Like many others at this time of year I find myself looking back over the last year to see what has changed/what I've done with my time. Fortunately I didn't set myself any goals it seems so I can't say I haven't done what I planned [grin]

So, this time last year I found myself poor, with a job starting soon and no where to live for said job (indeed, this time last year I was heading out to look for a place to live in Brighton once more) and some vague relationship thing with a girl in my home town.

One year on I'm currently back home on a shiney Dell Studio 17 laptop, with a place to live in Brighton, the same vague relationship with a girl in my home town and a work contract which finishes on Jan 6th with my return to work date being Jan 7th.

At this point it would be easy to look at things and say well nothing much has changed but that wouldn't be quite true, at least in a professional sense anyway.

I think the biggest thing for me was having my first professional game credit, that was an important milestone for this year and has given me at least some credibility. The second has been in the new project the amount of faith and responciblity my lead has shown/given to me. Despite my age and some commerical coding experiance I've only really been in the game industry for around a year now so that has been important to me. I think it's a case of what I've always said; I'm by far good enough I just needed that bit of paper to get a chance to show it.

It's because of this that, despite going on holiday for 3 weeks without a contact to sign for when I get back, I'm not worried about my job security. The company has taken some new people on recently and with the amount of praise heaped on me I would be surprised if I had no job come the new year.

In my own time I've not really done all that much, played with some ideas, abandoned others and despite wanting to do some coding over the Xmas break I've mostly taken the last 2 weeks or so as a total break from coding; even with this laptop fully loaded with everything I need to get my C# groove on I've not felt the need to do so.

So, plans for the new year, assuming all things stay equal and I do indeed have some form of employment;
1; continue current game prototype. It's still very much work in progress and I really should get around to working on it some more. If only so I can get it finished so that I can pick up an alternative form of income.
2; Do some more work on a book. For about 7 years now I've had this story in my head, I've just not found the time or the style with which to tell it.
3; lose weight and get fit. Having returned home and having had many comments passed about my belly (including the required 'when is is due?' ones), none of which I can complain about as I've been hella-harsh to my friends over time, I plan to do something about it. I personally think that my general food intake is fine, the problem is a lack of moving, so the monday after I get back to Brighton is going to mark the start of my new plan to get back into running again.

(when I was about half my age I am now, so 14 or 15, I was alot fitter and a decent distance runner. For a charity event I did a 10Km run in just under an hour which was no where near pushing myself. The fact that running a short distance these days leaves me gasping for breath depresses me slightly when I look back on those memories)

Of course, if all things don't stay equal, well, who knows what will happen.

As for New Year Eve itself, I'm not sure what I'm doing yet. Really, after accidently taking a blow to the head/face monday night and having to go to A&E to get my face glued back together I should probably stay in and avoid drinking... that said, maybe the call will be too great. (For those who are friend'd on FaceBook check out the pictures there to see my lovely injury [grin])

Either way, have a good one (and one for me in case I don't go out) and I'll see you in the New Year [smile]