Resolutions 2009 Evaluated

Another calendar year is drawing to a close and it is time to see how I performed against the resolutions I made at the start of the year (documented at http://www.anthonycramp.name/2009/01/resolutions-2009.html). As usual I didn't spend the year with my resolutions constantly in my mind and the inevitable occurred ... a lot of fail.

Blog posts: fail. 22 this year (23 including this post). More than 30 last year. I guess I could get up on last year if I write a couple of posts per day from now until New Year, but they'd be trite and meaningless and I have other trite and meaningless things to do.

Photography: fail-ish. Nowhere near as much travel this year and, consequently, not as many photos. My Flickr site does have a few pages of photos from this year and my Aperture library has even more photos, but there doesn't appear to be any "photography for photography's sake" photos from this year.

Read, Read, Read: fail-ish. I have read a few books, both fiction and non-fiction, though I can't remember what books I have actually read.

Lose weight: fail. I am heavier now than I was at this time last year, and it is not (only) due to Christmas grazing.

Learn Indonesian: faily-passy. I know more than I did last year. I can construct simple sentences, but I am not even close to fluent.

Develop software applications: fail. I have a few ideas for software apps to write but have not committed the time to see them through.

Website development: fail. The most significant thing I did this year with regard to my websites was to sort out the A Record so that http://anthonycramp.name directs here instead of to my domain host.

PhD: WIN. I had my thesis submitted for examination by the end of March. The result of the examination was 'pass with modifications'. I made the mods and had the final thesis submitted by the end of October. I now have the status 'eligible to graduate' which should happen during April next year. However, I will have been officially conferred with the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the end of this year.

A lot of fail this year with a big win to conclude, and the win, for me, out-plays the fail. Getting the PhD off my books opens up a realm of possibilities. A partial exploration of this realm will be made with a new set of resolutions which I will document soon-ish.