The good: I met some amazing people some of whom have become extremely good friends. They made me do some new stuff that I've never done before. Graduate school is going on, I learnt a bunch of new stuff (Across the spectrum ranging from arcane knowledge [1] to bleeding edge
research [2]). Being a teaching assistant has been a combination of being extremely frustrating and intensely rewarding.
The bad: I had my share of setbacks, failures, missed chances and lost friendships.
Did I learn stuff from this year? Yes. Experiences are good and as the saying goes, what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger.
Also, note to future-self: Don't talk to people about an emotionally charged topic when you are hungry/angry/sleepy/tired or don't have enough caffeine in you. The conversation WILL go better when you've had a night's sleep and have some caffeine and some food in you. Trust the wisdom you gained in 2011 about this.
Resolutions? Sure! my standard resolution is to not make any resolutions. Actually, that's not completely true, I may make some resolutions internally but (a) they aren't tied to the date of January-1 with a 1-year validity period and/or (b) they are unlikely to be posted on a blog such as this.
To wrap up: Here's RFC 1882: the 12-days of technology before Christmas:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1882.txt
[1] Van Halen's standard performance contract contained a provision calling for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms, but with all the brown candies removed. This was to check how carefully the crew went through the clauses to ensure that the setup was done to specifications.
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
