Well, its been quite an eventful year this 2003 has. It came and went as fast as I had imagined it would. We waged war on Iraq (no surprise), caught Saddam in a hole (yay?), and lost the Beagle 2 Mars probe (damnit).
At the beginning of this year, if you recall, I made a list of New Years resolutions; quite a big list in fact. Below, is that list again along with a summary for the ones I accomplished and an excuse for the ones I did not.
1) Lose 20lbs and get in shape by June 1st
This by far is the #1 accomplishment for me this year. I not only surpassed my goal by 20lbs (thats right, I lost 40lbs this year!) but my appearance has changed so much that I need to get a new license. My workouts will continue on into the following year, as I still have another 10lbs to lose before I am where I want to be.
2) Finish highschool
I did not accomplish this. My only excuse is time. I spent so much of my free time working out that I neglected to study. This will be one of next years top goals.
3) Study for and take the SAT's and score at least 1200
I did take the SAT's, however I did not score nearly as high as my goal. Of course, my excuse for this was the fact that I only prepared for one day before taking it. I scored around 850.
4) Get into college for the Fall Semesters
Becuase I did not complete High School this year, I did not try to get into college. Even if I had, I doubt I would have had the time to attend college with the 60+ hour work weeks I've been managing.
5) Do more romantic things for my GF
You'd have to ask her about this one.
6) Take my GF horse back riding!
Unfortunetly we did not even get to go camping this year as we had planned, so there was no horse back riding either.
7) Get my MCSE2k and CCNA certifications
No time to study for them, and any free time to study that I had I used for studying High School.
8) Get at least 1 Linux certification
Ditto.
9) Learn a foreign language
Double-Ditto
10) Learn a computer programming language
I have advanced my working knowledge of PHP this year, however I cant say that I've learned the entire language.
11) Save $10,000
This one I did not accomplish, however I have a good excuse! I wasnt planning to buy a house this year, and any extra money I had went into buying things to repair and work on it. But I could have done a lot better with saving. That will be my first and foremost goal of 2004.
As you can see, I did not accomplish nearly as much as I set out for. This year I bought a house, something I was not expecting to do for another few years. However it was a very good decision. Not only do I live free of rent (I rent the first and second floor which pays the mortgage, while I live in the renovated attic), but it also was an excellent investment. I plan to do much more investing in the year to come.