[Yearly Review][2017] Did I achieve my goals in 2017?

2017 has been an interesting year for me. There are a couple of big things that I achieved this year, but that didn't necessarily help with my stated goals. On the other hand, some of those stated goals now seem ridiculous, even though I tried to be more realistic this year!

General

6.5/14 for my general goals.

• Save a net £2000 (Whether I achieved this one depends on how you define 'net'. My total savings are definitely not £2000 higher than at the end of 2016, but that's because of buying a house! If you leave that out of things, I've saved over £3500!)
• Keep my weight between 12st and 13st. (I'm pretty happy with my weight at the moment. It would be nice to convert a bit more to muscle, but it's not too bad.)
• Go swimming once per week for more than two-thirds of the year. (Smashed this one. I've been swimming at least once 38 weeks this year.)
• Swim 2km in a session at least once.  (I got as far as 1.5km in a session, which is an improvement on last year, but my weekly sessions have primarily been 1km only.)
• Swim a total of 50km or more throughout the year.  (I made it, but only just!)
• Go on one or more cycle rides of at least 10miles.  (Nope, not even close. Since moving into the new house my cycling has been cut right down.)
• Publish at least one blog post every two months, not including the end of year review posts. (I was so close to making this one that it's a bit painful. I published posts in February, April, August, October, and December, so I only missed the summer.)
• Buy a house. (Hallelujah! It's finally happened, and to make it even better it was with my girlfriend.)
• Attend at least two Wasps matches.  (Only the one this year, and that was all the way back in January.)
• Attend at least two Blaze matches. (I went to three games this year.)
• See at least one play or musical in the West End.  (We went to three plays in 2017 - the two parts of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", which was amazing, and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", which was equally great but very, very different.)
• Attend at least one BBC Prom (not counting Proms in the Park). (Partial credit here - I didn't attend any Proms, but I did go to see Michael Ball & Alfie Boe live for Mum's birthday, and also saw Elaine Paige perform. I also watched the John Williams prom on the BBC.)
• Drink no Coca Cola / Pepsi / equivalent cola-based drinks.  (I was so, so close to achieving this one. I made all the way to December 9th, when I attended a family party and the only soft drink available was.... Coca Cola. Sigh.)
• Visit a Snowdome at least twice for skiing practice.  (Nope. I thought about it, but didn't make it even once.)

Work

As in 2016, I failed at the really important one, publish more. However, I did manage 3/5 of my work goals.

• Publish at least two peer-reviewed papers (I have published nothing this year, which is not good at all.)
• Attend at least one international-level conference. (Definitely did this one - I actually organised the conference as well!)
• Go on at least one observing run. (Sadly not my own observing time, but I did manage to arrange a trip to my favourite observatory, La Silla, back in April to do some observing for our K2 follow-up collaboration)
• Arrive at work before 9:30 for more than half of the days I'm in the office.  (Smashed it. I arrived at work before 9:30 83% of the time this year! Mostly that's down to the routine that I've been keeping since moving into my new house).
• Drive to work less than 1/3 of days I'm in the office.  (Complete failure, but again that's a consequence of the new house. Getting to work without driving is not feasible on a regular basis, sadly.)

Reading

3/5 is better than last year, but I still want to read more books - I spent a lot of time reading magazines this year.

• Read 35 fiction books. (I managed a slight uptick compared to 2016, going from 23 to 29 fiction books)
• Read 5 non-fiction books. (Only 2 this year, and they bookended the year)
• Buy fewer than ten physical books. (I'm pretty sure that I managed this one, but I honestly lost track.)
• Read all of the books in my bedroom that I haven't read before (as of January 1st).  (Success.)
• Read a total of 50 books. (29 fiction, 2 non-fiction, and 2 rulebooks makes a mere 33 total books read.)
• Read at least 5 full magazines from my pile.  (I achieved this, and in fact read about 10 magazines. But they were newly acquired this year, so it didn't really reduce the pile, just maintain status quo!)

TV and film

2/4 for TV and film. Not a good year for films for me, and most of my film viewings were on planes. TV-wise I've found myself watching a lot of YouTube, which has cut down on the amount of series of seen.

• Watch one TV show from my collection (that I haven't previously watched). (I watched lots of TV, but none of it was from my existing DVD or download collection!)
• Watch at least five complete seasons of TV shows (different or the same show) (I watched a season of Sherlock, three seasons of Voltron, and a season of Castlevania, not to mention almost every episode ever of Bondi Vet!)
• Watch at least one film from my collection (that I haven't previously watched). (I only watched a handful of DVDs this year, and they were all new ones!)
• Watch more than 30 films (combined between cinema trips, home, film nights, etc.) (We didn't make many trips to the cinema this year, nor did we watch many films at home generally, which made this very difficult. My total for the year is 19, and the vast majority of those were watched on flights.)

Wargaming

A very, very poor showing on the wargaming front this year. 

• Paint 10 models.  (A mere 7 models painted, and those were last minute for SmogCon in February. Nothing painted since then sadly.)
• Play at least one game of Warmachine / Hordes with a fully painted army.
• Build my WW2 tanks.
• Build my Battlestar Galactica Viper.  (These last two have been on my list for years, and I've still not managed them. Maybe it's time to give up?)
• Play at least one game of at least two different systems.  (Definitely successful on this. I've played Warmachine / Hordes, X-Wing, Dropzone Commander, Shadespire, and Rune Wars this year.)
• Attend at least one event (excluding SmogCon) (It took most of the year, but I made it to a Steamroller in Northampton in November and had a blast.)
• Acquire some more X-Wing models.  (I bought the Rebel Aces boxes on bonfire night.)
• Achieve a Warmachine/Hordes win rate of at least 50%  (59% for Warmachine and 36% for Hordes, for an overall rate of 53%)

Board gaming

A lot of my board gaming this year was with friends in smaller settings, rather than at the Wednesday game nights, which I've basically given up on now. 

• Play at least fifteen new games.  (I played 17 new games, mostly in the second half of the year)
• Acquire at least three new games.   (Successful thanks to friends and family, who gave me Exploding Kittens, Thunderbirds, and Scythe as presents)
• Achieve a win rate of at least 50%  (Not a good year in 2017, I was just under 1/3)
• Play at least one game with my girlfriend.  (We played quite a few games together actually, and she's keen for us to have regular games nights with our friends, so that's a definite success.)
• Play (or run) at least one RPG session.

Computer gaming

Not much in the way of computer gaming this year, but I did finish X-Com: Enemy Unkown

• Finish 1 game's single-player campaigns.

Lifesaving

Not quite total failure this year. I was head referee at Sheffield competition, and I've agreed to write the wet SERC for the 2018 Student Championships. But I think at this point that my lifesaving involvement is basically over - the things I've done, I've done because I've been asked specifically.

• Be Head Referee at one or more BULSCA competitions.
• Write one SERC.
• Volunteer at one or more RLSS event(s).

Overall then I completed 23.5/46, so I just managed to reach my 50% target for the year! Some of the successes I'm very pleased with and proud of, but equally some of the failures are incredibly disappointing. There are also a couple of goals that have been on this list every year since I started it, and that I still haven't complete.

So 2017 has been pretty good, but I want to try and build on it for 2018. My new house means that there are several goals that are going to have to be substantially reworked or rethought, so the list of goals for 2018 is going to look very different.