wafblog v3.0

I recently moved all the photos off my compact point-and-shoot to clear it for my trip to Batemans Bay and Canberra. Looking at the photos I’d moved off, I realised I hadn’t looked at it since I got back from Fiji. It had all my photos from my time in London on it. I was there a year ago, beginning an adventure. I look back on the photos and I miss it. I miss exploring a foreign city, travelling on weekends, living with friends and just doing something new and different every day.

A year has passed and I wonder what have I achieved since I’ve been home? Not much really. I spent so much time at work during the last busy season, it stretched from July to November… relentless in its grip on me and my life. I got to December and the year had flown by. I can feel my attitude to work has changed. I am no longer excited or enthused, I dread waking up in the morning and I find periods of time during the day where I sit at my laptop… listless. Devoid of motivation and inspiration. A friend of mine left recently… and other close friends are planning their move. I have resolved that I will do the same.

In happier news, the festive season brought a very welcome three week break with it. I was able to do my usual end of year cleanout of my room. I threw out so much stuff, I filled the entire rubbish bin. I also recycled several trees worth of paper thanks to CA. It always feels very cathartic to do this and I really wonder where I accumulate all this junk from. My parents were really happy I was home for Christmas, considerinng I was away last year. I think we all enjoyed spending time and just being a family. I also got to spend time with friends and enjoy catching up with lots of mates.

So, a quick list of things I wish to achieve this year

• lose weight/get fit/exercise
• eat healthier/drink less
• save money/buy less stupid things/acquire things I will use
• read more books (including comic books)
• play my violin
• play more computer games
• take more photos. Tempted to do the 365 day challenge BUT not sure how that will work with my numerous analogue cameras…
• stop listening to indie pop/electronica/dubstep, despite how much I love them, and get back to my rock roots
• blog more (hah!)
• catch up more with friends that I haven’t seen in ages, spend less time on people who do not care for my overall well-being
• leave work on time

I suspect this list is much the same as last year’s list. The things I want to do never really changes…

And finally, a few photos from my recent photo expeditions. The Minolta Hi-Matic 9 that I found at the markets on my trip to Hobart has proven to be a wonderful find. The lense gives beautiful, clear shots with a tinge that I think only film can capture. The Diana however, is a more complex beast that I am still trying to master.

Fire hydrant (Diana camera, pinhole setting)

"The Canada" under the Harbour Bridge (Diana Camera, 75mm lense)

Owl artwork (Diana camera, 75mm lense)

No riding the crane! (Diana camera, 75mm lense)

I’ve been in a contemplative mood the last few days. This always happens when my parents go away and I don’t keep myself busy. It means I have time to sit down, reflect on where I’m at and whether I’m truly happy. If I’m completely honest – I’m not unhappy. But that doesn’t really mean that I am happy either does it? If I contemplate the trifecta (work, home, love) I’m actually in a good place. I am mostly able to manage my parents’ ridiculous ideas of being a good daughter, I have a decent job (despite my complaints below) and there is someone special in my life. So why am I not bursting with joy?

Perhaps because I’m looking back at my resolutions for the year and wondering if I’m even close to achieving them.

I definitely have not achieved work/life balance. Although, my recent decision to quit working in two divisions and just focus on one should help with this. At least for the foreseeable future, it is unlikely the work pace will slow down. I realise now though, that work has been making me very unhappy for the last few months. Running on 4-5 hours sleep every night is unhealthy and tired to sustain.I talked to a few close friends about it and most agree that this was a good decision. I hope it pays off.

I have also realised that I have an inability to say “no”. If I really look at myself, that’s probably true in all aspects of my life. I’m not really capable of saying “no” to people. I truly dislike disappointing people. The problem is that, in trying to please everyone – mostly I end up pleasing no one. And I always get in trouble then, for over-promising and under-delivering. I struggle with being an overachiever and a perfectionist. And I’m not really sure how to fix that.

I’ve also been feeling a bit lonely lately. This seems completely nonsensical – I’ve had people over almost every night, but it doesn’t distract from the big empty house. The knowing that sometimes, you really are by yourself and the battles must be fought alone.

Today did not turn out anything like I had planned. Normally I’m quite good at rolling with the punches and picking myself up if things don’t go my way. It’s a skill I picked up at work and comes in handy in most areas of my life. But today, today it just seemed to escape me. I was meant to meet up with a friend, go see a movie & grab a bite to eat. I managed to wake up early (no easy feat for me) and was happy with myself. Anyways, was all ready to go and hopped into the car to find that it wouldn’t start. I had a bit of trouble with the remote but didn’t think much of it until the car alarm started going off and what-not. In our attempts to find out the cause, I think we set the alarm off a further four times. Needless to say, the immobiliser was also activated and there no chance of me going anywhere in the car. Not long after this, my friend called to say that he’d hurt himself with some machinery and it required medical attention. These aren’t things that you can plan for, and really, no one’s to blame for these things happening. It’s just life, and sometimes life throws you ridiculous curve balls. I’m not a religious or superstitious person, but at one point, I just wanted to throw my hands up in exasperation and say “why god, why?!”. I had a brief thought that maybe I’d screwed up majorly and this was karma coming to get me.

