First of all, thanks to everyone who wished me luck with the new job which started today! My first day went really well. Everyone was really friendly and helpful, and they'd got all sorts of stuff prepared for me which I wasn't expecting. And I managed to get started on analysing some Marketing data for them which has been really useful for getting to grips with the kinds of customers we mostly deal with. I'm amazed by how much I remember from my old Quantitative Methods sessions at uni (well not from the lectures, they were less than useless, but the textbook was great!).
Even though it's only a fixed term contract, I'm feeling really positive and excited about this job. From the sounds of things there's going to be a lot of variety in what I do in terms of the Marketing for the book business and I get quite a lot of responsibility for individual projects as well which will be really helpful for learning lots about the industry. Plus I get to use my language skills; one of the first things they asked me to do was translate a couple of sentences they needed for some packaging, which wasn't hard and only took a couple of minutes, but I'm sad and really love translating.
They've also asked me if I want to be involved in some other multilingual tasks in the future (I'm not really sure how much I'm allowed to say, so best be cautious), which is quite exciting and gives me the opportunity to practice my German as well.
Don't mean to gush, but I'm really, really happy I got this opportunity. I've even enjoyed spending time this evening learning about XML for the job - I never would have thought in a million years I'd enjoy learning a computer language, but life's a funny thing!
To celebrate the new start, I decided to crack open a special bar of chocolate I've been saving since Christmas.
Because the last post ended up being pretty long I thought I'd start a new post with stuff for this year! Unfortunately I haven't actually done any blogging since my post on the 3rd so my original list of stuff to look forward is already partly out of date... oh well. Here's the new and updated list anyway.
Things to look forward to for 2012
1. Starting my new job at the end the month in publishing - so excited!
2. Celebrating my friend Cara's 29th birthday at some point in the year (it was going to be on the 29th Jan but we've had to postpone as she's in the middle of relocating)
3. Going to some energetic, sing-along gigs: Reel Big Fish in Liverpool on 3rd Feb, Bon Jovi Experience (the only Bon Jovi tribute band to have played with JBJ) in Stafford on 17th Feb, and Alkaline Trio (woohoo!) on May 5th at the Manchester Academy
4. Jemma and Steve's wedding in April - we got the bridesmaid dresses last weekend (for a bargain as well) and the official invite arrived yesterday. It's coming up so fast...
5. The 2012 Olympics - just watching on the TV, but I do really like the athletics and I also enjoy the Gymnastics, despite sometimes being creeped out by some of things people can do with their bodies
Things I *want* to do in 2012
1. Read more great books (and finishing some ones I got a long time ago).
Current reading list: Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (now finished) Sense of an Ending (on second reading now - I highly recommend it!!), Persuasion, All Quiet on the Western Front, and more Paolo Coelho books (loved The Alchemist). Any suggestions, please leave a comment!I may even get round to joining the local book club :)
2. Clearing my overdraft and starting to pay off my student loan (very slowly!)
3. Saving up for another motorbike holiday (maybe Germany this time?)
www.blessthisstuff.com
4. More cooking, and using my new kitchen toys like my hand blender, and my super cool new garlic rocker by Joseph Joseph (how cool is that??)
No idea what the original source for this is, sorry!
5. Getting my first tattoo. This is my current inspiration in terms of the colour blending and soft watercolour style, but I don't think I want something quite this big. I'll probably just go for one butterfly to start with. I'm currently thinking of something in peacock blues and greens.
That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll add to the lists at some point in the year!
Hope you're all having a great start to the New Year!
So, this is a couple of days late but I only really thought about doing this on New Year's Eve during a Quiz based on memorable events from the past year (which none of us were particularly good at actually).
Anyway, in loose chronological order here are some of the more memorable events in my life from the past 12 months.
1. We bought a Wii Fit just after Christmas 2010 and I got a bit addicted and managed to get quite fit and supple, but got out of the habit half way through the year and have only recently got back into it. I definitely need to use it more this next year!!
2. Tom and I went to see The Hold Steady in concert in Manchester the day before Valentine's Day. It was one of the most fun gigs I've been to in a very long time.
