21 December, 2022

I always find it interesting to look back over a year and, in particular, look at the sheer number of things that were done, accomplished, learned and survived. I have made a habit over the last decade or so of recording achievements on various social media and my web sites and it provides quite a solid record of things that happened. I made a conscious decision a while back to focus on positive outcomes to stave off some of the misery that tends to surround social media platforms these days. I simply try not to engage with the crazy and record things that I worked on that achieved a positive outcome or learning of some sort. The end result is that when I reflect back I see all of the good things that happened and life seems pretty good.

The library job has been, as expected, a great way to meet a wide range of people and find new opportunities within the community. From a lovely woman who is wonderfully obsessed with magpies and started a project to laser cut magpie silhouettes to a generous engineer who has put his old wood lathe in my workshop for “as long as I am interested”. I have worked with year 10 students to build arcade machines, helped get robotics established in a library, connected with tabletop miniature painters and modellers, and helped a number of schools get ignored 3d printers, laser cutters and screen printing tables back in action. It has been quite an action packed year in a lot of ways. I am now also happily learning to turn wood on the lathe and have upgraded my airbrush to try and learn new techniques without having to battle the brush so much. The workshop is looking positively excellent and I spend a lot of time out there now making things and trying out new ideas.

Next year my daughter starts a new school as a year 7 and all of the things that go with growing up. I’m exploring new opportunities with secondary education and remaining at the library (a second year in a workplace is a novelty for me these days). With any luck things stay stable for a little longer and new opportunities start to appear.