Monday, December 31, 2012

2012, You And Me Are Done

It's Monday 31st of December 11:11am. I'm sitting at my desk at work, got another 9 hours ahead of me, and then I'll be going to a concert with a pretty great line-up to see out the last of the year.

I'm not one for resolutions. Mostly because I don't wait for the changing of a calender to try and improve myself. That's an ongoing project and doesn't end. I do like to take note at this time though. I like to look back on the year and see how things are going for me. Evaluate my life, if you want to be a little dramatic about it.

And the result for this year? Pretty sweet.

I'm hard on myself, excessively so I'm told. I'm an ambitious person riddled with insecurities, you know the usual creative type. But despite my usual tendancies to beat myself up for not running the world, 2012 has been my most successful year yet and I need to take the time to enjoy that and also thank all the people who made it so.

Early in the year I was able to complete the short film How The Whale Got His Throat. It started out as a joke on a podcast and somehow turned into the best thing I've ever filmed (although admittedly that may not be saying much). I'm really proud of it and it has given me a renewed enthusiasm for directing at a time when I was contemplating giving it up. For this I really have to thank JJ Hawkins, Vanessa O'Connor, Ken Plume, Katie O'Kelly, Caitriona Costello, Richard Booth, and Andy Pierce who all helped make it. Specifically JJ, and Ken who gave me great guidance along the way and Vanessa who worked so hard on all the art and made it way better than I could have ever imagined. You can watch the trailer for it HERE.

I went to Disneyland Paris for the first time with my girlfriend. Never been to any Disneyland. I will probably never go to any Disneyland ever again. Fucking hell it was cold. But you know, Paris is nice. You can see some pictures of that trip HERE.

I went to Poland for two weeks for the European Championship (it's a football tournament for anyone who doesn't know) and it was the best holiday I've ever been on, despite the terrible results for Ireland. So that was awesome. You can read all about that HERE.

Dragon*Con... man, Dragon*Con this year was amazing. I got to do the biggest panels I've ever done, with the coolest people I've ever been able to do them with and it was genuinely the highlight of my whole year. Big thanks to Ken Plume (again) for making sure I was an official D*C guest. Seeing my name on the website's guestlist made me giddy as a school girl and I drove everyone crazy reminding them about it! Huge thanks also to all the guys at NeeedCoffee.com who do a lot of the panels with me and always make D*C fun, specifically Widgett, Leigh, and Jon who work their asses off over the weekend. There are so many people from the convention that I would love to name check but there are seriously too many to mention. But you know who you are, and you're all brilliant. You can see any posts I made about the Con HERE.
Also, a big "fuck you" to the girl in the Hilton elevator who asked me why she didn't know who I am.

Then I capped the year off with acting in a play for the first time. It was called The Gathering and we did 4 nights in a lovely small theatre called The Pearse Centre in Dublin. As first acting experiences go it was pretty crazy but it was worth it and the whole crew were such a good bunch to be around. Big thank you to Kamilla Dydyna for holding my hand through production both literally and figuratively. Photos from backstage can be found HERE.

There have been so many other little things too. Podcast appearances, nice feedback on articles I've written, friendships I've made, you reading this blog, the list goes on and on.

Of course, I'm hoping to build on all that next year and make 2013 even better but that's for tomorrow. Today I'll just be smug about it all. Thanks everybody, you rock!

Photo by ObliqueRed

PS: It's now 14:48pm

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