So it’s December. The year is coming to an end and, depending on where you live, you’ll either be rounding up the year in the bitter cold or comforting warmth. Some of you might look back on the year with rose-tinted memories; others may wish to forget this year ever existed. For me, this year has had its fair share of ups and downs. I’d like to put these into writing as a way of remembering everything when I look back as well as recounting them to others.
2015 started out as any other one in my 25 years of existence did; I was at home with my parents. I hadn’t stayed awake to welcome in the New Year, nor had I stayed up to get drunk; in all honesty I was probably asleep at midnight – it feels like it’s been so long now that I can’t even remember. Christmas and New Year celebrations are rather dull and generic for me; I get ferried out of a cold country where I live and have friends and end up in a warm country where I have family. That being said, by the third of January I’d returned to the cold and dark part of the world I live and work in.
At the beginning of the year, I thought it would be a good idea to reboot my Sandy Saturday comics from 2011. I did a lot of practice art beforehand and officially unveiled the first new comic page on the third of January to very little fanfare. The general feedback I got was that the new art style was a huge step forward, and I was very proud of the way that the page had turned out. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have much of a storyline at this stage but told myself that I’d make one up as I go along.
In February came the first major obstacle I had to compete with in 2015. Due to the plummeting price of oil, the company I work at was forced to make 9000 people redundant globally in order to stay profitable, and I was in the list of people who were going to be let go. Throughout the month, I was in regular meetings with the HR department and managers to see what we could do to salvage my job or remove me from the list – indeed, I recall celebrating Valentine’s Day alone and with the looming prospect of losing my job: something you can imagine wasn’t having the greatest effect on my mental wellbeing. Additionally, during the process I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone about it until the company went public with the information at the end of the month; however, I’m glad to see the more astute of my friends picked up that something was wrong due to the apparent end of updates to Reboot and the lack of a Valentines-themed image for this year. I’m fortunate that my family and closest friends were there to help me through this difficult time and, with their help, I was able to find the strength to argue my case for keeping my job. On the 24th I was officially told I had managed to keep my job and would not have to worry. Unfortunately, I lost two colleagues from my team and the office lost seven people altogether, with a few more leaving over the following months due to increased workload, the stress associated with the redundancy procedure or just because they no longer felt their job was secure. Looking back from now, it’s obvious the office has a lot less staff now then it had at the beginning of the year – much of the top floor is deserted now.
After the stressful February, March and April passed without any fanfare. Reboot suffered some setbacks in late April and was put on hold at the beginning of May as I didn’t know what direction to take it. In my rush to push out pages more often, I’d let some tracing creep in. I wasn’t happy with this and officially pulled the comic on my Birthday in June. It was probably a good call at the time – July saw a rush to try and get the software I’m developing at work into a reasonable state for release and I had little energy to work on art after work. Additionally, my parents had organised a family holiday for August so I wanted to get loose ends tidied up at work before I left.
Japan was the main attraction of the family holiday at the end of August and beginning of September, something I documented extensively on this journal. Before this holiday, I’d always wanted to visit the country and had probably hyped it up a lot in my mind – and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Every day was an adventure, and, while my parents seemed to have a lot more energy than I did for the entire trip, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Upon returning from Japan, I moved into a new flat where I’ve spent the past few months trying to block out the sound of the arguing couple from upstairs. Not much has happened during this time that’s noteworthy, and since winter has set in there’s a lot less happening. Mind you, I haven’t seen any snow yet this year and I doubt I will due to the relatively warm weather we’re having.
In summary, I’d say the year started off a bit on the rough side but has definitely got better as time went along. I’ve made some new friends this year – and I guarantee you that’s not something you'll read from me that often, as I'm more introverted than most – and caught up with some of my close friends in real life. I've been to a country I've wanted to visit for a long time and I think that overall I've given myself a great opportunity to get back on my own two feet after the rough years prior to this one. It's true that I'm still working on making things better for myself, and have had a few bouts of "being down" recently, but I think I can only continue to build upon this as I traverse into 2016.
Of course, recounting the year is one thing. Showing how things have got better is another.
I know I talk a lot about how I want to improve the things I do in my free time. Thanks to Reboot and other miscellaneous works I’ve taken on over the year, I believe my art style has improved – despite my reluctance to admit this fact. In October, I redesigned Paige, one of my most famous characters. The result is by far my most favourite renditions of one of my characters altogether.
Recently I produced a “draw it again” piece – based on a prompt from one of my more artistic friends – showing how she has evolved over the years. I surprised myself.
Art isn’t the only thing that I’ve been trying to improve over the year, but it’s by far the most obvious. I will admit that I put down my DSLR camera before my trip to Japan and haven’t really used it since, so my photography skills are not what they once were, but I’ve been putting a lot of effort into my vector works.
Despite the setbacks that happen at work, I’m becoming one of the senior engineers on the team and while I feel like the youngest one there – probably because I am – I’m more readily given the bigger, more important tasks – admittedly, not the greatest of things after the last few weeks – and despite our team getting smaller over the last year, it’s a welcome change to be looked up to rather than looked down on. That said, the lingering threat of being made redundant is still there, with another few rounds of layoffs starting this month as the price of oil continues to freefall.
Finally, I’m still learning to cook. It’s one of my lesser-known hobbies, but it’s definitely something I started taking seriously last year. I had a Gousto ingredient and recipe delivery box subscription which has taught me a few excellent recipes; I’ve since cancelled that due to the way they individually wrap every single ingredient in excess amounts of non-recyclable plastic packaging and kept sending me e-mails about how I owed them £0. I’m tempted to write up a few of my more successful meal recipes – possibly even on this site – and see where it goes from there.
There's a lot to look forward to in 2016. As the weather gets better, I’m planning to go out and do random things with my new Mokacam because I don’t believe I get out enough and having a tiny action camera I can stick on my head while going on adventures might make me more willing to do so. Work will probably go on as expected; I want to be able to finish my three year training course but with the travel bans that have come into place I probably won’t be able to now.
Whatever happens, there’s no point trying to predict the future. The important thing is that you enjoy every moment that you can; whether you’re alone or with friends or family. It’s something I mentioned at the end of last year and it still applies today. Things are not explained by the past. They're explained by what happens now. Stay positive, folks 🙂
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