3. We also saw Funeral For a Friend in Aberystwyth on the first night of their tour in March. Not many people will know this, but this particular band holds a special place in my heart as it was when Tom and I first went to see them together as friends a few years ago (also in Aberystwyth as it happens) that I started to realise that maybe we really were supposed to be more than just friends...
3. Speaking of friends, my friend Victoria and her husband James had their first child, a gorgeous little girl Ffion Emma, in March!
4. Still on the theme of relationships, Tom and I decided to move into our own place and after a long search we eventually moved into our awesome house in May - happy days! Thanks so much to all our friends and family who lent us furniture and helped carry heavy and/or bulky things in and out of vans and up twisty stairs all day!
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
5. It was the year of weddings and engagements as one of my oldest friends from primary school got married in July, followed by the wedding of one of my close friends from work in August, and then finally an old friend from the Netherlands got married at the end of August. Our friends Jemma and Steve also got engaged as did Tom's sister and her fiance Nick!
6. (Related to no. 5) Tom got asked to be a groomsman and I got asked to be a bridesmaid for Jemma and Steve's wedding next April. I'm happy that I got to spend some quality girl time with Jemma and Maid of Honour Cassy (including watching the Wedding Singer for the first time!) and we went to The Wedding Show at the NEC and successfully found the perfect wedding dress for Jem.
7. Going back in time slightly, I took Tom to see Bon Jovi in concert in Manchester for his birthday in June. We were right in the Gold Circle which meant we had a great view of the band and Jon Bon Jovi himself walked right past us during one of the songs. It might have rained all afternoon, but it was a great concert nonetheless! Here's a link to some pics I took. (Yes, it was before Tom got his hair cut...)
8. I nourished my latent creativity by making wall hangings from my postcard collection and I also made a cool book as part of Tom's Christmas present. I'm taking him to see Alkaline Trio next May but won't get the tickets until next year but wanted to give him something related to it... The words are the lyrics for the song 'Private Eye' which I cut from paper clipppings (seemed appropriate).
One of my proudest achievements :)
9. It was a great year for cooking as well, although there have been a few narrowly avoided disasters including the recent 'Chocolate Pudding Incident' in which I couldn't figure out why my cake mixture tasted so awful... until I realised I'd forgotten to add the bowl of sugar that was patiently waiting on the sideboard... Doh! I've been given so many awesome recipe books this year and also discovered loads of cool and interesting recipes through Stumble Upon and Pinterest. Some of the recipes I've written up on here, but there are loads more I've tried and not had time to write up but I'll try and get round to as many as I can this next year.
10. Speaking of which, another important event was starting this blog - yippee! It's been great learning how to use all the features on here and I've really enjoyed the opportunity to get back into writing more regularly. I hope if you've read any of it that it's not been too boring...
Inside Bath Abbey clock tower
11.To counteract all the time spent indoors cooking, writing, and looking up recipes on BBC Food, we did however visit some brilliant places this year. We had a great weekend visiting my uni friends in Brighton, and spent our holiday in Bath Spa where we saw some truly amazing things like the Roman Baths and beautiful country parks, and climbed up inside the Abbey Clock Tower. We also went to my friend's wedding in Holland which was really good fun, and we explored places closer to home like Barmouth, Llandudno, Llangollen, Pontcysyllte, and Llandegla Forest for some great walks, day trips and weekends away.
12. Upon my return from Holland though I got labyrinthitis and ended up being off work for two weeks, which was the longest period of sick leave I've ever had to take in my life so it was very weird. I couldn't read or watch TV, and I struggled to cook or even get around the house and do basic tasks so it was a really frustrating time in my life, having to rely on other peple to help me with almost everything. I still every now and then feel a bit dizzy, but for the most part it's gone so I'm really pleased it's over!!
13. As I started to recover from my labyrinthitis I got seriously addicted to the TV series Lost, having previously only ever watched a spoof version of it on Youtube by Tom's sister and her friends (see youtube video below). Despite the spoilers, I did still sob my heart out everytime someone died, especially like during the finale.
