2010 Projects: Rescheduled

In light of my uni commitments, I have had to reorganise a few of my 2010 Projects. So here is the new list, with changes.

• Start a garden This is still going ahead, but will be on a smaller scale at least to begin with. And probably now won’t involve many food plants or growing things from seeds.
• Go open source I will need to stay dual-boot because I will need Windows for uni. I still plan to use Linux more though.
• Get my weight down to 85kg This is still going on, I am still losing 0.5-1kg a week on protein shakes and exercise.
• Start my own personal archive This is on hold until I have enough money to buy rather than build a NAS.
• Work out what’s going on with uni Done (and the reason I’m rethinking the rest of the list) In March I will start my last remaining elective, and later in the year I will start my final project for completion in mid 2011.
• Build a file server from the old computer bits I have lying around on hold, and may now not happen at all.
• Knit a decent pair of socks Sock making is on hold. Instead I have decided to make a throw rug out of the huge amount of feather yarn I have lying around. The rug will be made of 10cm x 10cm squares, but I’m saving myself some sewing by knitting in strips. Pictured is the result of 2 hours work last night.
• Start writing a book on hold
• Move this blog to its own domain on hold (for now), may become part of a new addition to the list.
• Blog at least 3 times a week going strong!
• Be more adventurous with food (was “Learn to cook more”) still going, last week we tried different types of sausages. This week we’re going to dinner at a place we’ve never been to before.
• 52 Books in 52 Weeks not happening. I still read for 15-20 minutes before bed but I’m taking of the pressure to read a book a week.
• Develop an awesome multimedia portfolio A new addition to the list, and one that’s needed because of my poor academic results. I’m starting by doing tutorials every day.

So there we have it – this is what I’ll be doing this year. Notice some parts are much more specific than the original list, this version looks more achievable (bleep-bloop).

2010 Projects: Work out what I’m doing with uni

I have been enrolled in the Bachelor of Information Technology (multimedia) degree at the University of South Australia since 2002. For much of that time I’ve studied part-time, but  it really is way too long and I have a really bad GPA. In my defence, I have battled depression and anxiety along the way. Also I took a leave of absence of one and a half years to work full-time and get my head together.

Friday I went to make an appointment with my program director to work out what I need to do to finish this degree. Turned out he was in his office and available to see students, so we did it then. The degree has changed so much that half the subjects I’ve done don’t even exist any more, so we spent 20 minutes working out what new subjects are equivalent to what I have done. In short, I have one subject and a year-long project to finish. But also, my GPA is so bad I have to get at least credits in those.

Also, then showing my academic transcript in a job interview will be an embarrassment. The other thing I need to do is put together an “amazingly awesome” portfolio. So I can say “I wasn’t good at uni, but I’m good at what I do”.

So my plan is:

• through January and February: do at least one tutorial a day to brush up on my skillset. My multimedia skills are very rusty after the leave of absence (I used to get Ds and HDs for things like creating games in Director, video editing, graphic design, etc.). And yes, Twitter and Facebook friends, I will bombard you with links.
• once uni starts in March: study for 2-3 hours a day to get that HD.
• start a project in semester 2 of this year. This would finish in semester 1 of 2011, which gives me an extra 2 months (summer break 2010/11) to work on it.
• look for work experience, community projects, maybe even some paid work (once the portfolio gets started) in the industry.

In short, work as hard as I was when I started the degree. This also means a lot of my other projects will now not be happening this year, but that doesn’t matter.