Wrapping Up 2013

This year I'm spending New Year's Eve in Montreal, Canada.  Since it's around -20C, I'm having a quiet night in and reflecting on the past year.  I already posted about the reading I did this year, but since posting a year-end summary has become a bit of a tradition for me I'll continue that in this post.

Travel
This is probably the first year I traveled more for work than I did for holidays, but the holidays were longer so it balanced out.  Here's where the year took me:

• UIUC, Urbana Champagne Illinois: March 2013
• Victoria: Memorial Day Weekend, 2013
• Ft Lauderdale, Florida: August 2013
• Purdue University, West Lafayette Indiana: Sept 10-12 2013
• Minneapolis: October 1-6 2013
• Vancouver: October 11-13 2013
• Iceland, France, and Monaco: Oct 17-Nov 1 2013
• Cobourg, Toronto, Barrie, and Montreal: Dec 25 2013 - Jan 2 2014

I wanted to go to Europe and back to Japan in 2013 but only made it to Europe.  For 2014 I'm really hoping to get back to Japan again, maybe even for New Year's!  But I'll be starting 2014 with a quick trip to Las Vegas.

Professional Life
This year was even busier than the last, and involved a switch of teams, so there was lots to do.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Attended this year's Grace Hopper Conference and worked on attendee engagement for my company
• Presented as part of a panel on mobile vs. web app development, an industry experience panel, and a Student Opportunity Lab on Careers in Test at GHC13
• Went on two College Campus Interview trips
• Had a highschool student job-shadow me for a day
• We shipped GDR3 for Windows Phone 8!

Blog
I've had bursts of activity on my blog with some droughts in between.  I try my best but it gets hard between my busy work and travel schedule as well as my hobbies and fitness schedule!  Here are the top five posts from my blog in 2013:

• How to Get Funding to Attend GHC
• Be a Communities Volunteer!
• Issues with Panorama TitleTemplate in Windows Phone 8
• GHC13 Panelists Needed for Testing Proposal
• Biology & Women in CS

Other
Outside of work and travel, I've continued playing Frisbee and climbing.  This year I tried out captaining for the first time, which was super fun!  I'm getting better at bouldering too and did my first V3-level routes this year.  I'm hoping to get some skiing in this spring.

At Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France this October