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triskellianTemporarily abandoning my intentions to avoid just talking about what I'm doing in my life, it seems a reasonable opportunity to write up the year and hasten getting the into the next one with hopes that it will be better.
I'm writing this partly because the last few weeks have been getting me down. My recollection of this year is that it was hard and depressing. Judged on the beginning and end, it was, and those are the parts that stick in my mind. So I'm writing the good stuff here as well, to remind me. And to bring back the summer in my mind. And to remember that, comparing summers, this year was wonderful, and last year was beyond awful.
On the second working day of the year, I lost my job. It was a job I liked, with people I respected, and whose company I enjoyed. With hindsight, I'm glad. My boss was subsequently made redundant too, and all of the rest of the team left. If you look at their web site, you'll see that the last updates are the ones I did a year ago. The last I heard, the entire marketing team had vanished without replacement.
I spent three months trying to get a job, with no success. Some interviews, some for jobs I wanted, and others for jobs I didn't. I think it's harder to get a job when you don't have one, because it's depressing and you get desparate and paranoid, which is not conducive to doing well at interviews. An old colleague contacted me and offered me hiw job, which I took, freelance, temporarily. I hated it. It was both boring and difficult, which is rather an achievement, and something I would previously have said was impossible. Slightly disproving my earlier comment about the ease of getting a job when unemployed, having a soul-destroying temporary job makes it even harder. I was turned down for a job I wanted, and decided to throw myself on fate, and handed in my notice for the horrid freelance job the next day, having decided that typing for 5 pounds an hour was better. The next day, I was offered a job. One I really wanted, and now have.
I don't remember anything else from the whole first half of the year. All I thought about was jobs, evidently.
The summer was better. I had a job, which was rapidly showing itself to be lots of fun. There were loads of fun weekends away, most notably the Leeds festival. I was a festival virgin, and at a party which grew unexpectedly out of an afternoon gathering, in a haze of heat and intoxication, a pile of people on a sofa decided to all go to Reading. Most of us actually did. Leeds, anyway. It rained. There was a horrible steward. We got muddy. It took three hours to drive the last mile into the site. It was still fantastic. It was a great group of people. Loads of bands I liked, and others I have subsequently come to like, played. We got really drunk, and ate rubbish food, and sat round campfires. I can't wait to go again next year.
We watched Twin Peaks, which I didn't see the first time around. The first series is amazingly good. But I can't take people called <whisper it> Bob seriously any more. Probably some of my friends can't take me seriously after seeing me react to him.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
onebyone claims I hid behind the sofa at one point. I'm sure I was just hiding behind my boyfriend's legs.
kauket left the country. I miss her loads.
I had a great birthday. Lots of my favourite people came and helped me celebrate it. Most of them dressed up. The different groups mingled and all talked about how nice each other were. Every present I received was a good one. The overnight guests did all the clearing up the next day :-)
My last grandparent died. I saw my Dad crying. I forgot to take tissues to the funeral, and sniffed loudly through the service. It feels as if we've just lost my Grandad as well, although he died 11 years ago, because his things are with hers for us to go through. I have a small pile of photos of them, from the beginning of their life together, through my Dad's childhood, and mine and my brother's, and I wish I'd been better able to appreciate them when I had them both. I miss them. And it's still immediate enough that writing this has made me cry.
I'm writing this partly because the last few weeks have been getting me down. My recollection of this year is that it was hard and depressing. Judged on the beginning and end, it was, and those are the parts that stick in my mind. So I'm writing the good stuff here as well, to remind me. And to bring back the summer in my mind. And to remember that, comparing summers, this year was wonderful, and last year was beyond awful.
What I did this year
On the second working day of the year, I lost my job. It was a job I liked, with people I respected, and whose company I enjoyed. With hindsight, I'm glad. My boss was subsequently made redundant too, and all of the rest of the team left. If you look at their web site, you'll see that the last updates are the ones I did a year ago. The last I heard, the entire marketing team had vanished without replacement.
I spent three months trying to get a job, with no success. Some interviews, some for jobs I wanted, and others for jobs I didn't. I think it's harder to get a job when you don't have one, because it's depressing and you get desparate and paranoid, which is not conducive to doing well at interviews. An old colleague contacted me and offered me hiw job, which I took, freelance, temporarily. I hated it. It was both boring and difficult, which is rather an achievement, and something I would previously have said was impossible. Slightly disproving my earlier comment about the ease of getting a job when unemployed, having a soul-destroying temporary job makes it even harder. I was turned down for a job I wanted, and decided to throw myself on fate, and handed in my notice for the horrid freelance job the next day, having decided that typing for 5 pounds an hour was better. The next day, I was offered a job. One I really wanted, and now have.
I don't remember anything else from the whole first half of the year. All I thought about was jobs, evidently.
The summer was better. I had a job, which was rapidly showing itself to be lots of fun. There were loads of fun weekends away, most notably the Leeds festival. I was a festival virgin, and at a party which grew unexpectedly out of an afternoon gathering, in a haze of heat and intoxication, a pile of people on a sofa decided to all go to Reading. Most of us actually did. Leeds, anyway. It rained. There was a horrible steward. We got muddy. It took three hours to drive the last mile into the site. It was still fantastic. It was a great group of people. Loads of bands I liked, and others I have subsequently come to like, played. We got really drunk, and ate rubbish food, and sat round campfires. I can't wait to go again next year.
We watched Twin Peaks, which I didn't see the first time around. The first series is amazingly good. But I can't take people called <whisper it> Bob seriously any more. Probably some of my friends can't take me seriously after seeing me react to him.
onebyone claims I hid behind the sofa at one point. I'm sure I was just hiding behind my boyfriend's legs.kauket left the country. I miss her loads. I had a great birthday. Lots of my favourite people came and helped me celebrate it. Most of them dressed up. The different groups mingled and all talked about how nice each other were. Every present I received was a good one. The overnight guests did all the clearing up the next day :-)
My last grandparent died. I saw my Dad crying. I forgot to take tissues to the funeral, and sniffed loudly through the service. It feels as if we've just lost my Grandad as well, although he died 11 years ago, because his things are with hers for us to go through. I have a small pile of photos of them, from the beginning of their life together, through my Dad's childhood, and mine and my brother's, and I wish I'd been better able to appreciate them when I had them both. I miss them. And it's still immediate enough that writing this has made me cry.
