Looking back on 2022

It is the year’s end and a good a time as any to have a look back over that last year and see what went well, what i am disappointed with and to what extent things went as planned. Typically I find times like this easy to get depressed over for not meeting semi-impossible goals. So I hope I can give a reasonably balenced view and that getting into the habit of writing this out helps with self-reflection in the future.

Goals

Last year at Christmas I was a bit low at the being able to achieve things and tried to come up with more goals for this year it would be good start to try and go through some of them.

Get involved in a FOSS project / community

I never really started with this, I was going to look at gcc or SAGE particularly with regard to rust support. I had some issues doing the builds on my laptop and ended up pushing it later with work stress taking up too much of my time. Will be something to try again on next year.

Geology with the OU

This was a great success. Particularly the field school which was hard with very long days but getting to do things with other people and to see things in the real world was great. It gave a feeling of community if only for a few days that I have missed and I havent really got with the planetary science course.

I might look at going on geology tours / talks / local societies if I can.

Keep at it with work

Work proved challenging this year with the reduction of the team size and greater stress. I had to take a break in the end on health grounds in the summer. After that we worked on reducing and focusing my work a bit which has helped and I managed to get some useful bits together.

I still need to work on better colaboration and documentation of things. As well as being able to move on from things and letting go when they don’t matter – easier said than done.

Travel

I got a little bit of travel in with family but not as much as I had hoped.

Make some things

I have completed a number of nice sewing projects and a couple of small model making ones. I did have the gap when i was low where for 6 months I didnt make much progress on anything but still got various bits finished and completed.

One thing is that all the things I made were following kits or design and I didnt show much independent creativity. However that is how learning and confidence happens. Also I partially do the project for the theraputic value of having something to do. And design offers more chance for procrastination as the final product can never be what is in my mind.

Other things this year…

Beyond the borders is the big thing.

Looking forward

  • Read some real papers and try to implement some of them.
  • Finish OU astronomy course consider what to do next.
  • Do some robotics / electronics courses on Coursera.
  • Travel more! Out and around the country.
  • A big thing will be forcing myself out to see people more.
  • Do more of my own designs rather than just kits
    • Maybe a cross stitch pattern?
    • Use cnc machine and wood to make something?

Reading

The books I read this year LibraryThing bit down on last year. And there were numerous times when I just had multi month dry spells where I couldnt face starting anything.