Well, I owe it to myself to write up an actual blog article rather than a microblog post like I’ve been doing these past few months.
For those who don’t know me, I am somewhat of a workaholic. This has to do primarily with my upbringing and view on life in general. I am a rather ambitious person and refuse to sit on my laurels while waiting for an opportunity to drop in my lap; I’d rather go knocking for opportunity instead of the other way around. This sort of backfired on me; I applied for a non-technical position with Vale in the summer, leaving behind my seven years in IT to work underground in an unfamiliar position in a risky environment. I found out that I had it much better in IT than I originally thought, and it took a new job with its own downfalls and politics to learn that. As another negative point, I actually made more money at the old job after taxes due to the higher income bracket. Needless to say, I’ve had to cut back even more on my spending. A few positives I can take away from this experience are: I now know I’m not and will never be meant to work directly in the mining industry, and I will be hard pressed to complain about a desk job after this.
I got a girlfriend at the beginning of the year. It got pretty serious… up until March. We mutually found out that we just weren’t compatible enough (oops, maybe I should have told her that earlier, but I was blissfully ignorant) and we parted ways. However, she taught me a few things and for that I’m grateful. She also was the one who gave me the idea to apply for my current job. I can’t entirely blame her for that; I’m the one who made the decision. In the end, I don’t think we’re even friends, although she hasn’t removed me from Facebook. One thing I did learn from that relationship is that I am not ready for one. I have too many life and career plans, and I have a pretty good feeling that I’ll be a bachelor for a rather long time as a result, which I’m okay with as long as I’m pursuing my career goals.
It was also the year I finally ditched the Blackberry platform and switched to Android with a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc smartphone, and then later an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablet. After half a year of using the Arc, I did a hardware upgrade last month to the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. Near the end of the month/year, I finally bit the bullet and rooted all my current Android devices in the span of a weekend, including Esmond’s Samsung Galaxy Captivate. I just rooted my Arc this past weekend while watching a movie. I think I’m getting used to hacking Android. Hehehe.
Finally, I decided not to abandon my career in computers completely. In fact, I think I will quite possibly be providing computer support for the rest of my life, but I also figured that I could get into the educational sector through online tutorials, seminars, and classes. Might as well teach what I know, eh?
Minor things of note:
- I kept my budget consistent, but haven’t really pushed it until near the end of the year
- No comic cons this year
- Saw Five Finger Death Punch in concert
- Started playing League of Legends srsly
- Caught up with a lot of TV shows
- Cut back on Winnipeg trips this year
- Made new long term plans for life and career
Both good and bad things happened this year. However, despite that, I like to see the glass as half full! Good-bye, 2011. It was nice knowing you.
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