A year in review

One good thing about blogs is the luxury of being able to clearly look back on the previous year. This has been a good year after a lull between 2004 and 2005.

It started with me considering my business which I had always said was an 'unsustainable' undertaking. I had come off a failed application for my dream job as a translator, and the complete failure the previous year to get a teaching job.

I was determined to let it be my year of health - yet this is one year to forget healthwise. My back has troubled me the whole year and my ankles are still not 100% and assorted maladies harried me throughout.

In January I murmured that I should get back into chess - this took me until December to do.

In February, I lost my wisdom teeth. March passed without a single blog!

April was defined by the challenge of the Oxfam Trailwalker and my failure to get to the end.

May I started considering jumping professions to Speech Language Therapy, which required some extramural study as well as practical experience with people affected by strokes. Now the extramural study didn't happen but I've happily accommodated doing some volunteer work with a stroke sufferer into my weekly schedule.

May also held the leads that resulted in my second client, and the lifeline for me. It also was the month that I leaped back into crosswords as my intellectual challenge of choice.

Early June also saw Xin's mum move out of home and back to China. I filled the vacancy and haven't looked back. Moving out of home had been something I had been saying I would be doing for so long, especially since late 2004 when I was going to move out as soon as I got my first primary teaching job. Neither ever eventuated and I was in limbo. Moving into Xin's home has been wonderful - it is such a release of the annoying burden of living apart.

This year has been the year of the book for me. Being something of a tortoise with book in hand, and occasionally going through periods of holding anti-literature attititudes, it is rather surprising to consider how much I've read. At the start of the year I ran through Guns, Germs and Steel. In mid-year, I read The Myths that Make us and The Simpsons and Philosophy. The Sutra of Weilang and The Science of Realisation followed in August. Lately I've chewed through the massive Ideas book and followed it up with A Brief History of Almost Everything. I'm already onto two other books yet to be completed.

July saw a crisis of ability when I started to doubt my competence at pretty much anything. My faculties worsening - disasters left and right. While that crisis eased - the factors remain the same. The filmfest also came to town and was enjoyed. And so were my first lessons at my second client.

August saw me returning to natural cycles: waking up early, making food, growing sprouts, planting trees and cultivating a garden. August also saw our car window smashed.

September saw a busy hosting period when it seemed like we were inviting everyone into our home.

October saw only two blogs - one in the aftermath of my birthday party and another in 'gloomy' prognostication of a work-tsunami. The work really was charging forth in October and reached a pitch in November when I was rather exhausted.

December saw my first serious over-the-board chess games in seven years and the beginnings of a new Trailwalker campaign.

Overall, it has been an important and successful year.