Happy New Year!

It is time to reflect. Life has been crazy and I need to look back and see if I am where I want to be and try to understand where I 'should' go to hopefully lead to greater contentment.

What did I do in 2009?

• I volunteered more time than I ever have before and gave more of myself than I ever have previously. I became a competent entry level paramedic through volunteering and realised that I actually am good in a crisis. Further to that, I am actually good at this. I don't have a ton of talents but I found that I can actually make injured or sick people laugh despite their state. When on duty people randomly come up and thank me. It has been an eye opener doing this work because I get what I need - people patting me on the head and a sense of pride. I passed the provincial exams and am just waiting for them to take even more money to become registered. Oddly, I feel more proud to become an EMR than I did getting my Master's degree.
• I started and finished an Emergency Medical Responder course.
• I decided to take a First Aid instructor course to solidify my own knowledge of emergency care. That was quite something from a hoop jumping perspective. I took the course at the end of July and just finished at the beginning of December. I'm not sorry I decided to do it because I have finally been successful (after having to wait months to team teach then have a month in-between team teaches) so it is something that has the potential to bring in extra money, a very welcome outcome.
  
• Work wise I have floundered. I temped up to the end of April when I got on permanently with the Federal Government as an Administrative Assistant/Information Management Specialist. I learned that I languish in a bureaucratic environment. I was told that I was overqualified and that this position was an entry point into the government and that I had opportunity to learn and have the courses be paid for. The federal government has not paid for the EMR, First Aid instructor training, and I don't think they will pay for any of the Occupational Health and Safety certificate I'm doing. It isn't what I thought it would be. Working for the Federal Government is an exercise in frustration. I really need to begin teaching again. I'll apply for a position today I've been putting off teaching for the Department of Defence.
• P is still in the UK and I've not seen him since I returned. I miss him like hell but am glad we speak on a daily basis and am infinitely glad that our connection has survived despite the time apart.
• I've lapsed in the exercise department. This sucks royally and I must get that under control in 2010, looking forward.
• My mother died just over a month ago - quite a change. There is so much to tend to when someone dies. This has consumed the last month.

What does 2010 hold?

• June as an estimated completion date for the OHS certificate. It'll be intense taking 5 courses in the Winter term and 3 in the Spring session while working full-time.
  
• Exercise. I'm so unhappy with a lumpy body and feel uncomfortable in my skin.
• Wrapping up my mum's estate.
• Starting an EMT course after the OHS is finished.
• Moving into a different job with better possibilities for advancement. I have contacted several departments asking to be deployed.
• I would like to see P again either by popping to the UK or having him pop here. Ideally I would like it to be permanent but I don't want to screw it up by forcing something that might not be right at the moment.
  
• I would like to have that personal connection to S again and just beaver on with trying to do what I can to feed into the higher good, whatever that is.

Last year was about just giving of myself in a crazy way, logging immense volunteer hours. As that crazy decade comes to a close, I want to put behind me a decade of languishing in London, the PhD that I dumped, the fiancee that dumped me, many long days and nights of anguish doing things that were not me or good for me. I want to put behind me all the crazies that have been in my life and all the people who have been phantoms in my mind - that was then. My now... my now with those I love. It feels like with her slipping away my past is now where it should be, in the past instead of peopling my mind. 2010 really is the opportunity to start afresh and try something different as well as go back to the things that fed me in the past that make me who I am positively. I bought a new fountain pen not using it until after midnight, filling it with ink (a new bottle with a colour I've never used before), and mentally making a fresh start.