14. Back in the real world, sadly a few people passed away including my nieces' grandmother Sandy, and a friend of my mother's also lost her husband. My lovely cousin Jenny was also diagnosed with breast cancer this summer. However, as I mentioned in a previous post she seems to be going strong and has recently finished her chemotherapy, so we're all hoping the next few stages of her recovery go smoothly and are sending our love and messages to her via Caring Bridge.
www.cricbeat.com
15. We were also saddened by the tragic death of MotoGP rider Marco Simoncelli this year. I've really enjoyed watching the racing on iPlayer with Tom this year so it was a real shock to hear about Marco's awful crash. He was very young and had already achieved so much in such a short amount of time. I'm reminded of a phrase often used to describe the short-lived career of 19th Century French poet Artur Rimbaud, "meteoric".
16. Speaking of which, we also had a brilliant couple of nights star-gazing and watching the meteor showers with some friends and I also went on a night ride up to the Horseshoe Pass with Tom to see if we could see any more. That is one of the best things about living in less built-up areas, the stars are so much more visible than in urban places.
17. I had my uni friends over to stay and we went on our first ever Valley Run (a pub crawl on minibuses around village pubs in the local area). It was just fantastic seeing my friends again, and it was well timed as I'd been going through a tough time at work so it was something fun to look forward to. It unfortunately coincided with our shower choosing to leak everywhere and drip water through the living room ceiling - aghh!
18. My younger brother Patrick became Programme Director for and helped launch a Not-For-Profit enterprise Spectrum Designs Foundation which provides employment opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities such as Autism. I even appeared in the September issue of their Newsletter in one of their shirts. Here's a promotional video below to explain more about what they do and why!
19. My friend Tammy kindly lent Tom and me a tree and decorations for our first Christmas in our house!
20. I met up with old buddies from France for a weekend in Manchester before Christmas for a rowdy "Mulled Wine and Mariah Carey" party (Mariah wasn't actually there in person, but there was lots of singing along and dancing to classic Christmas tunes).
21. In some very, very exciting news, I also accepted a job offer for a position in a publishing company not far from where we live. People who know me will know how much I LOVE books, so this is a very exciting move for me, and I can't wait to start this new challenge at the end of the month. :D
22. Finally I actually got to see all my family on Christmas Day. Last year my brother Patrick couldn't make it back from the States because of the bad weather so it was amazing to have all the family together in one place over the Christmas period.
So there you have it. Some good bits, some not so good bits, but overall, I think I'm starting to move in the right direction. That's one of the things that's good about keeping a diary or writing a blog, is that you can look back at where you were at a while ago and check where you've got to. That's not to say I'm one for resolutions or that I've got a big strategic plan for myself, but I've certainly got some plans for next year and with a bit of work (and with the help of this blog to keep me on track) I hope I'll achieve them.
With that in mind I hope you've all had a wonderful Holiday and wish you all the very best for 2012!
Cheers!
x
Hi everyone! Hope you're all marvelous today :)
And by everyone I think I'm just referring to the four of my lovely friends who've chosen to 'follow' this blog - thanks guys! I'm not sure I really like this whole thing about 'following' people online if I'm honest though. Let's re-phrase, I like that people are even the slightest bit interested in my wafflings, it's just the word I don't like. Just because I'm interested in what someone's got going on in their life, or in their thoughts on something doesn't mean I'm a donkey with a carrot in front of my nose, or a modern disciple...hmm, I wonder what would have happened if Twitter was around in the times of Jesus. Think he'd have had more than 12 'followers', but then they wouldn't have been quite as committed 'followers' as the original dozen methinks.
I actually have a fear of deep water so perhaps that's why I don't 'dive'
I would have been a useless disciple for sure. I'm definitely the kind of person who flits from one interesting thing to the next without really ever acquiring any profound level of understanding. I recently read an article in Psychologies magazine which pretty much categorized me as a 'scanner' rather than a 'diver' (Doctors are divers for example), which is apparently why I find work frustrating as I get bored pretty much as soon as I've grasped the fundamentals of something, and am always looking for something different and more interesting to move on to. It's also why I find the job search process so hard as I don't like the idea of committing myself to something too specific that will prevent me from doing something different a few years down the line. Over the past 10 years I've wanted to be a translator, a civil servant, a Human Resources officer, a singer in a band, a teacher, a book shop owner or librarian, a baker, a venue manager, a Mythbuster, and even a psychologist or counsellor. Go figure.
