My 2014 Recap

Happy New Year, everyone!

Before I can finally close the chapter of 2014, let me share with you some of the highlights that happened to me for this entire year. I couldn’t put this blog post to my personal website (https://abramlimpin.com/sites/sindikato/old) right now because I still have to renew my domain and apply for a web host subscription.

Anyways, here are the (incomplete) list of my recap:

Personal

• Started writing on a journal / Starbucks planner but ended last June
• Started living in Taft, Manila, for almost a year; Rented a condo unit (studio-type) at The Grand Towers.
• Maintained a short haircut
• Started drinking coffee regularly during the last quarter
• Started drinking red wine almost every week
• Bought me a Lumia phone (and I’ve never been disappointed)
• Retrieved my old Globe number but eventually lost my other phone
• Took care of a cactus (I named it Zelly) for almost a year (and still alive!)
• Spent most of the time talking with people under and over my age
• Managed daily and monthly expenses using a tracker from Excel.
• Finally got a business card.
• Received my first stock dividends/share from my company

Dev

• Maintained my Stack Overflow account with 2120 reputation points and 31 badges
• Started learning SignalR, AngularJS, ASP.NET MVC 4, and LINQ
• Deployed and published websites in Windows Azure
• Participated in Hack The Climate 2014 hackathon last June 6-7
• Participated in AngelHack Manila 2014 hackathon last July 26-27
• Participated in HERE Manila 2014 hackathon last December 6, with my 4 WB-DEV2 students; won 4th place out of 15 participating groups.
• Developed and maintained applications and/or websites for the following clients: Themes & Motifs, Robinsons Galleria, Robinsons Ermita, Mr. Choi Kitchen, Studio C Interior, FlyAce, CHARIS Foundation, Capital City Alliance Church, MORESCO-1, and  Hearts & Bells.

Academe

• Marked my 3rd year of teaching in De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde last September
• Maintained outstanding STAR rating for the entire year; received Learning-Centered Teacher and Outstanding Teacher awards.
• Received an outstanding rating from PARF for the school year
• Transferred from Computer Applications (CA) program to Information Systems (IS) program starting the school year 2014-2015
• Had given the opportunity again to become a CAPROJ/ISPROJ adviser (almost 90% of the groups passed)
• Had given the opportunity to become a student adviser for the IS program during the first term of the school year
• Conducted special class (PROGLAN) during the first term of the school year
• Chosen as the adviser for our school’s organization (CBA)
• Update web development lesson plans and coding exercises – focused on Twitter Bootstrap as the design framework + ASP.NET as the programming language
• Attended Microsoft Ambassadors for Education’s Train the Trainers Program last May 8-10; awarded as the best presenter during the last day of the training
• Conducted MS Office 2013 training for teachers from Molino Elementary School last May 23
• Conducted mock authorship exam as final examinations for WB-DEV2 students for 2nd Term, SY14-15
• Attended DLS-CSB CIRC’s Curriculum Competency Seminar-Workshop in PHINMA Training Center Tagaytay and Punta De Fabian

Health

• Started the year by joining a nutrition club
• Lost weight from 75 to 70 kilos
• Quit eating potato chips since April
• Stopped eating rice last April – chose potatoes and pasta as alternatives for carbohydrates.
• Quit eating French fries since August
• Quit drinking sodas since October
• Donated blood at Philippine Heart Center last December 20
• Lessened water intake from 8 to 6 glasses (bad!)
• Spent a few sessions playing table tennis

Travel

• Went to Pampanga to visit our ancestor’s house
• Went to Tagaytay for our school’s annual retreat
• Went to Baguio for our school program’s annual faculty team building
• Went on an out-of-town trip to Cagayan de Oro for a client user acceptance testing and workshop training
• Traveled from Manila to the northern part of Quezon City (and vice-versa) using the LRT-1 for the first time
• Spent my Christmas vacation with my past students and friends at Matabungkay, Batangas, and Tagaytay

Events

• Attended and co-organized Benilde’s SMITensity last February 24 at SMX Convention Center
• Went to Sherwood for my first #HappyThursday last April
• Watched my cousins’ ballet performance in the Cultural Center of the Philippines last May 25
• Attended and co-organized (as a faculty) Hack The Climate 2014 in DLS-CSB’s Augusto-Rosario Gonzales Theater
• Attended one of my students’ debut last August 15
• Participated as an exhibitor from the last Wedding Expo Philippines, organized by Themes & Motifs
• Attended and participated in the first Student Business Analytics Conference last October 10, organized by Computer Business Association (CBA)
• Attended the Baccalaureate Mass and Commencement Exercises/graduation day last July 5 and October 18
• Participated in my first team building with students last October during CBA’s annual teambuilding
• Celebrated my grandmother’s 90th birthday at Mateo’s Restaurant Cafe last November 22, together with my family, relatives, and acquaintances
• Attended Computer Business Association’s CA Night at Exklusiv last November 22

Social Media

• Had 2100+ Facebook friends (Almost half of them were my students); 168 accounts following my Facebook stories.
• Posted 14.4k tweets and increased Twitter followers to 768
• Started using Instagram; Posted 200+ photos, with 300+ followers
• Had 2200+ Foursquare check-ins, along with 41 badges
• Connected to 716 LinkedIn accounts; received 40+ endorsements forASP.NET, C#, Web Development, and Microsoft SQL Server skills
• Received a Klout score of 56

Leisure / Entertainment

• Lessened watching movies in cinemas
• Started watching Parks and Recreation series
• Won the 2048 game and still playing the 2048+ series, with a current high score of 279276
• Completed watching How I Met Your Mother from season 1 to 9
• Finished the first season from NBA 2k14 My Career averaging 40 points, 9 assists, 8 steals, and 4 turnovers

(Will be updating this blog post from time to time. Please excuse any typos or brevity.)

Indeed, it was definitely a good year. Thanks for reading!