skysenshi.com

From the multimedia industry (game development companies and associations) to the academe to the blogosphere to my wonderful colleagues, my readers, professors, classmates, former students, fellow bloggers, friends and family: Thank you all for being part of my 2011. You have made my year very memorable.

You may have noticed that I started updating less and less during the middle part of the year, but the irony was that I was in so many places — seemingly at once — and that there were a lot of stories to share. I just hardly had the time to actually sit down and actually savor them all. Hence my online life had been reduced to 150 characters per post on micro-blogging/social networking sites, posting while on the go. (Thank you, Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab!)

Anyway, 2011 had been a year of victory for me, even though half of it was spent dealing with a lot of self-esteem issues (for both work and my studies). Let me just be thankful for the following.

“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com

The Good

• Bagged two multimedia (web-related) awards. Won at both the 12th Philippine Web Awards in April and the 2011 Philippine Blog Awards in December.
• Held an exhibit (Transitions in February) that had me exploring various traditional and new media techniques.
• Became a Producer for Anino Games Inc. I was also a Communications Director for a short while, but requested to step down because visits to the hospital (due to stress) became a regular thing. Haha!
• Passed my PhD candidacy exam in May.
• Successfully defended my doctoral dissertation proposal in November.
• Meeting some of my readers during the earlier part of the year.
• Collaborating with heads of various CHED and TESDA institutions (DLSU, FEU-EA, UP, DLS-CSB, APC, Informatics, PLM, FEATI), ironically when I have already left the academe.
• My company winning in two categories at the Philippine Game Development Festival 2011. One for Best Browser Game (Lords and Colonies) and another for the Cultural Award (Jan-Jan the Jeepney, a project with CCP & CICT).
• Getting warm feedback from the production teams I have been handling. I have been blessed with developers who are extremely intelligent, talented, industrious and ultra supportive of each other. I want to win awards for our games in 2012 so… Hahahahaha! (Ambisyosa ba?)
• My brother Pau getting married to the kind and beautiful Keng, resulting in a very hectic but productive October – December.
• Traveling to Cebu, Singapore and Hong Kong.
• On mentoring: I consider it a victory that even though I no longer am teaching, there are still students and graduates from various schools that contact/visit me for consultations and they have successfully passed their defenses/presentations/interviews. I am honored by the trust these extremely talented students have bestowed upon me.

So if I had such a blessed year, how come I had self-esteem issues? Hahaha. Well, it can’t be helped. Some of my friends say that I am too hard on myself, but sometimes there are things that are out of your control so…

“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com

Since 2011 has been my year of individuality, 2012 is actually going to be the opposite even though my forecasts for the Year of the Dragon indicate that I will be very successful in individual endeavors. (It also says there is a possibility of seeing dead people. Wah!!!! Thank goodness, it’s superstition.)

On blog updates: Because I will have lesser time for myself in 2012 — as I will devote myself to being a Producer (I want to win awards for games I produced this time, di ba? Hehe) — the content of my blogs will be severely…hm. Let’s just say I want to concentrate on posts that have deep significance to me.

The biggest irony of 2011 for me, blog-wise, was that I have been receiving a deluge of event and commercial requests when I hardly have time to spare for myself. I was afraid to log into my personal email because there were hundreds of stuff to read. (And many of them are still unread, huhuhuhu!!!) I don’t want to break my ties with my favorite PR companies, though, so I have decided that press releases and product endorsements would be relegated to my Facebook page, Skysenshi’s Hermitage, where I will also be holding contests from time to time.

From now on, the only time I will actually post a product-related event on any of my blogs is if I have personally attended an event and experienced the product for myself. How’s that for compromise?