marks.dk
A personal note on 2009 and what 2010 will – hopefully – be like
Ever since the Christmas holiday I’ve wanted to make a post on what a crazy year 2009 was, as well as what I expect of 2010. Now I finally have the time to do so, and it’s personal so feel free to skip it.
2009:
On New Years Eve 2008/2009, I had just arrived back in Copenhagen from a semester abroad in Boston that was far from perfect. I had a nice time now and then, but I felt that the daily life on a campus 12 miles from Boston is too unlike my way of living that it became unbearable as the months went by.
I missed Copenhagen, I missed my girlfriend, friends and family and I just wanted it to be over.
I came back, and I got a new job at zyb/Vodafone that I was very happy about. I enjoyed working there until this fall when budget-related issues popped up, and I was relieved from my consultancy contract. Now I work at 23 which is something completely different, yet somehow very related. I don’t get these jobs because I apply for them, but because I spend crazy amounts of time on Twitter and at events around Copenhagen, talking to people that share my interests. This is something I want to continue doing, and especially Copenhagen Twestival has established some relationships that I value a lot, and hope to nurture more in the future.
It seems that 2009 was all about breaking down and establishing. In the summer I became a bachelor in more than one way, and I like the diploma I got from CBS, but not the feeling of being all alone that the breakup created. It’s over now and I learned a lot from it. “Taking less for granted” is sure as hell one of the lessons I took with me on that account.
2010:
I normally don’t do New Year’s resolutions, and I don’t plan on starting now, but there are still some things I’d like to focus more on in the coming year.
Listen:
Listening isn’t always my best skill, but I need to listen a lot more than I speak. I want to read more, and have removed a bunch of the shitty feeds clogging up my feed reader (Mashable, TechCrunch, TUAW etc. are all gone – it’s too much fast noise). I’m looking for good writers (hopefully making me a better one as well) that don’t publish often, but publish something worthwhile. I’ll share what I’ve found soon.
Act slow:
Again, this relates to the fast news being thrown out from Google Reader. More slow, less fast. Hopefully that affects how I work and think as well – it’s been too much fast stuff blazing past and too little of the meaty blogging/article-writing that really matters, and gives a worthwhile perspective on things.
Build more and learn new stuff:
I really really want to learn how to write better html(5) and css(3), as well as starting from scratch on how to do jQuery. I don’t know shit about programming in Python, Ruby on Rails, Javascript and what else is there, but jQuery seems like a nice place to start doing a bit of web app-stuff. This will in turn, hopefully, do wonders to what I can share and ship, and I already have a couple of ideas laid out that I would love to work on (a local version of Internet Garage Sale is one of them).
Be happier:
I’ll stop bitching about shit on Twitter. No more tweeting from the queue in the supermarket, no more whining about this and that, and hopefully I’ll start noticing the good stuff more.
For instance, I bought two lovely sweaters today. It’s really cold in Copenhagen these days and I’m cold all the time. What to do? Buy nice sweaters. So I did. And now I’m warm. I like that.
Consume less but better:
I already have too much shit, and I really don’t need anymore. Everything I buy in 2010 will be thought through, and either replace something of lesser value, or fill a gap that is justified in making me do my work, or everyday chores, better. This means getting rid of my CD and DVD-collection (I don’t listen to music or watch movies one physical media anymore), and a bunch of electronics that lie around but are never used (thus making the Internet Garage Sale-clone).
This a bunch of introvert self-praising, but it helps me write what I want to do in the coming year, if I want to complete it. Last year I wrote I wanted to take a photo and blog every day. That didn’t happen. Hopefully I can write one blog post every week; if I stop bitching about shit on Twitter, I should save right about the same amount of time every week it takes for me to write a blog post.
— Comments —
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Nice post, thanks for sharing. 2010 WILL be the year of the blog, why oh why does people comment this post on twitter, not here?
Resolutions are fine, but 365 is impossible, what you should try do instead is to do a 7-3 format, 7 days of effort, 3 days of rest, and if you miss out, just document it, and don’t feel sad about it – if you keep your resolution/resolve – celebrate it!
This is my record/diary, http://www.kimbach.org/wiki/index.php/Tapas – and I started in december – what has happened – already – is that I’ve lost 16 pounds of weight!
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(BTW. remember to use twitter in this way 
http://theappletree.dk/index.php?title=Jaiku#Hvad_er_Jaiku.3F )
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((If you want to get rid of stuff, join this group Freecycle Copenhagen: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecycle_cph/ ))
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Fin idé med at skille dig af med dine fysiske medier – jeg har selv gang i et dvd giveaway-projekt, hvor alle gæster, der kommer og besøger mig hver må tage en film med hjem – det er virkelig perfekt, jeg ser dem jo alligevel nærmest aldrig, og så får de et liv videre i stedet for at havne på loppemarked eller losseplads.
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Nice blogpost.
Interesting reflections on your learnings and the year to come. Your honesty and ability to formulate thoughts into interesting written and spoken words, are part of your social success. This is a great gift.
I think it is great that you want to learn Jquery and improve your HTML / CSS skills. To be able to build a mashup in 24hrs (Morten Just style) or a garage wholesale website is also a gift.
Your intentions makes me question however. You are a communication specialist, with the power of the written and spoken words in his hands. Why do you need to learn how to build a product and spend endless nights online getting it to work, when you through your network and connections can get it done in no time?
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@kimbach: I think I’ll close the comment-section on a future blog-project I have in mind and only receive feedback through email and Twitter, so I do understand why people comment there as well 
And thanks for the kind words.
@grapefrugten: Det er en god ide, faktisk. Jeg har en hulens bunke CDer også, så måske man må tage en plade og en film med hjem når man har været på besøg? Eneste problem er måske at @solberg ender med at stjæle det hele når nu han kommer så tit.
@lars: It’s a very nice comment you just posted, and I’ve thought a lot about it this morning. I don’t know exactly why I want to build stuff, rather than just persuade people into making it for me, but I think it’s got something to do with the feeling of success when stuff works. I like to dig in to html and watch it all come together. It gives a feeling of doing stuff that matters, rather than just talk about it. Also, it’ll hopefully make me better at describing what it is I want others to do, if I know how to do it. It’s hard to describe, but I think that my happiness in seeing stuff come together and know I build it myself might be enough for me to endure the long nights of endless pain and suffering when it won’t work.
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Good luck with learning programming, I’m here to help, just ask, and we can hook up IRL too. I’m on a leave of absense in all of january, and have plenty of time!
Regarding comments, you’re right, comments are just “broken” in general, but blogs provide the lowest maintenance possible for comments, the most difficult thing, is to track them.
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[...] A personal note on 2009 and what 2010 will – hopefully – be like [...]
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[...] som Marks har fået nok af manglen på dybde. Faktisk har han, siden sit ikke-nytårsforsæt om at gøre netop det, skrevet en lang række virkelig indsigtsfulde blogindlæg. Den slags varmer [...]