2011 in Review
The New Year is making its way across the planet. To some it has already come. Time to sum things up, to look back at what was important for me. The year will definitely be one to remember. It had changes, both good and not so good. My views on life changed, my values shifted.
Work stopped being above everything else, the urge to grow only professionally and to move ahead quickly went away, I decided to go with the flow more.
In the past year I did finish my first website that I'm not ashamed of, one whose architecture I designed and built myself on the Yii framework. A pity there was no more time to create anything on it, and I went back again to hacking apart ready-made engines, even though I no longer have a strong desire to create.
I also realized that I'm not yet ready for serious, large projects that carry a lot of responsibility, better to grow gradually without straining myself too much.
I attended Ilya Kantor's master class on JavaScript, picked up some new contacts there, gained knowledge, a small part of which I was able to apply at my current job.
Then at the end of summer I started working from home while staying at my old job, even though I'd gotten offers from two other companies, over the summer I was really worn out and I picked the option that was best for me.
But none of this is so important anymore. Because in the outgoing year I attended a furry gathering for the first time, at UMF 2011, found myself surrounded by positive emotions, where you can be yourself and relax. I'd never felt so much positivity before, even though it actually all took place over a single day. There were a lot of contacts there, but I only really got to know and kept in touch with the ones I stayed with.
Then in summer I spent another day with the furries, when I walked around Odessa with an English furry 
lupestripe.
All in all there were plenty of interesting acquaintances in 2011, both in real life and online, and that's good. It's funny that it was only online, thanks to these outings and anton_twister, that I met a local, very cuddly furry, the right time probably came, and that's a big plus.
Changes in relationships happened too, definiteness and clarity were finally lost, but that's the furry way, as I understand it, and here too I started leaning more on the flow, though I still spend energy on it as best I can. One social commission was replaced or supplemented by another, where I became the one giving the commission rather than the one carrying it out. In 2012 something else will change. On this front it's still more of a plus, though there are minuses too.
There were plenty of material acquisitions this year too, but I get less pleasure from that now. I finally got hold of the film "The White Lion," I bought an external Blu-Ray drive specifically to watch it. I acquired an Android phone and tablet: a Garmin-Asus A10 and an Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101, respectively. Very useful things, as it turned out. I also bought a photo printer, but it gets used less often – in the village it's handy to print photos when there's no laptop or computer nearby, and for the New Year you can print out nice photos to give as gifts.
I'm losing interest in video games more and more, I won't even say much about it, though in the past year I finished switching over to licensed copies and started playing fewer of them.
There were minuses too. There are more and more health problems, and a bigger and bigger part of my paychecks goes to doctors and medications… And that's something the year will be remembered for too, unfortunately. Not everything is smooth in the family, both with health and with work – minuses too.
On the whole, the year turned out positive, with changes, even though there was bad too. But on New Year's Eve you shouldn't be sad, you should have fun. I see that many of the people I know don't like the holiday atmosphere. I wish that everyone could welcome the coming year the way they want to, so that this kind of night could be spent pleasantly. Happy New Year, coming and already arrived!