Christmas Eve, 2010.

I think my coworkers count for this, particularly the accounts lady, Pam, that was sacked. Immediately before Xmas.

Hmm, if my work Xmas party counts, anyway.

Yes, I somehow managed this. Not to say I didn’t eat pavlova and lemon meringue pie after midnight… but…

Jamberoo. Need I say more? Unfortunately, that wraps it up. There is a lot more to do, and quite a few of these last remaining ones are looking like they won’t happen at all. I’ll need to reassess those.

In July, Allyson and I drove to Canberra and back. It was a small road trip, but we did do it. It was originally going to be a lot longer, but we decided to drive all the way south some other time. We just didn’t have enough time to do it, really.

I did this yonks ago but apparently never made it official.

Good old borax insecticide + winter.

It’ll be ready in a few more weeks!

I now know that even if I’m unemployed, I can keep my head above water.

It was truly sickening.

In fact, my sister works there now.

No hallucinations.

Phew! It’s the hard things remaining now.

• They’re in Albion Park Rail! This means I can drive there in 25 minutes. BIG DEAL, since my last job had me catching a train for 90-100 minutes, then hiking to Glebe from Central station.
• They sell tangible products! Not NLP which I find highly dubious.
• I get to be part of a team, instead of having everything IT resting on my shoulders so I feel like I’m constantly under massive amounts of pressure.
• I’m treated with respect. That’s a key thing that seemed to be lacking before.
• I’m making about the same as before, only I don’t have to spend $57 a week on a train ticket. It’s closer to $25 a week in petrol. Oh and I get more perks because I’m an employee instead of a contractor… and they’re already deducting tax, so I won’t have a nasty surprise at the end of this financial year!

OK, so what else do I have to report? Well, what don’t I?

God knows how many goals I’ve achieved. I’ll have to do a full rundown in another post as this one will get too long.

I’ve done tons of drawing with my Wacom Cintiq (have I blogged about that yet??). It’s made it SO EASY to make cool looking drawings. I love it to bits. Look in the sidebar on the right to see a few links to images I’ve created with it.

A couple of days ago I registered the domain www.atherandearth.com. This is where my comic will live. I am still working on it, but I’m confident I’ll be able to start getting things done with it once NaNoWriMo this year is over.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I will be participating again in one month’s time. It will be AWESOME. I already have a fully developed plot!

Site Flight Web Design is over. I just never could get the hang of running a business. Don’t worry though, I’m not sad about it. It’s just me, I’m not cut out to be self-employed. Not enough motivation for things like that. It’s a problem I’ve had since I was about 10. Started out as a distaste for homework. Now it’s a distaste for doing things for other people while I’m at home. It feels like my personal space is being crushed, I guess. I’m happy to work while at a workplace, but I just can’t take that work home with me. Hence why I couldn’t handle working from home.

So it’s been a funny old ride, this year. It started out with me as enormously cashed up, buying cameras and expensive graphics tablets, leaving my Woolworths job, moving house, working in Sydney, ending each day feeling more drained of my sanity than the day before… then, I was unemployed, enjoying all the sudden free time but feeling lazy and sluggish and kind of doing that thing that George Costanza in Seinfeld did during the “Summer of George” – spending all my time “decompressing” by sitting idly. It got to the point where my sister tried making me do things by giving me lists because she was so upset that I seemed to be doing nothing. But I found my way.

I applied for a fateful job in late August, I got an interview, and the following Wednesday I was offered the job. I was nervous on my first day, and a bit spooked by the whole ordeal in the first few hours, where I had a whole lot of tasks bounced off me, and I was left worried about what I’d got myself into. But now that I’ve settled in, I’ve learnt that these things are doable and it seems like I’m appreciated in that workplace.

Because of my unemployment coinciding with my car needing a bunch done to it, I’m still in a bit of debt, but my job will take care of that within this month, and that’ll be a big weight off my shoulders.

Thanks to working close by, I will be able to not only join the gym next to my workplace and work out every day, but also work on my comic AND do NaNoWriMo without any problems.

This is it! This is the point in my life where everything works for me!

Now, tonight I will be shaving my head for the World’s Greatest Shave. It would be awesome to get a few more donations than just me and my sister… If anyone is interested? The Leukaemia Foundation needs our support! Click here to donate

BTW in doing this I’ll be able to tick another item off my list: radically changing my hairstyle!

