Once again, the year is wrapping up and it is time to review both the highs and the lows of the year. This year however is slightly different as it is not just the year that is ending, it is also the end of the decade. There were plenty of lows this year but yet again, I have had far more positives over the year that has far outweighed any low that I have experienced as well as plenty of opportunities to start off 2020 in a positive fashion. As always, I will split this up into a few sections with a quick review of last year’s goals and then what the plan is for 2020!

Streaming

This year has been one of my worst for consistency unfortunately. It started off well, keeping to my 12 streams a month average but after 4 or 5 months, it took a turn for the worst with a few personal issues that was going on. On the positive side, I managed to exceed the 5 viewer average goal I set myself for the year, this was largly thanks to the high average viewer streams between June and August. Unfortunately I didn’t hit the 500 follower goal I had set either. On the positive side, I did get accepted to The Live Coders which will bring some good challenges and opportunities over the next year.

To prepare for 2020, myself and Clare have been spending some time planning out how the first quarter of the year is going to look and if everything goes to plan then it is going to be a busy start to the year. In the first month or two, the streams will only be on the weekend whilst I get re-adjusted. Below are the goals for 2020:

1) Average a minimum 12 times a month over the year (144 times overall).

2) At a minimum, maintain 2019’s average view count of 13. Stretch goal is to knock it up to 15 average over the year.

3) Look for a minimum 100 new followers over 2020, 200 as a stretch goal.

Professionally

Now this one has been both the cause of my lowest moments of 2019 but also my highest moments of the year too. Those that know me on a personal level, understand fully know hellish my current boss is. Well, working for her finally took me to breaking point which resulted in quite a bad deterioration in my mental health which with a little push from Clare, I went to see my GP who decided it was best that I take a leave of abcense from work for a two month period.

During this period, I felt so much about my personality change in a positive manner. It was almost like a weight had been lifted from my my mind, my shoulders and everywhere else. In the first week of being off, I also applied at a couple of companies. One as a PHP developer and one as a Supply Chain Analyst. Suprisingly enough, both of them wanted to hire me which was a massive tick in the box for finding a new role and I felt a million times better as well!

I start the new job in January and whilst it is a shame that I am leaving o2 after nine and a half years, it is a fresh start for a fresh decade… Same as when I started at o2 so it feels like it bodes well! My goal for 2020 is to really get into this role and develop myself massively!

I am not going to put out a personal section this year but I am really looking forward to what 2020 is going to bring in all aspects of my life. I am really greatful to all the friends, both physical and virtual that has helped me and been there throughout the year.

Every month, I come back to here and think “damn I have been neglecting this blog so much, I need to write something” and then close down the tab (bad, I know). I keep telling myself that I cannot think of something to put together of adequate quality to present to a wider audience but sub-consciously I know that is just an excuse and one I need to get past!

To make the comeback easier, I thought it would be best to put together a summary of what I have been up to so far this year and then see where I go over the next few months in terms of blog posts… So lets get it started!

Professional Life

Despite the want to leave retail life, unfortunately opportunities have not been as forthcoming as I would have liked, I managed to get one interview to just be pipped at the post which is unfortunate but as always, just need to pick myself up, dust myself off and start looking again which is the plan!

Working in a more professional environment is the end goal but mainly I have been looking at technical roles (Software Configuration, Programming etc) and will keep pushing my skills to be more attractive to potential employers!

Streaming and Community

Well what can I say on this one? I have a small but amazing community that continually surprise me with the different levels of support from just turning up to financial. One amazing example is that in January/February I started a community goal to put money towards building a modern PC and retire the ancient machine I have been using for a decade! I expected this goal to still be going at Christmas this year but we managed to smash the goal by April which was crazy.

Other Tidbits

I have been doing a lot more programming in my spare time which has been excellent. Part of this is in the form of a website that I have released for my streamer personality https://itslit.uk which is a great showcase of leveraging the Twitch API as almost all the content is provided by data from the API services. The site also showcases a couple of side projects that I have been working on and released to the community as a whole and will continually add to it as I release new projects

So it has been almost 3 months since I last wrote here and a lot has changed in so many different ways, professionally, personally, physically and mentally too! So what has happened you ask? Well lets split it up:

Professionally

After 6 years, 10 months and 1 day of working for o2, I decided to start putting out feelers for different jobs, both in retail and outside of retail as I feel the stress and mental drain of the job far outweighs the benefits and it has done for quite a while. I am fed up of returning home from work mentally tired and fed up as it isn’t easy to just shake off when I get home which is affecting my work/life balance massively. For the programming side of my professional career I need to reboot my programming and build up a portfolio which pushed me harder to get DDR onto a framework (which it is now btw so go take a look).

On top of the framework, I was previously building the Android app that was previously chronicled on the blog which hasn’t progressed much more unfortunately but it will be making a return before the end of the month! I have also taken up to learning C# and again I will be working on a fun project to develop my knowledge of the language and spur me on. The twist to this project is that I have also asked Quis to help out on the graphical and story-line stuff but more information will be on that soon!

Personally and Physically

As a lot of you know, this year was my return to Rugby Union after so long away from it, it certainly has been a fun year of it but yesterday was my last match of the season due to work commitments which is sad and unfortunate. The community that is Yarnbury RFC is just amazing but it has also helped me lose weight too which is an added bonus!