I thought I would wait until the Geralds had finished before I posted a review of 2008. So, now they have finished. I can review the past year.

Personally, 2008 has been quite an emotional rollercoaster. On January 2nd 2008 I flew out to be with my, then, fiance. It was a little last minute – I booked the tickets on December 31st. On February 14th, we got notice that the fiance visa (required to marry an American in America if you are not American yourself – or something like that) had been approved. However, in April, we found out it would not be granted in time for our wedding (May 30th), and anyway, since we were planning on coming back to England for a couple of years afterwards, it was needless anyway. So, back in London, I went to the American Embassy to ask for an extension to my tourist visa, and was told I couldn’t. So, I spent a large part of April in a country I didn’t want to be in, trying to find a way of getting to my destination so that I may legally marry without anyone getting suspicious. Canada proved to be the solution, and on April 21st I crossed the land border (completely legally) into the US, and was able to get married on May 30th.

Since then, I have moved back to England, and now live in Cambridgeshire attempting to get permanent work with the University.

In August, the phony libel case against Dave Walker came up, and I, rather unexpectedly got caught up in it. When I say “I”, I really mean my semi-autobiographical cartoon sheep, Gerald. Once confined to family birthday cards, and the one-off present for someone, Gerald soon became known to people I had never met. A fan page was set up on Facebook, and spikes of visitor numbers appeared on my site every time I posted a new cartoon. To see a cartoon being posted on a site other than my own is quite a nice feeling, and gives me a certain amount of motivation to keep drawing them.

In other news, one of my YouTube videos continues to be surprisingly popular, and not a little controversial. A particularly bad rendition of the Super Mario Bros. Theme that I performed at the end of a family service in my local church receives many visitors every day. It was also featured on Norwegian national radio, and subsequently a Norwegian podcast. I receive at least 2 comments a day on the video – ranging from those that think it is a terrible thing to do in a church, to those who complain that I don’t play the theme precisely as the SNES did, to those that think it is quite funny (I prefer the latter comments).

So, what will 2009 bring? I hope it will bring a permanent job. I hope it will bring a certain amount of relaxation. I hope it will bring something new. And, of course, I hope it brings something for the sheep to do.

Happy New Year. Out with the old, and in with the new.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.