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#Nurture1415

A lot of people seem to be doing a #Nurture1415 post – Sue Cowley (@Sue_Cowley on Twitter) has compiled a long list here.

So here are my, hopefully short, 5 positives and 5 negatives.

5 Positives from 2014

  1. I saw the final completion of my PhD in applied computational mathematics by graduating from The University of Nottingham
  2. I joined Twitter, properly. I had a while a go signed up to Twitter, but never really used it. This year I decided to set up a professional Twitter account (@DrBennison). I was a bit dubious at first, but I now use it all the time. Everyone on Twitter is very welcoming, happy to get involved in discussions and I have learnt a lot from everyone I have interacted with. It was particularly good to meet people I had spoken to on Twitter at Mathsconf2014.
  3. I started working at a great school, with a great department that is very supportive of each other.
  4. I also started a blog in the summer, which I have enjoyed updating!
  5. Doing maths by hand. It has been nice to practice integrations etc by hand again. I had become very reliant on Mathematica over the last few years.
  6. First wedding anniversary. It has been a great first year married to my beautiful wife and I feel very lucky to always have her support.

5 Wishes for 2015

  1. Develop my website properly. At the moment my website just hosts my blog, a few files and a Javascript game – I need to spend time designing a proper homepage.
  2. Do some coding. After 5 years of programming everyday I have been missing doing some programming. I have two projects I would like to work on: 1) an iFEM finite element iOS app; 2) a useful online computer based assessment and grading system. Hopefully if I am disciplined in school holidays I can make a start on these.
  3. Blog more frequently. I’ve learnt loads in the last six months reading other people’s blogs and updating mine, however my posts have been infrequent. My goal for 2015 is to post at least one decent post every week – fingers crossed I can manage this.
  4. Continue learning from colleagues at work, people on twitter and in any other way so that I can be the best teacher that I can be.
  5. Manage a good work-life balance

You got one bonus positive.. sorry for not sticking to the rules.