Happy New Year! The title of this post makes it look like I have a silly number of resolutions this year, but fear not: I've managed to limit myself to five. Before getting to them, however, let's first review how I did on my 2014 resolutions:
- CodeClub: failed! I did however sign up as a STEM Ambassador, and were in talks with a school to start a club—but didn't find a way to commit the required time.
- Lose weight: success! Although I didn't get to 75kg by April, I did by August—and my weight continues to drop. It seems I am able to lose weight by eating right.
- Blogging: success! I managed fourteen blog posts last year (including three on the company blog) which is one shy of my goal, but I'm claiming this year's record-length Yuletide letter to family as my fifteenth.
- Socialising: success! Though I didn't manage to arrange a meet with old friends 12 times last year, as I intended, I'll count this as a success as I've met up with new friends my son and I have made at the play park.
Overall I'm quite pleased. It was a busy year, but one where my health and well-being took a massive turn for the better. I weigh less now than I've done since I did competitive Judo in my teens.
My resolutions for 2015 are to:
- Continue writing, but I'll set the bar a little lower this year: twelve posts on this blog.
- Improve my StackOverflow reputation from current 1808 to at least 2500.
- Continue learning Clojure (a Lisp targeting the JVM) by writing a web application and getting at least ten users.
- Make an attempt at improving my guitar playing by going through the first ten chapters of Solo Guitar Playing by Frederick Noad.
- Go hiking in Northumberland and camp out at least once.
All realistic & achievable goals, I think, but not without putting in a little effort. I am looking forward to the challenge! Please do feel free to prod me about progress on any of these!