After living in an isolated academic bubble for the past twelve months, I have recently had some time off. While I enjoyed the first day, I also discovered that a lack of direction was slowly dehumanising me into a tedious Grey’s Anatomy DVD watching and couch sitting individual. However, when I observe this time from an alternate perspective, I am able to see a few key achievements obtained during this period:

1. I launched Digital Red Dirt.
2. I learnt that connections made in the social media space are genuinely effective.
3. It no longer takes me twenty minutes to construct a three sentence email.
4. Havaianas no longer dominate my footwear collection.
5. I purchased Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn – this month’s musical necessity.
6. I recovered from a severe case of post-thesisitis syndrome and remembered that there is life outside Henry Jenkins and country music.
7. I gained a wealth of confidence.
8. I stayed up past 10pm and slept in past 5am.
9. I successfully removed ‘dude’ from my automated vocabulary (and added all sorts of other things that are going to haunt me forever after).