[Yearly Review] Part 2: did I achieve my goals in 2014?

As has become my tradition, I set myself a series of personal goals for 2014. These covered a variety of my hobbies, my work, sport, etc., and were designed to be at least vaguely achievable. In 2013 I did pretty well, so how did I do in 2014?

General

• Recover my savings back to where they were when my PhD stipend ended. I've struggled with this one quite significantly. Although I've been putting away £250 each month into my regular savings account, I've quite often had to more most of that back to my current account to pay for things like dentist treatment, my car, holidays etc.
• Save an additional £1000 over the above. Not a chance that this was ever on the cards.
• Maintain my weight at 12st Like last year, I'm not sure if I've done this or not. The last time I weighed myself was a couple of months ago, and I was at about 12st8lb. Not a huge gain, but I'm going to put this down as a fail.
• Write some game reviews on this blog. I actually managed this one! Not a huge number of reviews sadly, and my blogging effectively come to a halt around September. But still, I got a couple of game reviews up.

Work

• Publish my fourth and fifth papers. My fourth paper was published in MNRAS in August, and I got the preprint of my fifth paper onto the arXiv on Tuesday. But I don't consider that fully published, so partial success.
• Attend at least one international conference. This year was pretty good as far as conferences go. I managed trips to Portugal and Sicily, and was invited to a meeting in China.
• Go on at least one observing run. No observing for me in 2014 sadly. None of my telescope proposals were successful. But 2015 is looking better in that regard.

Reading

• Read 30 fiction books. Easily passed this for the second year in a row. I didn't do quite as well for books read as 2013, but I'm fairly confident that the word/page count was similar.
• Read the entire Wheel of Time series. Success! Lots of fun too, and it was great to finally read through to the conclusion of this epic series.
• Read 5 non-fiction books. Failed for the second year in a row. It's not that I don't have non-fiction to read, it's just that I struggle to fit it into my reading schedule. It's definitely something I want to work on in 2015.

TV and film

• Watch two TV series from my collection (that I haven't previously watched). Nope. I watched one series (Reboot), but the rest of the TV I've watched this year (and there's been a lot of it, particularly the last couple of months) has all been new releases.
• Watch at least 3 films from my collection (that I haven't previously watched). I managed to see two; one on DVD, and one that I'd downloaded. I crossed a lot of films off my 'to watch' list though, it's just that most were at the cinema on during flights.

Wargaming

• Paint 26 models.  Abject failure. I painted the grand sum of 9 models this year, but I've got about 30 in various partially painted states.
• Finish my Lost Hemisphere Challenge list. Nope; see above.
• Lost Hemisphere Challenge mark 2. Lost Hemisphere didn't run the challenge again sadly, and I didn't feel like doing it myself.
• Build my WW2 tanks. Still in their boxes :-( At least I didn't buy any more.
• Attend a gaming group meeting. I've been going along to the Warwick University Games club pretty regularly. Sadly there are only two of us playing Warmachine at the moment though.
• Participate in at least one Warmachine organised play event. This year I discovered the Guardians of Tyr group, and their monthly Warmachine/Hordes tournaments in Milton Keynes and Northampton. Both are within an hour's drive of Coventry, so I've been going along when I've been free and having a lot of fun.
• Play at least one game of at least two different systems. This year I've played Warmachine/Hordes, X-Wing, MERCS, and the Lord of the Rings Skirmish System.

Board gaming

• Play at least ten new games. Success, thanks to the University of Warwick Sci-Fi society. I nearly doubled this target actually.
• Buy at least three new games. Success - I bought Priests of Ra, Sentinels of the Multiverse, and the Game of Thrones board game's 2nd edition.

Computer gaming

• Finish 2 games single-player. Success - I finished Mass Effect, Arkham City, and Halo 4 this year. All three were excellent.

Lifesaving

Complete and utter failure in this category sadly. My lifesaving activities in 2014 were confined to judging at BULSCA competitions.

• Attend a local Lifesaving Club training session.
• Maintain my Survive & Save TA status.
• Teach a lifesaving course.
• Compete with an old boys' team at a BULSCA competition.

Overall then I completed 10/26, plus one partial completion. Not a great year really, although there were lots of other things that happened that make up for this failure at my personal goals. In the end all of this is just for my personal satisfaction anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But I'd like to do a bit better in 2015!