My 2009

The short version 2009 was a good year for me. At least compared to 2008. There were no really issues or dramas to making a living this year, which was nice change of pace. As 2008 was nothing but those.

Life

The Biggest Event 0f 2009

This year marked my last living in New Zealand. As of such a lot of my spare time was devoted to seeing everything in NZ for the last time, and overall I succeeded. I leave with few regrets of things unseen or not done.

The only things on the list left undone were making it to Stewart and/or White island, cage diving with a Great White, and meeting New Zealand's Dinosaur woman Joan Wiffen. The islands proved to expensive, the shark dive was impossible due to the company offering the experience never actually starting, and very tragically Mrs. Wiffen passed away this July.

Yet despite this small list, the list of what I DID manage to see and do is huge, and easily out weighs these small regrets.

That Which Stayed the Same

This year marked me and Lady R's 2nd year anniversary, and I look forward to many more of these. I couldn't imagine my life without her these days, as I have come to rely on her companionship and love to enjoy and survive life's ups and downs. Lady R's contributions to 2009 I will most certainly remember fondly.

Creative Efforts

2009 proved a huge year in my imaginative exploits.

The Biggest Single Thing of 2009

Of everything that came up and happened in 2009, the one that has had the biggest impact and will probably continue to do so, was ART Evolved.

When Peter and I started the online palaeo-art community, I personally had no idea how much this would impact my art. Originally I saw my 3D as nothing more than a fun hobby, but thanks to the to the motivation and inspiration of the bi-monthly galleries and the other participating artists, I'm beginning to seriously see the possibility of doing palaeo-art professionally (though most likely just on the side). This is a very exciting prospect, and one that I hope to strive towards with solid results in 2010!

As part of all this I saw the first of my art pieces go into print through ART Evolved in the magazine EARTH. I'm hoping in the future to increase this.

The Second Biggest Thing of 2009

I'm officially a "note worthy" blogger! Of my two major creative online projects (Traumador and ART Evolved), both were picked up and highlighted by Google on their Blogs of Note daily feature. I don't entirely bring this as up a boast, but it does feel incredibly good to have both these efforts recognized in such a public venue.

What was Lacking

Sadly in this finite world, one must make trade offs with their limited time and resources. Despite the success that has come his way, I sadly have not been able to put the effort into Traumador that I had in previous years. So I need to regroup and sort out my creative priorities.

Though having said this, I made sure towards the end of this year that I came up with some VERY exciting adventures and guest stars for everyones' favourite T-Rex to encounter in the new year. So hopefully I can pick up the pace on him a bit...

Work

Work that "Worked"

One thing that I will miss about New Zealand is how entrenched in my 3 regular skools I became. Despite being a substitute, I was essentially a staff member at Concord, and getting that way at Fairfield. So teaching went very well this year, with the exception of term 2 in which the swine flu scare caused teachers to take very good care of themselves to the point of not needing subs.

I also found the perfect part time job for the skool breaks! Sadly I stumbled across it on my last such skool break. None the less, the crew at Magic Childcare were lovely to me, and I hope them all the best during the NZ summer break!

Work that did NOT Work

Any job beyond free lance teaching. A small part of the problem is the economic crisis hitting Dunedin hard, but the bigger part are Kiwi employers. I consistently hit an attitude of due to not being a local (or worse be called an American!) I was not worth hiring. The holiday program that laid me off did so specifically for bringing new non-kiwi ideas to the table, which frankly I find unbelievably stupid!

There are many more things I could probably recap, but that would verge on ranting, and frankly I can't be bothered.

So here's to 2010, a year of epic changes for me. Hopefully it runs somewhat like 2009 did, or better. In any case you can probably read about parts of it here. So catch you then.