Another installment in my year-end reflections.

In my 2012 post, I laid out a couple of things to think about during the upcoming year. I feel like I did a pretty decent job with at least one of them: turning off. This summer, my family and I rented a cottage and vegged out for a month and a half. I intended it to be a semi-working vacation, but it ended up being a barely-working vacation, and it was awesome. I also made some changes in the second half of the year that made me more mindful of getting sucked into work while on the go: I stopped using email on my phone, I got myself an OFF Pocket, and I’ve generally stopped carrying my phone so much. I started riding bike for fun around the city, and got back into a decent running routine (about 800 miles on the year). So, I feel like things are a bit more relaxed than a year ago.

Work-wise, I haven’t branched out as much as I’d hoped. I’ve got a few big deadlines in the next month or so, after which I plan to come up with an interesting project or two to shake out some of the cobwebs. If anyone is planning to do something really cool, let me know 😀

I continue to feel less and less connected to my old academic self. This is something I don’t talk about much, either online or in person, though I was recently persuaded by a friend that others might benefit from hearing about it. In the upcoming year, I hope to write more about this issue and other more varied topics than what I allowed myself in 2013.

Out with the old. Happy new year!