This is not something I normally do, but by the very fact that I shy away from it, it seems appropriate now.

I can't understand why anyone cares about anyone else. Not in any pathological sense, but why you - some potato farmer in Kansas - care about me - some poor under-grad from Land of Oz. Furthermore, I'm probably right. As most bloggers (probably) do, I watch my stats*. My most popular posts are strike a balance between commentary and science, and are usually on something pop, like music, or video-games. My least popular posts are about my opinions and about me. Personally, I thought 'The Moon and Antarctica' was an excellent post, and expected to watch the stats counter climb. I was wrong. My most popular post, however, was 'We should be Music Testing Athletes', which I personally thought was a poorly constructed treatment of a topic that deserved more (and which I intend to revisit at some point in the future). By contrast, 'The Paper of Influence' (all about me) ties for one of the lowest scores with 'The Moon and Antarctica' (above) and 'The Dread Pirate Rift' (again, all about me).

The most obvious explanation is I don't have a loyal readership base (apologies to my 8 adoring fans), despite fairly regular and justified treatments on a variety of topics. Don't get me wrong, I begrudge no-one for this, nor do I feel sore or hard-done by - it just raises some interesting questions. Why haven't I developed a stronger base? Maybe I'm right, and people don't care about other people, and you fact-groupies just come here for my science. But if I am right, that's a bleak future, and doesn't explain the success of other more science-cum-diary blogs, of which I follow a few.

So given that I avoid sharing like that plague**, I'm going to share with you right now. This is my year-in-review: Everything unblog-related.

This year started like so many - with my birthday (ok, so not the first of Jan, but pretty soon afterwards). I don't really remember much from that time, but then I have trouble remembering yesterday's breakfast, too. I do know that I was trying pretty hard (as I had been for 6 months prior) to achieve some personal goals in my Martial Arts training. As of December I achieved that goal (no mean feat), and am now focusing on the next level. During the same period I was considering testing for my 3rd Degree Black-Belt. I was all gung-ho, but was unable to undertake the extra responsibility that it would have required. Basically, I would have needed to have become a full-instructor (again) and run my own club. Having done this once before I understood what this meant, and decided to maintain my priority on my study.

At around March I began the Assassins' League (also one of my less popular posts), which from humble beginnings of... well, me - is now a nicely supported and active community numbering upwards of 20. I'm pretty happy with that, but there's definitely more to do, and more to tweak to really achieve the goals of that Organization.

Towards the end of Semester 1 I offered my services to one of my lecturers, and gave up my entire mid-year break coding mind-numbing videos of people arguing. Though tedious, doing so has led me to the inclusion in some very interesting lab-groups, as well as giving me access to interesting academics and has given me the opportunity to run a complete study, from start through finish (though I'm not at the finish just yet).

At some point Brian contacted me and invited me to Labspaces - which was a completely unexpected little success. I have noticed my stats climbing progressively since moving here, though interestingly, I get sometimes get more stimulating comments at psycasm.com including, Lisa-Joy Zgorski of the NSF, regarding a quotation of hers***.

A few months back I visited The Philippines, my first international excursion (well, not if you include New Zealand****). The Philippines is the home of my Girlfriend, and all-in-all, was an interesting experience. Though I'm afraid I haven't been infected with the travel bug (but I was infected with a travel bug...). People are people wherever you go, I think. And despite the fact that my first re-experience with Australians was one of whinging and complaining, it did highlight how there is no place like home. (Oh, and my girlfriend and I celebrated 4-years together).

Which brings me to my final project - The Podcast, which, thanks to many who may be reading this right now, has been met with great suggestions and roundly positive feedback. Though I'm yet to go live, the website is up and running, and though I'm still yet to recruit the whole team, I'm certain it will go ahead and be met with a modest degree of initial success (longer-term success? Who knows...).

All that's left (or all that's missing, rather) is having a more financially rewarding job. My extreme aversion to job-hunting may be in part to blame, but at the same time, 24 year old unqualified students aren't typically given sweet jobs, and the best retail jobs go to pretty girls and people they can pay far less (I think I'm worth 3x the hourly rate of a 16 year old).

So there you have it. Rift (yup, I'm not given out the real one freely, just yet) in review. I'm not sure that will necessarily make you care, but I gave it a shot. Maybe if I included more heart-wrenching set-backs I'd appear more endearing, but the truth is (despite being poor) it's been a year of steady upward progress. I'm not sure how much further the progress needs to be maintained before I can really stand on my own feet, but it's in the right direction.

*At least, I like to think other bloggers watch their stats... it soothes my narcissistic tendencies.

**I also avoid sharing the plague, if that's an endearing feature

***Ok, so it was a misquotation, but the point is she read it.

****and I dont. For good reason.