2011 has been a great year for me;
- Graduated with a 1st MEng in Electronics & Software Engineering @QUB,
- Got Job offer to a major financial house, which I turned down,
- Got Job offer to a C|EH company in England, which I turned down,
- Got DELNI Funded PhD offer (x4) from CSIT/ECIT, which I turned down,
- Got selected to be one of the two UK projects within a Joint UK/FR Defence PhD Programme, which I accepted,
- Saw fantastic growth in QUESTS and the Hacker^H^H^H^H^H^HMakerspace, including the beginning of a Major project, which we got EEECS Funding for and are also hoping to get QAF funding for QUESTS in general,
- We are on track to get a actual space for the Makerspace circa Summer 2012,
- Had the fantastic experience of living and working in Zurich for the summer with IAESTE / Pc Engines Gmbh, which gave me the opportunity to visit all over Europe, which was great for my confidence and self-belief, and also gave me a great many new friends all over the world,
- Started (re-)learning French,
- Came second in the UK Nationals of the IET’s Present Around the World Competition in Liverpool for my talk on Privacy in the Modern world (I keep meaning to screen-cast this but keep forgetting…)
- Had a great time making an interesting site with Matt Campbell, Alastair McKinley, and the Sisk Brothers (was live for a few days over the summer, and we didn’t want to pay for it so let it die; may go back to it this year!)
- Was asked to speak at the QUB EEECS RS Colloquium, representing Digital Communications within QUB/ECIT.
- Travelled over 6,000 Miles, visiting at least 12 cities in 7 countries.
- Lost a phone and a bike,
- Went on 12 ‘dates’, 5 of which were worth while, 3 of which I’m still in touch with,
- Taught at least 5 first years that C++ isn’t magic, it’s just poorly taught,
- Sat on 5 committees, only one of which made me feel productive,
- Had a pretty awesome time.
Going forward, I’m not going to make a load of promises I won’t keep. Thanks to all my friends, family, colleagues, competitors, enemies, bureaucrats, pencil-pushers, and random-folk who made my year what it was.
I plan on only two things; KISS, and…
