Looking back over the year, 2024 has been good year. It’s had its ups and downs, but I feel it’s been positive 
This year has personally been one of self-discovery reflecting on past mistakes, stepping outside my comfort zone, and confronting minor health issues.
On the negative side, I was admitted to hospital for bronchopneumonia towards the end of my parents’ trip over, and later in the year I required surgery for an inguinal hernia which involved a very long recovery. However, I end the year having made huge progress in my recovery
I have continued to push the boundaries of my comfort zone as I attended dinners with close colleagues, and even arranged an office Christmas meal. My friendship with several colleagues has grown much over the last year from Mike who is a fellow Star Trek fan to Don who is always sharing his exciting adventures wielding various exotic weaponry in Skyrim, and many others.
Furthermore, I found solace and joy in various forms of entertainment this year. I was particularly excited to see several movies, including Wicked and Beetlejuice 2. These films were both significant to me in different ways. It is about twenty years since I saw the theatrical performance of Wicked, not once, but three times in the Westend, London! It was a musical that I loved very much, and the cinema release has brought back memories and is beautiful done. Beetlejuice is a film from childhood that for some reason still resonates with me and brings back fond memories, haha.
Finally, I’ve spent a substantial amount of time immersed in the world of Baldur’s Gate 1-3. These games offered not only a thrilling adventure but also nostalgic feeling from when I first played the first and second games in the 1990s. The third game by Larian Studios is just amazing! The characters and narratives are unbelievably engaging – Still haven’t completed the game itself, but I’ll post a review in the future
From a global perspective, 2024 saw huge progress made with various Large Language Models (LLMs). In particular, I adopted the use of both Co-pilot and Gemini into my daily life—at work, as a student, and in my personal life.
It was also a remarkable year for space exploration with several significant milestones and breakthroughs:
- NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars: The rover made a ground-breaking discovery of an organic molecule-containing rock sample, indicating the presence of ancient microbial life on Mars. This discovery reignited the debate about the existence of extra-terrestrial life.
- SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Mission: This mission marked a historic moment in private space exploration, with billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis becoming the first civilians to complete a spacewalk.
- Moon Missions: Several new missions were launched to the Moon, including Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which unfortunately failed to reach the Moon due to a technical issue.
- Europa Clipper Mission: NASA launched the Europa Clipper mission to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, aiming to understand its potential to harbour life.
- Voyager 1 and 2: These spacecraft continued to send data from beyond the solar system, despite experiencing technical issues.
We also faced some challenges this year, as seen with the in-depth coverage of the Boeing Crew Flight Test, which marked the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner. The safety of the Starliner was questioned, and Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore had to extend their stay into 2025.
