It's the last day of 2012 and before I look forward to 2013, here's a quick look back at 2012 and what it meant to me.
Undoubtedly the biggest thing for me in 2012 was my YouTube Channel passing the 1,000,000 views mark on 30th April last. As I write there are 1,089,630 for the year 2012 and it should pass the 2,000,000 views mark during March next year if current trends continue. The views fell during the Christmas holidays, as they do every year, but should pick up again in January. As there is a release of a new version of Microsoft Office next year, I should be able to add updated versions of my most popular videos.
Closely associated with above, I switched on monetization on my videos to allow Google to display ads. While these are probably annoying for my viewers, it makes a little extra cash for me. Since the switch-on in June the channel has earned over $7,000, averaging just over $1,000 per month. I'll put more effort to getting more and better content onto the channel to try and improve this.
I had a great time during the summer riding around the coast of Ireland on my Harley-Davidson from Dublin to Sligo. Since then I have been re-living the trip by writing it up into a book. One of my hopes for 2013 is that I get this book published. Despite a lot of bad weather, I got to see so much of Ireland that I had never seen before. This project is not yet finished.
I enjoyed writing on this blog during the year - this will be the 243rd post of the year, a little down on 2011. As my 100 Corners project takes up a lot of my spare time, blogging is one of my activities that I have devoted less time to this year. I will blog in 2013, but the book project will be prioritized. I want to get back to writing a bit more about educational matters - this I can do at work. Finally, I got a new title for my blog "Careful with that axe, Eugene", it sounds a bit cooler than before.
During the year I received two awards: The first was the Irish Blood Transfusion Service's Gold Drop Award for reaching 50 donations. The second was the National College of Ireland President's Award for Innovation in Assessment. While these are modest achievements, it's nice to get recognition like this from time-to-time.
We had the highs and lows of sport this year with Katie Taylor giving the whole country a boost when she won the gold medal in London, but the let down of the year was the Irish soccer team at the Euro finals. I felt before hand that there was a very strong chance that we would lose all three games, but that the Croatia match offered a chance of getting something. It was not to be and I, along with most of the country, felt a big let down.
Ireland is still in a bad way and there seems to be no end in sight, despite what the economists and politicians tell us. I am one of the lucky ones who still has a job, but the College is not immune to the financial difficulties of Government funding for Higher Education. The HEA's response to HE Institutions' own assessments carried out this year uses very tough language about savings that need to be made and the need for more clustering and mergers between institutions. I think 2012 was the beginning of the end of Higher Education as it is in Ireland, and that 2013 could be an even tougher year for us all. This is clearly a major worry for my colleagues and I at NCI.
According to the Irish Independent today, 200 people a day left Ireland during 2012, a level not seen since the Great Famine of the 19th century. One of the emigrants this year was my daughter Claire who now lives in New York. We miss her and of course wish she was here, but opportunities for her, and many of her generation, lie elsewhere.
I don't think I ever officially resigned from anything before, but in October this year I resigned from the Governing Body of NCI. It, and the aftermath, was not a pleasant experience - but I had over-stepped my role and felt I had to "go".
It was a pity that I did not get to finish this trip in one go. Looking back I feel that I let the rain beat me and I guess I was also a little homesick. I abandoned the trip in Sligo on a very wet day and with very bad weather forecast for the next two days I didn't have the stomach to continue. 2013 will put this right.