It amazes me that yet another year has come and gone. The year 2011 was quite the year, full of craziness and joy (if those two adjectives can go together).
This year marked my second year working at Optaros, where I have been learning everything from YUI (2 and 3), to Drupal (6 and 7), to even a little bit of Magento towards the end. I had never really traveled for this job before, but the end of the year took me on a whirlwind tour of San Francisco (my first time!), then Austin, then Troy NY, and then back to Austin, all within the span of 6 weeks. Absolute insanity, but also exciting!
In more exciting news, I was lucky enough to go on not one, but two cruises this past year! Last February, I went on my first Ships and Dip cruise, which is basically a giant music festival on a boat in the Caribbean. I saw more Barenaked Ladies and Great Big Sea shows that week than I had in probably the last 10 years. I also met a bunch of great new friends – who new that letting people cut in front of you in line would be great?! In November, I went on my second Eddie From Ohio cruise. This was definitely one of the high points of my year – I love this band! I got to see old friends I rarely see, and made many new ones. I even got to sing with the band!
Speaking of high points, one of my goals for 2011 was to run my first 10k race… and I completely crushed that goal. I ran my first half marathon this past October (in 2:17:52) and, with the help of my friends and family, raised $1535 for Dana Farber in the process!
In other news, I have been blogging and reading and coding quite a bit this year. I did move over the summer, not quite as far as I thought I would have, but I discovered that uprooting myself for no good reason other than the fact that I am still at a point in my life where I can just is not quite good enough now as it was 8 years ago.
All of this brings me to 2012. Everyone makes new year’s resolutions, and I know I am no different, but I also recently read that it is much better to make 3 really solid resolutions as opposed to many more, smaller ones. I am not so sure about that, but I will do my best! Here are my 5 resolutions for this coming year:
- Keep running and finish my 2nd half marathon by the fall. This is really just part of my general “take better care of myself” goal, but I like to have something specific to work towards.
- Travel – and I do not mean just for work. I would love to go overseas again. I have a couple of destinations in mind already. (Yes, Lebanon is one of them, as long as the stars align and all the shenanigans in that part of the world do not spill over the border.)
- Work on more independent coding projects. I would like to have at least 2 under my belt by the end of this year.
- Be bold. Ok, this one is not exactly specific, but they can’t all be, right?
- Read more. I made it to 32 books last year; perhaps I will beat that number this year.
Here is hoping these all come true. Happy 2012! May this year be the best year ever!
