A Recap of My Year 2011

It has been a promising year for me – a year of challenges, fresh hopes, and fun. It was a year of great changes and fulfillment I have experienced. It was also a year of new commitments and more priorities. And lastly, a year of moving on and setting my life in the right direction.

Just like what I did last year, here are some of the highlights that happened to me this 2011 (not in any particular order):

Personal

• Adopted puppies (but at the end of the year, decided to give them away due to safety reasons)
• Edited my closet (and still sometimes untidy)
• Volunteered and participated in a community service work
• Played with my violin at least thrice a week (especially when I got bored sometimes)
• Continued being a motivational speaker – about career, work ethic, and programming experiences
• Bought a new external hard drive for my backup files
• Boost my self-confidence to talk more to people (not being an anti-social person anymore)
• Started single and still ended this year being single (insert big laugh here)

Travel

• Went to other La Sallian schools (De La Salle-Lipa and University of Saint La Salle in Bacolod)
• Trained faculty on various Microsoft technologies: Visual Studio 2010, Windows Phone 7, C#, Silverlight, Expression Blend, etc.
• Traveled to new places around the Philippines: Cebu, Bacolod, Surigao del Sur, etc.
• Finally went on a road trip with fellow MSPs in Tagaytay
• Traveling alone on an airplane
• Food tripping with different places along with the Metro

Health

• Run a 5k race (hoping for 10k and 21k race next year)
• Donated blood (twice this year)
• Log my daily food intake (currently on-going – check my blog from time to time)
• Did not experienced terrible disease/s (some colds and allergies only happened)
• Weight is in the normal range; BMI is average
• Consumed 10-12 glasses of water/fluids daily
• Avoided eating at fast-food restaurants as much as 50%
• Did not drink soft drinks almost 95% of this year
• Alcohol-free (did not consume beer or any alcoholic drinks beside red wine)
• Smoke-free (will never puff a cigarette)
• Limited my caffeine intake by 40%

Events

• Attended my sister’s graduation at Ateneo de Manila University
• Watched live concerts: Yellowcard, Parokya ni Edgar, Pupil, Jason Mraz, Clara C, etc.
• Watched BUILD 2011: Windows 8 Preview (live stream) with fellow MSPs, MVPs, and the Microsoft employees
• Joined a new user group, Philippine SharePoint Users Group
• Attended various community events, student sessions, and workshops in Microsoft Philippines
• Attended my very first major cosplay convention, Metro Comic Convention 2011
• Went to various install fest events in different universities and colleges along Metro Manila
• Met some famous people: Alodia and Ashley Gosiengfiao, Hannah Villasis (Flair Candy), Vince Golangco (WhenInManila), Kring Elenzano (Flippish), DJ Angel Rivero (Brewrats), DJ Andi Manzano (Magic 89.9), Chris Tiu, Bro. Eddie Villanueva and others

Social Media

• Redesigned my website (portfolio, blog, and programming sections)
• Make daily recap blogs
• 3600+ tweets on Twitter (only 900+ last year), with 260+ followers
• Got Klout influence of 55
• Started using Foursquare.com, with currently 760+ check-ins, 4 mayorships, and 22 badges
• Received a letter and a sticker from Team Foursquare
• Facebook friends are now 1,280+ (Almost 80% I met in real life)
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned my Twitter name eibhrum during his keynote speech on the second day of BUILD
• YouTube channel has now 50 subscribers, with 323 uploaded videos and 141,450+ video views
• Received replied comments from the band Yellowcard, violinist Sean Mackin and Youtube sensation Clara Chung

Leisure / Gaming

• Finished playing an entire season of The Association in 2K11; currently playing 2K12
• Improved my main FSSB character to level 39
• Finished playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted
• Started browsing in 9gag.com (this one’s addicting!)
• Frequently visited digg.com and reddit.com for useful (and not useful), informative and interesting news around the Internet
• Watched all my favorite actor”s (Michael Cera) and favorite actress” (Ellen Page) movies
• Started watching TV shows like How I Met Your Mother (up to current Season 7) and The Big Bang Theory (Season 1-4)
• Finally finished the whole Harry Potter movies, from first to last
• Still a Lakers fan (thank you, NBA, for ending the lockout!)

Career

• Directories Plus (version 1.0) is now up and deployed in Eastwood City (Eastwood Mall, Cybermall, and Citywalk)
• Currently working for DPLUS version 2.0 for Robinsons Malls
• Now working with two startup companies
• Resigned from my job as a programmer and got hired as a part-time instructor at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, teaching web development
• Started reviewing for my MCTS certifications to be taken next year

Programming

• Won a Windows Phone 7 programming competition
• Started fiddling with HTML5 and CSS3
• Read a couple of programming books about ASP.NET, Windows Phone 7 Development and HTML5
• Drafted a WordPress theme for a hobby community
• Broaden my knowledge in WPF and Silverlight technology
• Attended a WP7 code camp/hackathon
• Got 909 reputation points in StackOverflow.com, with 25 badges (4 silver and 5 bronze)
• Joined several workshops about JMango, Azure, Microsoft SQL, and the likes

Speaking Engagements

• (Please check https://abramlimpin.com/sites/sindikato/old/talks)

Before this year finally ends, I would like to thank everyone who made my 2011 awesome. To my ever-loving family, to my relatives, to my dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, to my MSP family and the Microsoft community, to my acquaintances, to my colleagues at work and at school, to my students, to my long-lost and new-found friends, to my enemies (who I have already forgiven), and to everyone I forgot to mention: THANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL MEMORIES THIS YEAR!

And most of all, to my God, I give you back all the praises and all the thanksgiving! I am truly blessed this year.

Cheers to 2012!