2025 - A Wrap
Trying to sum up the year feels like a challenge. I'm currently nursing a cold, and I think that's a result of running on empty the last few weeks of the year. It's been a big, long slog.
The Highs
There were of course, some highlights:
- 13 Years – a massive milestone with Ms A. turning 13 back in January. Living with a teenager is something new, and points to success in her being able to survive and thrive in throughout her childhood, but it's also a turning point towards adulthood. It have me something to hold on to and helped put a lot of things into focus – that much of the strife and effort of the last few years has all been getting this human to this point. While I begrudge work, the reality is that it has enabled me to bring up a family in a pretty comfortable surroundings and without going without much. I also love the human we've helped create, seeing her personality start to blossom and coming out of her shell a bit more. We had a road trip together, and while there was quite a bit of headphones on and ignoring Dad time, there were some nice chats we had – and when visiting my cousin, she was the most outgoing I've ever seen her. It's been amazing to watch her grow up and mature.
- Japan – I've missed travelling and this was such a great adventure for the family. Our route from Tokyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa and back through the mountains had just the right amount of everything. We crammed a lot into those days, walked a lot and got to see and experience so much.
- Growth – The year wasn't one of change, it was one of consolidation and growth. Heathwise I made some gains on the important stuff - eating better and building in consistent movement into the day. Walking Frankie six mornings a week brings the worst out of me during winter (as we trudge through the dark), but it's also meant I've been the most consistent when it comes to exercise. I need to dial that up a bit to include more gym sessions, but I think I've proven I can stick to a routine.
On the professional front there were also a few key milestones:
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Owen – The first graduate from the OUA program was a huge event for myself and the team. While we had wrapped up the course development last year, we actually got to see the fruit of our labour when Owen came to Adelaide to graduate. He bought his wife and kids, and his parents came along, and we managed to bring him into the studio to pepper him with questions. For me, this was such a big vote of confidence: getting someone through to the end of their degree, and hearing good things about the courses we worked on. It was such a great reflection on the whole team and everyone who was part of the program.
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Ascilite Paper – In a similar note, getting the team to co-author a paper on our work during the OUA project, get it peer-reviewed and published marked another milestone. We focused on distilling what we had done as a team and how we had worked, and as such, we now have a reference point and can share our work more broadly. Coming together to get the words on the page, and again to present at the conference, was pretty challenging – but I was also proud of what we had done and the effort the team had made.
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Conferences – I managed to attend quite a few conferences this year (CanvasCon, Reclaim Open, ICDE, OERcamp, & Ascilite) and it was a nice reminder of the connections I have to professionals around the world, to know there is a community out there that I am part of. It was so nice to meet new people and connect face-to-face with those I'd only ever known virtually. It made me miss some of the people around the world – and how I have to get way better at keeping in touch!
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Professional Practice – While it's certainly felt like my career has been on hold, and starved of opportunity over the last couple of years, that extra time has meant that I've felt much more comfortable in what I have achieved since coming to Adelaide. While my team has been dissolved as part of the merger, their sadness made me feel I had done something right. I had created and developed a culture and practices that my team can take with them. They can even reference themselves about how we worked and what we proved does work. I did apply for a more senior job right at the end of the year, and while I was not even successful at getting an interview, the process of writing up the application forced me to reflect on what I have done as a professional. And you know what – there's a lot of good stuff there. A lot of it has to do with setting up how people work – giving them the tools to work and creating the right ways of working and processes. What I feel I've been able to do over the last few years has been establish some critical professional practices around course development and learning design. They might not have percolated out beyond my team... but I have them under my belt and can point to a number of successes.
The End at the Beginning
The year ended with many endings. The team, unit, division and university I've spent six and a half years at is all gone. Wrapping it all up, there were a few tugs on the heartstrings. No one died, but things definitely came to an end. The people you depended on and got through things with together – many of those relationships will change in the new year. I've got a whole new team of nine, that I am not particularly familiar with, let alone have any experience working together.
I'm also not 100% sure what work we'll actually be doing. Have spent the better part of 18 months in the absolute churn of course development – I have zero desire to go back into that – not unless there are significant changes. Now that the merger is complete - the excuse for not changing things have run out. We are new functional unit within the new university and as such should be completely in charge of our ways of working. I am hoping we can restore the power balance back in-house, rather than outsourced to a function of Deloitte.
I am going into new year hopeful of a new beginning.
Numeric Milestones
One of the resonating things for the year was we touched on a bunch of milestones. My daughter turned 13, I turned 45 alongside my wife and we celebrated 25 years together. It made the year feel important – a distinct and clear point in time and in lifes little journey. It also brought things into a more stark contrast – we a 5 years away from some more significant milestones and there's a lot I want to do between now and then. So while this post and the year have been focused on what has passed, I am very aware of what's to come!
Media
This was the year I finished the Discworld series. I can't actually remember when I started – but the words of Terry Pratchett have been pretty consistently been the ones I fall asleep to for almost a decade. I haven't been able to give up on the routine, and so have gone back to some of my least remembered/enjoyed novels. I have to say the last few books and the arc of Tiffany Aching tied together nicely with Ms A growing up.
Podcast-wise – at some point I stumbled into the Rest is History and have been binging on the entire back catalogue. I've really enjoyed each episode of If Books Could Kill and it's saved me from reading a lot of frustrating non-fiction. Embedded: Alternate Realities was one of the best listens to really understand the reality-distortion-field in full effect, and how impacts those around them. Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet and Expanse: Nowhere Man.
TV-wise my picks of the year were Reservation Dogs, Andor, Say Nothing, Slow Horses, The Agency: Central Intelligence and Down Cemetery Road. All had great performance, scripts, story and cinematography.
Movies were consumed, but I don't know if there were any that were true standouts. I did like Sinners and Bugonia just because they were quite different.