I had been planning this blog post from last fifteen days or so, it was not easy for me as my memory is getting worse with getting older. This is  a chilly evening and I am on my half way to home from work. An intense urge to write this blog review of the year which has just passed made me park my car on the road side in front of a tea stall as there is lot of hustle-bustle at home. I sit back in my car to jott down this epic $hit on my journal to reflect on the year with this very special cup of tea, This tea stall is a place where in college days I use to spend lot of happy time with my buddies and is appropriate to write this monster post.

It’s taken me long time to think through what I am going to cover as it could have taken a lot of different things. I would love to include almost everything but doing so would mean that it would most likely take another couple of weeks time to finish it and by that time we’ll into the second month of 2013 and I’ll never let this happen.

Some Goodies

The year started indifferently cold and wintry, the first quarter of the year slipped without any realization. In the month of April I got a break from work for eighteen days, though it was unpaid but this time was priceless as I experienced good quality life in this patch. To make most of it I joined a week long course called ‘Art of living‘, it was a very special experience. I did it religiously but failed for the follow ups, here I realized about the positive approach as there is a tug of war between sensitivities and ignorance of every common mortal.

Knowing its outline I had earlier endorsed this particular course to lot of people who are known to me, still I myself never got any opportunity to attend it. This year it happened in the most dramatic way in my life as planned by destiny, it was the most  beautiful gift of the year.

Later in the month of August I got my thesis evaluated and received A Grade in it. I appreciate the contribution and effort of my well wishers during this.

Kiddos got admission in the premier institute of the town which is quite near to our place, not only this but wifey also got job to teach senior secondary classes for mathematics in the same institute and was quite motivated. Two good news in the go, children are really blessed.

Later I reviewed Guy Kawasaki’s latest book APE. I have to boast that he personally send the soft copy of the book to me including other blogger buddies prior to the formal launch of the book.

My Christmas was delightful as my blog got reviewed by blogging coach Marya Jan. She liked my design 😀 and suggested some very good points. She gave words to my thoughts which otherwise were locked in the safe.

I designed a new landing/branding page, reformatted my whole blog theme, wrote CSS from scratch and edited almost more than 900 blog posts to get rid of some hard coded formatting although this step can be easily skipped but doing so introduced me with more meticulous person with in me. I also initiated couple of series on the blog.

To  my wonder despite of so many gaps in posting on an average this blog was published on every third day from the first day.  This year also enjoyed the same average and received better number of guest post requests along with some offers of monetize. In an effort to increase my reading I increased my blog scanning radar significantly and read downloaded many e-Books.  Met few blog buddies in the vicinity, we lack some hungry bloggers from this part of world who really want to make difference through their blogging practice.

Other things in the year includes meeting with some very enthusiastic people around who stand together to do something for their town also met Mr.Raja Bhasin. Attended some casual bloggers’ family meet, cooked some thought curry. Designed couple of websites, received some unexpected honorarium. Attended some grand marriages of cousins in the city beautiful.

 At a buddhist discussion meet 

Some Learning

The best learning I realized is to choose your conviction Just do the way you feel like doing because it is always the best. Another thing is practice hard because when you practice more , more you find yourself into it and always cherish your relations. Do business at the front and party at the back so that you find time to work hard play harder.

Ph.D bug inspired me to appear in UGC NET examination for which my wife was preparing hard. Both of us managed to clear the two exams out of three, the third one made us bang our heads, the takeaway from this process was that we learned planning. Somehow I didn’t appear in the December attempt, though I didn’t intended to do so :(.  By the end  of year I have drastically reduced watching television and realized the power of monotasking.

Don’t plan just do it

We have ideas and we keep looking for the right time, which never happens. We keep on defer working on that particular idea. Some times we don’t have the know-how, expertise, money or time to be able to execute it. In fact thease are all our excuses, and if you fall for them you’ll be wasting your precious time. Do what it takes to free your time and get what you need to start working on your best idea right now. Choosing this path you’ll be able to learn things more effectively because you’ll be using them.

The year saw lot of cyber attacks on my different websites. I realized securing websites should be prime agenda. Simply anti-viruses and firewalls can’t protect you because they are simply tools and in order to survive on web you need to develop a hacker’s eye and it is warfare. Hacking your blog can be a biggest zolt you can ever get, there are people who can’t even see your sincerity, effort and aesthetics, and they’ll try their best to pull you down. I took this very positively and came out with many learning. The end of the year was most horrible; I always kept lot of virus precautions on my personal systems but amusingly a data replicator managed to enter my system and took control over my CPU. To get rid of it I had to restore my system to an earlier time stamp the best part of this episode was that I got opportunity to clean my System by reducing lot of applications. Now I own a faster system, thank to the virus, It was indeed a great start of the year. You will be reading more on my security section in year 2013.

Retrospection

I gifted the last two days of my year completely to myself, though it happened in the flux but it was amazing. I sat all aloof with bare minimum requirements and without any kind of connectivity to the outer world, simply contemplating on general things and what I want to be.  It acted like a kick ass tonic for the year ahead :). I felt trapped when I realized how difficult it is to change your basic habits but then appeared a devil smile on my face to see most people who are performing even worst.

When I look back I can easily connect the points though they brushed me many times when I realized it took me five odd years to learn the basic tactics of art of blogging and I am on my way.  I am enthralled for some serious blogging in the coming year by sharing my life experiences.

Society

I was upset to see the decline of Anna’s movement. The Delhi rape incident and Malala-Yousafzai incident shocked my soul. Such incidents might be common in past but now due to technology and media they seize our mind share. May be it’s for good; there are times when you safely slip into your comfort zone and close your eyes to the surroundings. But everything in our lives is integral and connected, even if we intend to separate out our personal life still it affects our professional life and it’s hard to isolate an experience without referencing a 360 degree perspective. Any ways Felix Baumgartner’s attempt to challenge the limits was very inspiring moment.