2010 in Review

When all's said and done, 2010 was probably a bit more of an interesting year than I'd have anticipated. When it started, I created a list of things I wanted to achieve before years end (such as get a girlfriend, get a full time job, leave the state - that kind of thing) and wanted to see if I can achieve at least one of those. I'm glad to say that I did.

Let's start with the thing that defined most of the year for me, which was getting a job. Between finishing up University in November and going through the graduation sometime afterwards, was the constant searching for a job. I spent pretty much half the year trying to get some work, had way too much free time than I really wanted.

Job searching would have to be the most painful and depressing experience I've had to go through in the last few months - constantly writing up cover letters and resumes, constantly getting rejection, constantly getting no explained reason as to why I didn't move to the next phase...it came to the point which I had to get some assistance from the local welfare groups, which was the most fucking depressing thing I'd ever have to do. There's nothing I hate more than not only being taught "HEY, THIS IS HOW YOU GET A JOB!", but also waiting in line to submit paperwork to be paid for effectively finding a job.

Things turned around in the middle of the year - I managed to get a spot in a somewhat local council which saw me volunteer as a trainee teacher, which if I had stuck around - would've seen me teach elderly or newer citiziens to learn how to use a computer. I had left because of a job interview attained by one of the people at the council, for a company that specializes in mail insertion and delivery, and it was a full time gig! And thankfully, I had gotten that job!

Getting used to it was probably the hardest thing. Initially, the job was quite a distance away from home, which resulted in a 5am wakeup, leaving home at 6am to make a 7am start, with a 3pm finish. Was a rough few months, in addition to learning how to actually do the job. Then there was leaving all the free time I had accquired, which meant that a few commitments I had prior had to be changed. Though this all got better when the job shifted much closer to home.

As for Level 3, it was a fantastic year. Getting recognized for my Twitter (that'd be DarthHomer), taking part in much live stuff at the various Monash Computer Games Boot Camp's across the year, learning how to create a livestream (and by extension, a live show), and taking part in the 200th episode of the show. Makes the bad stuff associated with it seem like nothing in the long run.

Only real disappointment in this regard was the stopping of the audio podcast. Sure, there are respectable and understandable reasons, but it sucks that something that I've put a tonne of time in has suddenly stopped. And sure, the livestream is awesome and all, but the personal investment is too great to me to not let it pass by easily.

I guess 2010 wasn't that bad of a year after all. Well, the second half was anyway - I can't recall much of the first half. Bring on 2011, I say.