juggling convention, I messed around too much, and Alex beat me in the semi-final. Jochen went on to win.
Maybe next year!
" Release some more Juggling Podcasts."
This is in the works. It's a secret project at the moment, which I intended to release by the end of 2010, but it'll be out in the New Year instead. It isn't specifically about juggling, but I do talk to plenty of jugglers. Stay tuned.
" Release some interesting juggling videos on YouTube (I have a few good ideas)."
Win. I'll let you judge if my YouTube videos are interesting or not, but I think they are.
" Juggle 9 clubs for 19 passes each with Pola."
I think this is included more for nostalgia purposes than anything else. It was always one of our plans and goals for the year when we did the juggling podcasts, and generally made plans together for the year, but it's not very handy when you no longer live in the same country, let alone in the same house.
" Also, depending other work commitments, I might enter Britain's Got Talent."
Fail. Although, judging by the reputation of Britain's got talent, this might be a win.
In this section, I got six win points, one in the works, and six fail points. Not very good, considering I am a professional juggler, and juggling is one of my main hobbies.
Writing section.
" Keep writing for this blog."
Win.
" Finish editing and release (and decide on final titles for) on my two works-in-progress novels: Combat Story and Monster Story. Completion dates: January and March."
Win. The final titles actually stay very much the same, "Combat" and "The Monster Story Conference" respectively. However, the Monster Story is still not in the final version, not matter that I released what I had online. But who knows, maybe the final version will be a screenplay or comic book!
" Have another run at Human Danger (working title), the novel I began but didn't complete in 2009. I have a feeling this will be a longer term project than just this year though."
Fail. Although I noted at the beginning of the year but it will probably not get done in 2010 alone.
" Research, outline, and write another novel I'm giving the working title "Arc of Life." It'll be a fantasy novel set in a world of strange creatures and magic."
Half and half. This is still in the works, even though I completed all the research and outlining. I wrote just over a quarter of the novel itself, although I actually believe that because so much of it was about world building and outlining the plot and characters, I'm more than half done with the entire project in terms of writing. I never intended to have it completed by the end of the year, completely edited and released, but I thought I would be a bit further along than I am now.
" Start work on the final novel in the Minding Tomorrow world."
Win. This is almost finished, at least as a first draft.
" Do an audio recording of one of my novels. "
Fail. I never even thought about this after writing it in this original list!
Total for this section: 3.5 win points, 2.5 fail points. I'm very happy with this though, because Win points, when it comes to writing novels, mean a lot. And the fail points apply to a novel I didn't think I would write, and an audio book recording projects which I never intended to do anyway.
Oh yeah, and 0.5 in the works points.
Podcasting section.
" Keep reading science fiction novels and reviewing them for the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast. I also plan to review any fantasy novels I read."
Win. 37 podcast episodes recorded and released so far in 2010. Each one of these represents a book read, as well as hours spend thinking about the book, an hour of recording, and probably an hour on top of that on the work per podcast. It's funny that this has, in many ways, be my biggest project this year in terms of visible output to the general public, and yet it is only worth one win point. Such is my life.
The good thing is that listener numbers keep going up! I must be doing something right.
"Be a guest on other podcasts."
Win. I was a guest on the SFFaudio podcast a few times, as well as on the Geeknights podcast. Maybe some other podcasts too, although they don't spring to mind at the moment.
" Doing some more Juggling Podcasts. I really miss the interviews I did with other jugglers."
At this point I can say win, even though in the juggling section I said this was in the works. It's a matter of semantics. There I said release, and here I say doing. I have done the podcasts, as in conducted the interviews, however there yet to be released. Easy point, even if this one was quite redundant. Not that I noticed when I made the list.
" I'm thinking of starting a new podcast about traveling."
Win. I did this for a while at the beginning of the year. It turned out to be too much work. I visit so many places, and see so many different things, and the idea was that I would release one episodes per country I visited, or post-op I made on the cruise. This turned out to be unworkable, as the schedule would mean five podcasts per week in some cases. In the end I decided to stick to just making blog posts with my photographs from each stop in my travels.
This could be called a fail, however it was always going to be an experiment, and was more of a way to combine hobbies, those being travelling and photography and podcasting. That I tried it is enough, even if I didn't keep it up. I learnt a lot anyway.
" If I'm going to do this, I'm going to buy a portable mp3 recorder with a mic attachment, so I can record easily while hiking across a city or up a hill."
" Thinking about that last point, what I should actually do is see if my iPhone would work just as well, as then I need to carry one less gadget."
These two are just stupid, they have very little to do with plans and goals for the year. I was just thinking with my fingers when typing, and somehow they made onto the list. But I did look into these things, and by a microphone for my laptop which also works with my camera, and I did use my iPhone as a voice recorder a few times too.
Final results for this section: six win points out of six! Nice!
And, as I said, I have a whole new podcast project which I'll be sharing a lot more about in the future.
" I have no plans for my photography. It's the only hobby I have which has no performance aspect at all (I even podcast about my reading), so there is no pressure to do anything at all. I'll just keep carrying my camera, and keep improving my skills and artistry. "
See that plan? The plan was to have no structure to this hobby. And it really worked. Overall I could do anything with my photography, and if you follow my blog, you'll see that photography posts public outnumber any other subject.
I have a lot more to say about my photography than I want to wrap up in a single blog post, but I do think it is the hobby which I improved that most of this year. This is probably because my other skills are generally higher than my photography skills, and I was making a ground, but I'm still very impressed with my progress. I've written on this blog already about sharing photographs on Facebook and how that was a great inspiration to me to keep taking more photographs at juggling conventions.
