For a lot of my friends and family, 2010 hasn’t been a great year. As for me, 2010 has been fantastic to the point that when I hear people say that they can’t wait for this year to be over, I do a bit of a double-take as to why.
I had a lot of major changes this year, and I think that all of them were positive, no matter how they initially seemed. For starters, I wrote my first major game review in early 2010 for Final Fantasy XIII. That one review launched me into the role of being Kombo’s only RPG-reviewer, and I got a lot of great games to review, most of which I actually wanted. Sure, some were stinkers (Arc Rise Fantasia), but I think those were a small price to pay to be able to review others. I also got to go to E3 this past year, which was an amazing experience, and I hope to be able to go at least one other time. Unfortunately, it was only two months later that Kombo, the site that helped me go there, crashed and burned overnight. But out of those ashes, I went to GamesAreEvil.com, forged a deeper friendship with a former-Kombo colleague, and made even better friends. A small band of us even formed our own website, The Big Pixels, which has been a fun way to keep in touch with many of those guys.
In other gaming news, my strategy guide review site also really, really took off. I strengthened my relationship with Future Press with a few guide reviews, and I got the opportunity to meet my PR contact at E3. I also established a connection with Prima Games, all thanks to Twitter. They have given me so many guides to review this year, it’s forced me to stop reviewing games and make my gaming life a little more hectic, but I don’t mind too much.
As for real life work, I’ve really boosted my wealth of knowledge for search engine optimization and social media marketing, and I’ve become the company’s resident expert for both. I’m now a project manager for a HUGE social media project we recently landed, and I even have an assistant. It’s been a huge wild ride for me professionally, and I really hope I don’t have to jump off this train anytime soon. I really don’t want to go back to working in an office.
While my sister has had a really bad year this year, in the end, she has a healthy and happy baby daughter, and I’m thrilled to have a happy and healthy baby niece. It’s been so much fun to watch Lisa become a mother and as a result, forge a stronger common bond with her.
So yeah, I have a hard time looking at 2010 without rose-colored glasses. I hope 2011 continues the trend, which from looking back at my history, should be great too, and then it will be 2012 and 2013 that suck royally. There’s something about the first few years of a decade that always seem to get me.
I really don’t have any life-changing resolutions this year, but I do have two goals:
- Develop a regular biking routine for the entire year; and
- Stick to a strict writing schedule for my novel.
I’ve slacked on both, and even though I thought that putting Gabe in daycare would help, obviously it did not. I need to figure out something for both while maintaining the hours I need to pay for daycare and my other bills. That’s where the real challenge is going to be.
So good-bye, 2010. It’s been great, but I’m looking forward to what the next year will bring (such as my trip to Japan!!!).
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