So be a sport and support, so I can be brave and shave!

I’ll be blogging about this a little later on. It deserves its own post.

Allyson’s friend Natasha (whose face you might have seen at Woolworths, as the face of Unit Pricing – or maybe you saw her as a cheerleader for the St George Dragons) was the first non-family guest to our new abode, and she complimented us. There’s not really a story in it though, unfortunately.

I took Mum and Dad to Murphy’s Bar and Grill in Figtree for dinner a couple of weeks ago. It has delicious food, but it’s EXPENSIVE. Like, cheapest meal being $23 expensive. Cheapest dessert was $9.50, cheapest starter was two slices of garlic bread for $3.50. Not worth it. Don’t bother going there. Go to Hog’s Breath Cafe instead. They’re like $8 less per meal and they have basically the same food. In other news…. I bought something today maybe I shouldn’t have. *cough*wacomcintiq*cough*

So I decided to get a new one. Because I have to keep the same number – it’s on my business cards – I figured I had better get one through Primus again, so I could keep the same SIM card but not have to pay huge sums to get the phone.

Looking at the sparse range of handsets they had to offer, I had little choice in the matter, so I picked one of the few smartphones available, a Nokia E71. I am currently using that phone’s miniature QWERTY keyboard to type this blog post, and I’ve made surprisingly few typos.

Unfortunately, Google phones don’t really exist in Australia at this stage. If I want one I’ll need to wait a while.

• Run home from the gym
• Go in the Contours 6 week challenge

Because I am forced to close my membership with Contours, I can’t do them anymore, which is sad – but it does open up two places for different goals, which is rather exciting! So, I’ve been thinking about it and decided to change them to these:

• Get a DSLR Camera
• Settle into a smooth weekly routine

The second one is so whitebread, isn’t it? But, I rather miss the days as a kid where I didn’t have to think too hard about what I was going to do at any given time, because it was normally already decided. Of course it will never be THAT simple again, but I want to run my life as efficiently as I can, so I don’t have to think hard about the things I know I have to do. I know that when I do think hard…. I tend to procrastinate. As much as I HATE procrastination, it’s my default state…. to do nothing. To have fun over taking care of necessary evils. It’s only rewarding in the short term and I really need to break the habit! I think that a good routine should allow me to do that.

As for the camera- well, I do not currently own a camera. I use my sister’s point-and-shoot if I have to have one, but I want my own… and I thought, I really want to take GOOD photos for once. I can take decent ones with a P&S, but I really would like to get to know a manual focus. I much prefer the depth effect of a more professional photo than the flat image you get with a P&S camera. Hence, I’ve decided to buy a beginner’s DSLR. For those that don’t know, it’s the kind of camera professionals use (though the one I get will be on the cheaper end – I can’t spend thousands thanks!!), with removable lenses and all kinds of manual settings. I don’t know much about them yet, but I figure I will learn as I go. I am definitely interested in learning. Photography is something that will partner very well with my CG graphics. I can even write it off as a business expense.

You know what that means? I can check several things off my list!

However, I have been forced to leave Contours gym, meaning there are a couple of goals I will need to change, as they are no longer viable. I’ll blog more about that a little later.

Sadly, I’m using mobile broadband to post this, as we are waiting for our phone and internet to be connected. It’s going to be hard. This stick is S L O W as all hell much of the time. Still, at least I had the foresight to buy the prepaid stick a few weeks ago.

Anyway, see you later. I’m off to organise my bedroom.

Well, I had but four remaining shifts to get this – yesterday I managed it. I don’t know how, but it probably had something to do with:

1. I was sent on my break early enough that I wasn’t yet tired and pissed off
2. For my last two and half hours I was cleaning, refilling bags and stocking the drinks fridges… i.e. not using a checkout.

Phew, I was beginning to think I would have to rewrite that goal.

Today I put in my resignation at Woolworths, thanks to working full time with QC Seminars (for now at least), and made pancakes to celebrate.

On Australia Day I had a picnic on the grass with Allyson.
When I made this list, I quite playing bejeweled right away. Now that it’s been almost a month since then, I think I can safely tick it off.