End Of Year …

Dec 28, 2004 by Lyanna

As always, it is time for the end-of-year post, and looking back and reading my log, I actually was kind of taken aback by how many times I have been sick or frustrated. This actually wasn’t a very good year. It seemed to consist of waiting for things that just didn’t happen. I hope that this year has been a preparation for next year, where things actually will start to happen ~chuckles~

January
In spite of it being the first month of the year, and generally being the month where you feel you start with a clean slate, January wasn’t all that good. Most of it evolved around people being sick or dying. A collegue was diagnosed with incurable cancer, my aunt died of a cardiac arrest, another collegue’s young child died and a friend of the family was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Furthermore, I had trouble sleeping and missed The Man very badly …

February
During this month, I most of the time escaped “the real world” through Dragonmount. I became very much involved, created custom made phpBB templates for the Community side, booked the tickets to Atlanta and Dragon Con (!) and also scheduled a flight to London for the GA meeting. I wasn’t happy with how work was going, and generally I was longing for summer to come around.
This was also the month where I started seriously looking around for a Webdesign studies, but everything I found was either not indepth enough, or fulltime. Yet, the resolve in me to go back to school grew.

March
Oops. March really wasn’t very good. Especially not the first half. I was frustrated with everything I wanted but couldn’t have, frustrated with pple around me whose lives seemed to be so much better organized. Frustrated with myself, the world, my job, the inability to live together with The Man. I seemed to be on a “two-weeks-sick-two-weeks-fine” cycle with constant colds, flu’s, inflammated eyes and whatnot.
Then, in the third week of March, I found this parttimes studies Communication and Multi Media Design in Rotterdam. It had everything I wanted and more … I drooled over the curriculum, and my spirits lifted tremendously. Of course The Man heard that he would be staying in Eindhoven for at least another six months, which had me fuming and ranting, cause our plans were postponed again. Also, another aunt of mine died. It seemed to become the year of deaths in the family. And of course, my co-worker died and left a gaping hole.

April
At the beginning of April I scared the hell out of everyone by announcing we were pregnant: yeah, Lara appeared to be pregnant with three kittens
April seemed to consist of good weather, lifting spirits and visits to friends. L. and Jo-Jo bought their house and started to redecorate, we went out in Eindhoven with Betty and Sven, and found out that RockWerchter was sold out. Bummer.
Late that month, Sam, Tom and Joris were born after quite some hassle. Lara had a cesarian but the kittens were doing fine and I watched in wonder.

May
May seemed very laid back. The Man went up for a jobinterview at a bank in Zeist and was ecstatic about it. We had the Special Beer Gathering at Lannie’s which was hilarious: I remember drinking bananabeer which tasted like an alcohol induced banana milkshake. We made an appointment with The Man’s bank to talk about mortgages: we’d decided not to wait any longer but see what we could get so we could go looking for a house in the vicinity of Zeist (regardless of whether The Man would get the job or not). But then the not so good tidings came in.
The Man didn’t get the job in Zeist. And Annemarie and Sander came over one night to tell us her mother had been diagnosed with brain cancer. The friend of the family who’d been diagnosed with brain cancer earlier this year died the next day. Somehow, life had found a way to bite me in the ass again.

June
I’m getting used to spending the evenings alone during the week and I hate it. The Man and I have the appointment with his bank, and while we reckoned with everything we forgot one thing: my own house. It proves to be the proverbial ball and chain cause it seems I will never be able to finance the gap between what I payed for it and it’s actual worth. Back to the drawing board it seems.
On the other hand, I get the offer to create the site for the Anton Pieck Foundation here in Holland. It seems my webcareer is getting off the ground, if only a little!

July
In this month I heard that I had been accepted into the studies of my choice. I knew it was going to be difficult to combine it with work and social life, but I was very very excited at the same time. I felt as if I had taken the first steps of a path that would lead me to where I really wanted to go.
Anton Pieck is taking up more and more of my time, and while I warned them that I only have until the end of August, they seem to be not listening. They are difficult pple to work with, but still I love the fact that I am really doing this.
The London meeting turns out to be a blast, and Lannie and I have much fun seeing all the girls. Downside to this month is that Annemarie’s mother dies … much faster than expected.

August
Right after London, The Man and I leave for Greece to join my parents who will be celebrating their 35th anniversary there. Damn, Greece was hothothot, and fun too. The Man and my mom sometimes really don’t get along, so there is some tension there, but overall we had a good time.
The Man gets hired as an Incident Manager in Eindhoven and while that is exactly what he wanted and thusly makes me happy, it again extends the period he will be working in Eindhoven. I want to kick the walls. Reluctantly I agree to have a real estate agency look at our house to do an estimate of its worth. I don’t think it will be worth more than 150 thousand and that is too little. But, in the end they estimate it at 160K and that is much better news! We decide to put a for sale sign in the window, and the wait begins.
Trisha stays with me for a couple of days, and I get asked to come in and do a job interview for the function of webmaster/webdesigner at a company in The Hague. Things seem to be on the rise and I am happy. Lowlands comes and goes, and the trip to Atlanta is coming closer. Right before I leave for the States I hear that I didn’t get the job. But the excitement over going to Atlanta takes that worry off my back actually.

September
Several things happen at once and they are all good. The trip to Atlanta is an utter blast, and completely takes my mind off things going on at home. I feel as if I have been planted in another world, and even though five days of partying and then flying back leave me utterly exhausted and with a hell of a jetlag, I start out this month on a very happy note. Add to that the fact that the studies has begun and it is everything I hoped it to be makes Lya a happy bunny.
It proves to be difficult to fit everything in one week. Upon calculating, I find I am making 70-hour weeks if I am not careful. Yet, it gives me something worthwhile to do and makes sure I don’t fret as much as I did the entire year.

October
October mostly consists of me getting used to my new week schedule I think. I take a stab at PHP and love it. The roof seriously starts to leak and The Man gets up on the roof and fixes it (or so we think). I divide my week between school, work and weekend. The long hours I am making make me sleep like a log and my dreams are very vivid, obviously a reaction to my busy days.
I toy with the idea to do NaNoWriMo again and get very angry when The Man says he thinks I am nuts. After thinking it over however, I must admit he is right. With this tempo, I cannot afford to put so much time into NaNo. I must let it lie this year, much to my chagrin.
I get into a heated debate over something on Dragonmount, I think about being involved in DM 7.0 (but in the end decide not to on thesame grounds as me opting out of NaNo) and last but not least, I turn 30 that month! Oh yeah, and the roof still leaks ~sigh~

November
Theo van Gogh is murdered and Holland is plunged into a hatecampaign against anything muslim. It seems to be spiralling out of control and the first two weeks I am actually afraid of riots. Bush is re-elected and I am appalled. All through the month we have viewings of the house, and we actually get a bid on the house. It is way too low though, an unfortunately the negotiations don’t work out. Too bad.
School is driving me insane since we need to do a group project but only two projectmembers (one of which is me) is actually doing something. Annoying!

December
Very quiet month I guess. Lots of schoolwork, exciting new things such as learning how to develop your own film, and not much hassle. Viewings of the house all month round, but still no new bid. Bummer, but eh, it’s not been three months on the market yet.
Christmas has come and gone and was very very nice and cozy, and now’s the wait for the next year. I hope next year will be more about planning things and actually having them work out instead of hoping for things that somehow just do not seem to happen…