2016: A Personal Retrospective

The year 2016 has passed. In retrospective, it is a year that I am embarking a new journey that will change my life forever. Here's some of the important things that happened in my life:

• My role as an IT administrator has expanded from merely taking care of any electric & electronic equipment along with POS management to an integral part of business management. I also gained a new subordinate who has the potential to catch up with my abilities. Hopefully I can train her to the point that she can act independently in my absence.
• I started playing Tekken, maiming Alisa. This is my first fighting game experience. My skills in Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune as an AT user has improved as well.
• I traveled to Japan for 38th Music Media-mix Market. After meeting with the singers and listening to their music, I decided to resume composing recorder music after calling it quits for 4 years, with a plan for selling my first album this year as a tribute and thank you for them.

What has happened with you in 2016 that you want to share?

I went to Japan, too! Kyoto for two weeks. It kicked ass

Well, on the personal front, I'd say this year has been nice to me, since I made a lot of new friends, and strengthened some of my older friendships. I also learned a lot of interesting stuff in college, and I started a small wordpress to write in (not linking because it's in Spanish). But then I pay a lot of attention to international stuff, so I start getting frustrated.

I got a dog! And went on two field school trips, my first time actually out mapping and measuring.

I was also accepted into an internship, which I didn't take for personal reasons, but I'm optimistic for this year!

I had a job for two and a half months. That was the furthest reach to adulting that I have ever done.

• Made a lot of progress in my college Medical Technician program, including surviving semester with 3 science classes all lumped together. By the end of that semester I qualified to begin my internship in the hospital, which will start in about 2 weeks.

• Proposed to my girlfriend, and she said yes.

• Started working part-time at a job I left at the end of 2015, only I got them to give me a pay increase of about 45% to make it worth my while. Now even if the Med Tech thing doesn't work out, I could probably support myself if I did this job full-time instead.

• Adopted a very sweet dog.

• ... I managed to avoid any truly bad fits of depression and such, which felt all but inevitable for awhile.

I made my first paycheck working as a part of the election board. It wasn't much but at least I got to legally skip school.

Got my driver's license, traveled by myself to other cities (on Amtrak and bike), learned how to use a 3D printer.

It was my first year of living with non-relatives. An instructive, belated experience, especially when it comes to cleaning. I started growing spring onions and oregano. Meanwhile I helped my parents spruce up their country manor, including clearing leaves, picking apples, keeping back grass with a trimmer, trimming the hedges with a strimmer, pruning trees with a chainsaw to make logs for the fire and piling up two bonfires that have yet to be lit. Good working experience.

I travelled to Berlin, to connect again with a friend, and starting a mellower relationship was the highlight of the year. I travelled to Brussels and saw my brother.

Both holidays were hurriedly planned in November because I had been saving my allowance in the hopes of using them towards a sixteen-week course with Code Clan, but that fell through for this year. I did not achieve much overall, and I must set my drive towards earning qualifications for a better career path. Nor have I done much artistically.

Got some pay raises, bought a car (technically in the last week of 2015 but who's counting?), climbed some mountains over the summer and almost made it to the summit of one of the Crestones (a cluster of mountains in Colorado in excess of 14,000 feet) on one trip but got turned away by a sudden blizzard of thundersnow when I was 500 yards away from the top. (Accursed September weather...)

Also got my driver's license renewed.

This year I plan to do more mountains in the spring through the fall weather and mountain depending, make a trip to Hawaii for paid vacation in about 6 weeks (I'm trying to plan to hike to the top of the highest mountain on Earth aka Mauna Kea^note Highest mountain if you include the roughly 20,000 feet of it that's beneath the ocean.), and also some other things including possibly beginning the preparations of my Presidential run in 2020. (I may wait until 2018 for that one though.)

edited 24th Jan '17 4:45:35 PM by MajorTom

I got a summer job and used it to save up for a gaming PC, then I applied for more jobs, then I got another job on a more permanent basis. Both were cart attendant jobs. Started mindfulness training which I've since attended on an intermittent basis.

Got a new job and some good professional experience, moved closer to said job to avoid sitting for an hour in traffic both ways, spent a lot of time with friends, went with my sister to Raleigh to visit our cousins, spent some time in Chicago, and threw a Christmas party with my roommate. Had a fair amount of emotional turmoil through it all, but that's normal for me.

edited 25th Jan '17 1:08:23 PM by BrainSewage

In April, I bought a house with my boyfriend. We bought a HOUSE. For our first foray into living together, my partner of four years and I bought a freakin' house. Our finances are combined. We're on the hook for 30 years together. On paper, this sounds ridiculous—we're not even married! (yet.) But! He is kind, helpful, compassionate, and just plain fun to be around, and living with him has been even better than I was expecting. *whew* (Also, I love reading all of your 2016 stories! Yay Tropers!)