2011 is now behind us, and for me it was a very up and down year to say the least.

The first half of the year started off on a major up, I was offered a full time role at General Electric as Technical Lead for the Global VAT GST Systems team. I was already working in a similar role for the previous 9 months as a contractor, in Leeds commuting from London every week. Taking the position meant I had to move to Leeds and I did this within in three months of starting. So come the end of January 2012 will be 1 year in my full time role, and I've loved and still love every minute of it. I've learnt a lot and have a lot more to learn and that is certainly what I'll be doing in 2012. When I started in the team in May 2010 there were only 4 of us in the team this month we'll hit over 25 team members which has been great and this year we have plans already to grow more.

So on to the second part of the year and why I've been so quite on my blog, after a week's holiday in Spain for some summer sun my girlfriend and I got back home on the Saturday and on the Monday live changed very quickly. She awoke with a blurry eye, and was very worried about it and so went to the opticians, and was quickly referred to the Eye clinic at St. James Hospital in Leeds who then referred her for an MRI scan the following day and this when we found out the issue. A tumour was found at the front of her skull. That night we travelled back to London as it made sense she was near family and friends, we spent the whole morning waiting to see the consultant and to my surprise I had been under the same consultant's knife 10 years earlier for a trapped nerve in my arm. So I knew he was good already, and they admitted her and were ready to operate the following Tuesday and so within 3 days our whole world was turned upside down. Due to additional checks she wasn't operated on until another week later so within 2 weeks of the symptoms starting she was operated on and the tumour removed. Test showed it wasn't cancerous, which was as great relive for us all. She's been through so much in her life between 20 month and 4 years she had leukaemia and other complications and they reckon that the tumour was caused by the radiation that cured her leukaemia. As a child she had another rare condition and an article in the medical journal was written on her. The brain tumour was also a rare one, and they are going to write another article on her, a very unique and strong lady.

So now on to 2012, this year will hopefully be a full 12 months of goodness, and I've already planned a lot for myself I'm going to make a big effort on self-development and I've already booked myself on some courses and have others planned:

• Open University course - English for Academic studies (I don't have a degree and wanted to see if I could do one with the OU - Starts Feb 2012
• User Stories for Agile Requirements - Mike Cohn - In London Feb 2012
• Certified ScrumMaster - Mike Cohn - In London Feb /Mar 2012
• Agile Estimating and Planning - Mike Cohn in London Mar 2012
• Anger Management - To be booked

I'm also hoping to be making it out to Adobe Max again in LA, as I've always found it an awarding trip and I'll also be attending a few other conferences as they come up.

I'm going to be making a bigger then ever effort to keep my blog updated and detail all the things I learn though out the year.