![fireworks-574739_640.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeG797vh9SJ8uQJsrXLQ6uPxf5SJNvAhTH9FaQ84c7aFD/fireworks-574739_640.jpg)
Source: [Pixbay](https://pixabay.com/de/feuerwerksk%C3%B6rper-raketen-neujahr-574739/)

Last year [I wrote a short reflection about 2017 and a short outlook for 2018](https://steemit.com/happynewyear/@cpufronz/time-to-look-back-and-forth). Since the year is again almost over, let's take a look how well that went. My two resolutions were to *finish my studies* and to *lose weight*. I managed to keep neither,  so let me give some more details:

#### Finishing my studies

[Even though I finished writing my thesis](https://steemit.com/photography/@cpufronz/austrian-whiskey--and-my-thesis-2018-11-2-19-44-16), I still didn't finish my studies due to administrative reasons, my final exam will be in January. So it is not that bad in the end, since I'm almost done, but I wanted to be done for real at this point, not just almost. Looking back my thesis changed quite a bit: I started working on it in April, but since the topic of my thesis took a big turn, I couldn't use any of the work I did in the first two months for my final thesis. Given that I "actually" started working on my thesis in June, it's not that bad and it took me around half a year to finish it (I was done in the beginning of December). Again: almost done isn't done for real, so technically I failed to keep this resolution.

#### Losing weight

Probably the most classic new year's resolution. Like many others, I also tried to lose some weight during this year and just like many others, I managed to get it all back. At first, it looked quite good: by June I managed to lose more than 10 kg, but during summer and autumn I got it all back. The reasons for that are rather simple: moving to little and eating too many unhealthy things (and flushing them down with beer). When I realised how much I lost in June, I got almost a bit scared of how fast it was and decided to slowly eat a bit more. "Slowly" turned into "quickly" and "a bit" turned into "a lot", the fact that I was going out partying relatively often in summer (for my current standards, 10 years ago it would have been a regular summer of partying for me, but I'm not 20 any more and therefore "going out and partying" gets less and less) wasn't helping either. To be honest right now I feel even fatter than last year, even though I have pretty much the same weight as last year (maybe that's because I ate too much during the holidays, but I really don't know). Anyway, I didn't manage to keep this resolution either.


#### About the rest

I also wrote that I want to contribute to @utopian-io or to make a game (and share my progress with it here): those are two things I was again not able to do. But  I did write a [series of posts](https://steemit.com/steemstem/@cpufronz/adventures-in-cognitive-science-9-final-post-and-overview), where I wrote about [topics I'm dealing with in my studies](https://steemit.com/steemstem/@cpufronz/towards-artificial-minds-2-recent-breakthroughs-and-some-philosophical-inquires) or [projects I was working on](https://steemit.com/steemstem/@cpufronz/building-a-bot-for-starcraft-ii-3-results-and-conclusion). So I at least managed to keep that resolution :)

In general my year was much more positive than this post might suggest: I practically managed to finish my thesis while working and laying the foundation for what's ahead of me. I quit my old job with the beginning of December, which was a bit difficult for me, since I really liked it. But sometimes you have to move on, and that's a pretty good summary of what 2018 was for me: a year of transition where I was moving on. I'm not going to make any resolutions for next year, since I'm not good at keeping them (apart from losing weight of course :D ).