What A Ride (The 2012 Year In Review)
It’s been an amazing year, and it’s moved so fast — I need to stop and look back at the scoreboard.
This year, I graduated from college. I’m the first person in my family to do so. Despite what my condescending university President said at the graduation commencement, I don’t feel that “makes me better or more intelligent” than them. I am lucky to have had an amazing opportunity for enrichment, and I took it.
I started a new website that took off. It’s called The Duffel Blog, and despite the tagline of it being the American Military’s Most-Trusted News Source, it probably isn’t. If you are in the military, and satire is your thing, you’ve probably heard of it or been told of a story on it.
In March of this year it launched, and as I write this, we’re about to break 35,000 fans on Facebook. All due to taking a chance this summer and quitting my other job, lots of writing, tons of help from some great contributors, a lot of hard work, and sacrificing sleep.
I fell in love with art. I’ve never really been into art all that much, other than maybe seeing a photograph or a painting and thinking, “that looks neat.” This year, I took 3 art classes, two of which were with Santiago Echeverry, a genius and now good friend who opened up the art world to me and dared me to learn more.
I found a good way to use my skills to help my fellow veterans. Late this year, I was recruited to help with the Marine Infantry Veterans Foundation, a new non-profit foundation founded this year by my fellow infantrymen. Serving as Media Relations, and now re-titled to Communications Director, I’ve been able to write stories, push initiatives on social media, and boost awareness of a new charity that is doing awesome things for brothers in need.
I was accepted into a Masters program. This year I realized my true passion in life was writing. Submitting pieces to Business Insider (BI) and The Duffel Blog brought me to that conclusion, and I wanted to go further. In January, I’ll start my continuing education in Digital Journalism while working full time as a journalist at BI.
So that brings me to January. Moving to New York, beginning a new position as a journalist, and starting a college graduate course of study. There are many questions, many more challenges to overcome, but I hope this list will be longer at the end of 2013.