I think this plan, not having set the goal, actually worked out pretty well. It will probably in form any plans and goals I set for 2011.
" But I will try to keep posting photos to my blog."
Win.
" And I'm going to buy a new zoom lens, because the autofocus on my current (really shitty) zoom lens is broken."
" And I'll probably buy another two or three camera bags."
Win and win. Not only did I buy a new lens and two camera bags. This is partially because I managed to throw my old camera out of a taxi, breaking a quite badly, and while it still worked it was held together by a white sticky tape. But also I got to the point where my camera equipment was limiting my improvements as a photographer. My current camera, the Canon 60 D, will probably allow me to improve as a photographer for another two or three years at least.
Total winnings for this section: four out of four. Setting low expectations seems to be the trick here.
Music section.
" Write an album's-worth of new songs and record them by the end of the year. "
This was a huge goal, but it worked out really well. I interpreted it as meaning one song per month, and while I always fell behind, it's now December, and I did write 12 songs.
The concept of recording the songs took on different meanings, as I never intended it to be a single album, every song properly recorded and packaged as a whole. Instead I recorded some songs with a video camera and shared them on YouTube, other songs I did full pop production, some songs I made music videos for, and some I have on my laptop and have not yet shared on my blog or on YouTube or any other way.
A win, by the way.
" Write the music for Room."
This tied in with my big theatre project for the year, and that was largely fail, this part would be too. But I did actually work quite a bit on the music this project, and for the video I released, I made sure the music was a large part of it. Win.
" Buy a five string bass guitar and learn to rock."
Fail. Maybe one day. Now I want to buy a piano, after playing them a lot more on cruise ships while writing songs per month.
Wins for this section: two out of three. I'm happy with that.
Other goals section.
" Get better at speaking German. I plan to hire a personal tutor, as regular classes don't work with my schedule."
Half and half. I did manage to work with any private tutor, but I do think my German improved this year, despite spending well less than half of my time in Germany. I managed to perform my show twice in German, I was very happy with that. It's certainly something I want to improve more in the future, but learning German is, by far, the most difficult thing I have ever done. Forget learning how to juggle, or anything else in these plans and goals lists, learning a language just kills me.
" Try to spend a few hours a week in the gym whenever I'm on a cruise ship."
I kept this up for while, for a few cruises, but it wasn't the last. My health and fitness very throughout the year, which could almost make blog post in its own right, but generally I'm quite healthy. I got very little need to spend time in the gym.
At least that's what I tell myself.
It's a fail anyway.
" Spend more time with friends."
Win. This mainly comes down to making new friends as well, and getting into better routines while in Berlin.
" Make new friends."
Win. It was good to make new friends in Berlin, but who aren't jugglers, and didn't know me as one half of a now defunct relationship. Handy!
" Have sex."
Win. The details are for me and my private diary, not my blog, but needless to say it was one of the first things I ticked off this list.
" Maybe buy a new laptop. This macbook has served me well for almost two years, but I'm doing more and more music and video and photo editing, and it's struggling a bit. I think I'll buy a full spec 13" MacBook Pro, and upgrade to a solid state hard drive for super quick load times. "
Win. I actually bought a 15 inch MacBook Pro. It's the most expensive thing I've ever bought except for car. But I think it's worth it, considering I use it daily and constantly.
This section wins: 4.5 versus 1.5. Not bad.
Consumption of entertainment section.
" Catch up with Dexter."
Partial win. I finished up to the end of season three, but season four on DVD is still too expensive to buy, and I can never be bothered to pirate anything. Also I have the general principle which states I will never watch anything made for television for free, I will always pay for it. This way I will only spend time and effort on a series I really care about, rather than filling stupid amounts of time with dross. By paying for television it's like I'm putting a dollar value, or euro value, on my own time. That I'm the one paying for it means I value it even more.
" Watch more than the first episode of Battlestar Galactica."
I did watch more than the first episode, although I haven't made it to the end of the first series. Maybe in 2011. However, relying on semantics, this is a win.
" Play more Natural Selection and, if it is ever released, Natural Selection 2. I might need more memory for my PC though."
Win. Natural Selection is my only gaming vice, but one I'm very happy with. I'm improving quite a lot, and it's a great way to turn my brain. I only ever play when I'm at home though, as it relies on Internet connection for multiplayer, and there is no single player.
I didn't buy new memory for my PC, instead I installed Windows my new MacBook, and it plays PC games no problem. Natural Selection 2 is only just out as a beta, and doesn't work very well on any computer, let alone my MacBook. I did play through all of Half Life one and two, and preferred half life one in almost every way except graphically. And Portal too, which is very good, but way too short and easy.
This section total: 2.3 out of 3.
And that's it!
Except for one thing. At the end of my original blog post I reduced the entire list down to 2 points, the two most important plans and goals for 2010.
The first was to continue working on cruise ships, and continue improving my solo show. This has been a great success, and I'm better than ever, with many prospects for the future.
The second was to work very hard on my Room Theatre Project, which has been a failure considering my expectations at the beginning of the year. I think they were set too high.
In fact, I think I remember saying that the two goals almost worked against each other, as one relied on me being away from Berlin, on the other relied on me being in Berlin. It turned out being away from Berlin won out, and whenever I was in Berlin I was concentrating on other projects, and socialising, and just relaxing being a home, rather than trying to work on entire new show.
Again, I'm going to let this inform any plans I make for 2011 and beyond.
Also, very glad to see that this year has been very positive for most. There was a lot more negativity last year.
2. Started saving up to go traveling to the States next year.
3. My podcast (Greatest Events in Sporting History) was picked up by Simply Syndicated