2017 has been a roller coaster of a year, there have been some big highs but also some huge lows. At the start of this year I set myself some goals which I mostly achieved:

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2016 has been a strange year, it has gone by very quickly, and has been full of change.

At the start of 2016 I set a small number of goals, while I only completely achieved two of them I feel I made progress towards all of them:

• Continue learning German
  • During the first half of the year I continued well along this goal, however, by the end of the year any practice has fallen by the wayside.
• Travel and/or move to Europe or Singapore
  • I spent a month travelling around Europe in February and tried for a job in Germany but was unsuccessful.
• Read 30 books
  • I completed 27 books, which is fewer than the previous two years, however, after moving house I have a shorter commute to work which is where I do the majority of my reading.

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At the start of the year I set some goals which I subsequently completely forgot about, but looking back now I achieved four out of five of them. They were:

• Continue learning German
  • This goal ebbed and flowed, but in the later part of the year I completed around 90 days of continuous practice on Duolingo.com
• Learn python
  • I completed multiple Coursera courses on python and had to crash course myself through it to work on a Baxter robot in the middle of the year.
• Go to Europe
  • I went in February on a whim after finding myself out of work.
• Read 20 books
  • I read 33!

Each month of the year also had a number of highlights:

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Another year comes to an end. During this year I have achieved many of the goals I set myself in January:

• Continue Learning German – and go back to Germany.
  • I did well with the German in the middle of the year, but in the later months I have done none.
  • I still have a massive desire to return to Germany.
• Summit Mt Kosciusko
  • Fourth year in a row that this hasn’t happened. But I did go skiing in the Snowy Mountains.
• Read at least ten books – including the six paperbacks I currently have unread.
  • I have read 36 books! But have now amassed 14 more to be read. In May I decided to start reading on the bus in the morning rather than reading Facebook and Twitter on my phone.
• Buy a VF Commodore – I’ve wanted a Holden since I was in my teens.
  • Still a pipe-dream
• Keep this blog up to date.
  • I blogged fewer times than any previous year, so I avoided the problem.

The year has had many highlights:

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2013 has been great. It’s been a year of fantastic fun, growth and personal achievement.

At the start of 2013 I laid out some goals for the year, they were:

• Learn German
  • I did far better at this than in 2012. I am still very much a beginner, but I am learning.
  • Duolingo has been great for this.
• Summit Mt Kosciusko
  • Once again this goal was elusive.
• Go on a holiday for at least a week without internet access
  • I didn’t end up away for a whole week without internet, but there were a few weekends of digital silence.

An additional personal achievement was reading 12 books over the year – four histories, three science, three theology, and two novels.

There are also a number of highlights from throughout the year:

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