Holy sweet freaking crap. Where did the year go!?
I can’t believe 2013 is over already. It feels like it’s too soon! Hopefully every year isn’t like this. What a roller-coaster ride it’s been!
At the end of every year, I like to do a quick reflection on the crazy crap I did in the year. It’s my goal in life to improve upon each year over the last. I find this a great way to set the bar for the next year. 🙂
This year, I was fortunate enough to:
Uh. So, I won an iPad Air today. Totally wasn’t expecting that. ^_^
Since I’ve been dropping cryptic tweets all day, I figured I better come clean and explain what happened.
A little while back, ECU (The university for which I am currently working.) started to implement a service called PebblePad for use by all of the course schools. PebblePad is a web system that allows users to quickly build professional grade online portfolio websites, that can then be used to present to potential emplyers once they have graduated.
As part of an initiative to promote PebblePad around the university, the PebblePad co-ordinators decided to hold a competition where people could submit their own portfolios in PebblePad, showing off their own skillset and learning evidence, with the prize being an iPad Air. There were 5 categories, ranging from first-year students through to academic staff, each with an iPad up for grabs.
The competition featured two components: produce a portfolio of sufficient quality to get short-listed, and then those short-listed would present their portfolio to a panel of judges at this year’s ECULTURE conference.
Sounding very intrigued (Especially at the premise of a new iPad!), I asked the lead co-ordinator if it was feasible for myself to enter, and thankfully, she said I would be perfect for the ECU graduates category.
So with that all squared away, I built a portfolio in PebblePad and submitted it to the competition. It took a few days of reading PebblePad documents and watching YouTube tutorial videos, and a few extra days to actually design and implement the portfolio, but in the end, I was able to produce this:
Blimey, it’s been a fair while. How’s everyone been?
As you may or may not have noticed, a couple of things have changed slightly around here. I’ve been hard at work on this for a couple of weeks now, and I’m really happy that it’s finished and online. 😀
A lot’s happened this year. A LOT. I’ve been learning a great deal of new things while working at pixiv, I’ve traveled Japan, I’ve bought and played with some amazing new hardware, and I even took off to California for a week to hang with Google. Oh yeah, and Apple just announced a new version of iOS that turns iComics on its head. ^_^;
And all this time, I’ve been keeping notes on all of this to make them as good blog topics. But sadly, there has been a bit of a “thing” that’s been holding me back somewhat.
The thing holding me back was my old blog theme (Pictured above).
I designed that theme back when I first got it in my head to start a blog, sometime in mid-2008, back when Firefox was the hip cool browser, Chrome was just about to go live, and Internet Explorer 7 was king of the internet. ^_^;
Needless to say, times have changed since then. Not only has browser technology leaped forward since then (Making things like hand-drawn shadows a thing of the past), but the hardware we consume web content on (ie smartphones and tables) has evolved to an amazing degree.
And whenever I thought about blogging about all of these amazing topics this year, I could’t help but feel ashamed I’d be doing it on theme that was designed for the web 5 years ago (Especially if the post is about design itself). ^_^;
So, after researching the trends of the design of other blogs, and putting together a new design tailored for my own vision of this site, I am now proud to present my re-fitted blog.
It differs from the old blog in quite a few aspects:
The blog still needs a little work. Each post has to have a ‘featured’ image inserted into it, and so I’ll be working through that, sorting the posts by priority.
In any case, I’m really happy with this new theme, and I hope you’ll find it a bit easier on the the eyes over the previous one. XD
Have a nice weekend!
G'day everyone!
Sorry about the delay, things have been absolutely crazy lately. XD
Due to various circumstances, I've ended up with a bit of spare time, so I thought I'd give this blog a bit of love. 😀
So, in case anyone missed the memo, I'm in Japan right now. ^_^ After applying last year, and making it through 2 interviews, I accepted a job to work at pixiv as a mobile application developer. I arrived here last Thursday and have been settling in since. I haven't started work yet as there's still a few logistics involved with getting set up beforehand (Really important things. Like choosing an awesome email address. XD). However, I've already gone and met my team and had a look at the kind of projects I'll be joining/potentially spearheading. Sadly, I can't publicly talk about them until they've been announced, but trust me when I say, they're pretty damn awesome. 😀
In a sad, sad, tragic, horrific series of events, I'm currently without a laptop; my MacBook Air's keyboard kicked the bucket a few days ago. Figuring that now would be the best time as any to go without a laptop for a few days, I handed it in to the Shibuya Apple Store and have been rolling on just my iPad since then.
It's definitely a bit of a different experience coming to Japan to work, instead of on travel. Obviously, there's a few more things you have to worry about like setting up a bank account and working out a short-long term accommodation plan. Also, things that are pretty easy to manage when on a quick stay, like renting a SIM card for your mobile phone become a little more complicated. These are all excellent topics for more blog posts down the track.
In any case, I've still got a backlog of posts I want to write from 2012, so I might spend my laptop-less time updating this blog with all of these incredibly late posts. XD
Take care everyone!
Holy smokes! We’re on the last day of 2012 already! Blimey that was fast!! O_O
I hope everyone had a fulfilling 2012; one not of regret but one of good times, and sharing them with friends and family.
As always, I like to make a quick note of my personal achievements throughout the year, just as a bit of reflection on how I spent the year.
I like to treat each year as one of personal growth, and try my best to best what I did in the previous year with each one. Some absolutely amazing stuff happened this year, and I think I definitely outdid 2011. 😀
As always, I’ve got a pile of goals I want to strive for in 2013.
As always. I hope everyone else had an amazing 2012 and have great plans for 2013. Happy holidays everyone!
Happy 2013! 😀
It’s been a week or two ago now, but I thought I’d do my obligatory birthday post.
I like to do birthday posts every year. Advancing in age is one of the best excuses you get to party, and I always cherish the times I spend with my friends and family during this time. I was considering doing a reflection on all the crazy crap that happened this year, but I’ll save that for new year’s eve.
So. Roughly this time last year, I turned 25. Criminey. Turning a quarter of a century old was scary enough, now I’m more than a quarter of a century. They say that 27 is when all the crazy crap actually happens, so I’m going to leave that for now. XD
As always, it was an awesome weekend. For the outing with my buddies, we tried out a cool restaurant in the southern area of Perth called Tsunami (The irony of that name right now isn’t lost on me. ^_^; )
Tsunami was a rather interesting place. As you’d expect they had a wide range of Japanese dishes, but there were some interesting flairs about them. For example, the sashimi we ordered came with stone blocks heated to 400C for which you could cook the fish on (Which I’m guessing is for the less adventurous when it comes to eating raw fish XD). Either way, the food was amazing, and I’d definitely want to go back there again. 🙂
After dinner, we all went back to my house for cake and ice cream. Overall a very nice evening. ^_^
On the following day, I had lunch with my parents and my grandmother at a restaurant near our house. Dad’s gift to me was some kind of sponsored merch from work, which he called a ‘care package’. I’m pretty sure he was given that merch against his will. XD
Anyway, as far as birthdays go, I couldn’t ask for more. I’m so glad I have so many friends and family I can spend the day with.
Now I just gotta make 26 as awesome as 25 was. XD