I have reflected on 2016 on both the Work and Personal fronts, so it’s time for some goals for this year.

Work

  • Present at an international conference.
  • Write the bulk of my thesis: I’m hoping for 4-5 chapters (if everything goes smoothly I’ll try for more as we are not short of ideas!).
  • Submit the above as papers. Would be great to have something out there before hunting post-docs down.
  • On that note: find a post-doc position!
  • Finish off my Professional Internship Programme (PIP).

  • Do a little bit more teaching - a different undergraduate course and hopefully some workshops too.

  • There are also quite a few more fluid things that I’d like to keep working on: developing my coding skills (maybe this is the year I finally tackle Python!), improving big data management and processing (SQL, interactive graphs etc.), networking, developing my scientific writing and so on - I need to work out an actionable plan for those first though!

Personal

  • Get better at swimming. Getting to a point where I’m not a spectacle would be nice.
  • Do some diving - join a club and make sure to stay on top of those skills.
  • Get back to rock climbing on a more regular basis.
  • Improve this website - there are still plenty of bits of pieces to add and fix.
  • Get through backlog of photographs, particularly the fieldwork-adjacent ones and those from my Queensland trip - so that I can share some wild Oz with you!
  • Keep painting - I’d like to finish off my Queensland travel sketchbook, do a big painting of sunflowers for my mum’s kitchen, a couple of birthday gifts for friends, and average one “tutorial” painting per month. Tall order!
  • Read one book per month. And it has to be non-work stuff.
  • Publish a blog post at least once per month, try to do more regular everyday PhDing updates and finish off the Fieldwork Tips series.
  • Go back to meal planning. I want to compile a recipe list for my favourite meals.