2012 is over and the new year's finally here, so happy new year to each and every single one of you.

The past year had its ups and downs. It wasn't the best year but neither was it a bad year; good things have happened that I am very grateful for. I may not have accomplished all that I wanted to in 2012, I may have had a lot of awful days, but I am still more than grateful for all the little good things that happened.

I am grateful for the time I've spent with my friends, who are all fantastic people. You guys know who you are, all of you are amazing and I hope we get to spend many more years together. Even despite my presence being rather sporadic, I am more than thankful and happy to have you as my friends, to have your support and all those times we've spent together - both good and bad, happy and sad. So to each and every one of you, thank you for being such great friends and individuals alike!

The above holds true for all the new people I've met and formed friendships with over the previous year. I hope that we can spend many more years getting to know each other better and having many more adventures in the future!

Art related matters; I have definitely improved a lot in the last months of 2012. Some of you may have known that during the last half of 2011 and the first half of 2012 my creativity, motivation and passion have taken a sharp nosedive into the ocean. I have spent a good half of the year struggling with creative burn-out, a story that I will not dwell upon because it's all gone and in the past where it should be, but that's not to say that I will ignore it entirely. What I have learnt from that critical period, I will harness in order to avoid falling into the same dreary situation again. In retrospect, I owe someone greatly for helping me out of that burn-out and rekindling my creative passion. You know who you are, if you're reading this. I certainly couldn't have done it without you. <3

I have some pretty big plans for the new year. Plans and goals that will require hell of a lot of effort on my part to accomplish. I've spent the past six years of my life falling in and out of the same vicious cycle that has resulted in going back to square one, every time. That is, a situation I have never at all been happy with. A situation I know that if it progresses any longer, I will remain unhappy for the rest of my life. It's horrifying to think about and as such this year I am breaking that cycle. For too long, I have gone by what my family has been telling me to do. Nothing good ever came out of that.

This year, I'm going to work very hard to save up all I can to move out of the Middle East and attend a good college. My last college did not give me the education I needed in addition to fucking me out of a bachelors degree and I know for certain that I deserve better than that. God knows how long it's going to take for me to accomplish that, but I am definitely going to do everything I can to get to that point.

I've already taken the first steps toward that, too.

Currently, I am waiting to hear back from a local company to set up an interview for a character designer/background artist position. I've been quite nervous about this for a while now, but I really do hope I get the job - provided the pay's good enough and all that!

That's not to say that I'm going to stop taking commissions either - they have been rather slow but as soon as I'm done with the two that are currently on my plate, I'm going to open up for a couple more slots so for those who are interested, keep an eye out on that!

Major goal aside, I have a number of little goals I strive to accomplish this year. I will not go into a lot of detail regarding those, but some of the important ones include improving myself personally and professionally, as a person and as an artist as well as pushing myself to learn and tackle new things and build up new hobbies like I used to love doing so many years ago. :)

So with that, here's to a new, better year. Here's to the start of many new experiences and adventures to come. <3

-Stereo