I've also wanted a tattoo for a good few years now, and have actually (amazingly) settled on a design I like, but have never gone through with it because I can't choose a) where I want it and b) whether I want it in black & white or colour and c) if colour, which colours?? It's a butterfly so the options are pretty much endless, but also if I change my mind (which is a distinct possibility with me) then I might end up hating it. So it's a stalemate for me and the tattoo. *sad face*
But I'm also frustratingly indecisive about small things - I must drive poor Tom mad - for example this blog. If this is the first time you've tuned in so to speak, you won't have noticed anything odd, but in fact I've changed blog design 3 or 4 or even 5 times already. Part of it is probably just exploring all the different templates and backgrounds of the world of blogging which is all a bit new to me anyway, but part of it is that, in this world where customization slides its slippery self ("like an eel..." *Might Boosh reference*) into almost every aspect of our lives, I'm made to feel like this blog, this webpage has to be an absolute reflection of what makes me ME. Which is ridiculous. As I mentioned earlier, and as I state in my profile, I like a whole range of things, and I write about anything from translations, to recipes, to concerts, to art and museums, to musings on why I'm so indecisive, to travel, to ranting about this or that, to tattoos, to weddings, and so on and so forth. It's quite clear I lack focus as it is (unlike Andy's Completion Project which is a brilliant idea if I may say so), so how on earth can one blog design appropriately encompass and reflect all those individual interests and aspects of what makes me me??
Colour = good
So anyway, at the moment I've settled for something a bit simpler than what I did have, and which will hopefully be a bit clearer to read. I like this particular design template mostly because of the name, Awesome Inc - words are powerful guys - but also because it's bright and colourful (I spent a lot of my teenage years dressed in black so have somewhat recently discovered colour again), because it looks kind of like paint which is arty, but it also kind of looks a bit messy which is like me, especially when I've been cooking. So for now it's going to stay this way, but I can't promise I won't get bored and change it again. Sorry, but some things will never change... wait, is that irony...?
c. 1950. www.scienceandsociety.co.uk
So anyway... to change topic from the seemingly self-centred to the selfless, the other thing I find it difficult to make decisions about is Christmas, specifically, choosing presents for my family. If you thought I was crap at making decisions about relatively unimportant things, you should see me at Christmas. Shopping for my large family has always been a bit of a stress for me. Not in the 'this is such a hassle' sense you understand, it's just I put pressure on myself to get nice things that people actually want and I get frustrated if I can't just get on with it and make a decision. But I've come up with a solution which for the last couple of years has served me relatively well. Every year I send the siblings a Facebook message asking if there's anything they'd like in particular and then between the rest of us we can organise ourselves to either get them something really awesome (read, expensive) between all of us, or just make sure that we don't buy the same gift twice.
I know that might seem lazy on my behalf, but you have to remember that I don't live with (or very close to) any of my siblings anymore. I don't know what CDs or DVDs they already have (unless it's something I've bought for them), besides which, they, like me, probably change their minds about what they're 'into' quite frequently anyway. It's hard to keep up with people like that, me being the worst culprit. I suppose that's why I'm notoriously difficult to buy for and for the record I haven't thought of one thing I'd really like for Christmas. It's enough of a stress trying to find presents for other people let alone myself!
But hopefully this year I'm ahead of the game, and soon I'll get some ideas from the siblings (and maybe even Tom - that one I am going to need to put some serious thought into) in plenty of time to find everyone something they would like that I can also afford. I'm going to pop into town today anyway to see if I can find anything for my sister in the beautiful Vintage shop above the gallery (Timeless Vintage), and then hopefully I can get some inspiration for the others as well while I'm out and about.
Hope I've not bored you with my ramblings!
Bye for now!
x