I’ve come to realise that I spend a majority of the week looking forward to the next weekend. It’s the only time I can spend not having to ‘fit the mold’ and I can just be me. I look forward to meeting with friends, catching a movie, seeing a concert or whatever. This week has been particularly long and I guess I just wanted something to go my way. I was more upset at not meeting my friend than I thought I’d be and that threw me for a loop. Not sure if it was just the combination of a long week, not having the energy to deal or something more. Time will tell.

The day did pick up in the arvo – I went to a friend’s place to play board games. This is usually pretty fun and I enjoy learning new games. I’m actually not that good at strategising I don’t think, but sometimes I get lucky. Think I might sleep and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

I got back from Fiji last night and I’m hoping to enjoy the last few days of the break before work starts again. I’ll have to blog about Fiji separately as I’ve lost the USB cable for my camera and can’t access my photos right now, which is most annoying!

The start of a new year is always great for re-assessing your life and deciding on some changes. Why we can’t do this continuously throughout the year is beyond me, but humans are funny creatures and I am no different. Regardless, I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking over how I’d like things to be and what I’d like my life to be like. So this year, I’m making a more concerted effort to come up with some decent resolutions and work harder at achieving them. I’ve tried to come up with one resolution for each ‘area’ of my life – work, relationships (not necessarily romantic ones), personal growth and health. Hopefully this is a balanced enough approach to see me through the year. So here they are:

• achieve some semblance of work/life balance
• meet new people (in general)
• lose weight (encapsulating exercise more, eat healthier, drink less)

They seem general enough, but they address most of what was causing me unhappiness in 2009. They’re also the areas that I’ve gotten most comments on from my close friends. From these few resolutions I’ve come up with a few goals – more tangible things that I can achieve and measure against at the end of the year. And the goals are as follows:

• Read 12 books (that’s one a month – should be a breeze, but I have to factor in busy season, Europe, life)
• Join a string ensemble/quartet/music group – hopefully this will force me to practise violin more (thanks to Manda for this)
• Blog more – already trying to do this one, but hopefully I can keep it to once a week minimum
• Take up a recreational sport – either swimming, tennis or indoor rock-climbing (or a bit of all three!)

I think all this will be enough to keep me very busy this year!

And so, another year has passed – guess it’s time for some reflections?

Despite finding that the year has passed me by, it’s been very long and quite eventful. On the sum of it, 2009 was not a good year. A lot of depressing things happened, and I think I finally awoke to the fact that work has fully consumed me. I’ve been officially on holidays since the 14th Dec, but I spent that first week doing work things from home. I think it worried me that towards the end of the year, I couldn’t actually force myself to do anymore work. Like I actually dreaded going to work, sitting in front of my laptop and couldn’t summon any enthusiasm to complete my tasks. I was spent.

These few weeks off have a been a godsend. I’ve always complained bitterly that the company forces us to take leave over Christmas. Mainly because this uses up my annual leave and I spend so much of it on study already, there’s not a lot left over for actual holidays. However, having these few weeks off has made me realise the wisdom of forcing people to take time off work. I’ve been able to completely forget about work and go out, meet up with friends, go to the beach, see movies, rest and relax. I didn’t realise just how much I needed this time off.

I was going to write about my new year’s resolutions, but doesn’t look I will have time to do so before heading to Fiji. I’ll just have to it when I get back.

So, being sick for 3 days gives you a lot of time to reflect on things. Well, that’s not reeaaally true. I’d already been reflecting on some of this. I think this whole being sick *AGAIN* has just made me think about it more. Yes. I am sick again. So annoyed at myself. I know I should not have pushed my body so far when I was sick the first time and even though I was recovering, I shouldn’t have been stupid and gone out and stuff >.<

I think I’ve just reached that time of the year again, where I question what the point of life is. And I still don’t know what that point is. Sure, I can be content in my job, with my friends, family… all that. I just am not sure if I’m missing something bigger. Is there more to life than what I’m doing now? Will this feeling ever change? I suppose not, and even if I went looking for more, I doubt that I would find it. I doubt that I would find an answer to the ‘meaning’ of life. Something to make me feel more satisfied. I wonder sometimes at whether my job is rewarding – not in monetary terms, but in a ‘contributing to society’ sort of way. I suppose it does. Much of the work we do provides assurance to the investors of the companies we audit. Which is an important function for the market and whatever, but I’m not entirely sure that this actually gives *me* job satisfaction. I dunno. I’ve been questioning it a lot lately, which is strange, because mostly I’ve tended to think of a job as a means to an end, and if I wasn’t particularly happy with my job I wasn’t too worried as I’ve always considered other things to be more important. Like friends, family. Maybe I was wrong about that – and maybe I want more from my job. Perhaps I just haven’t been there long enough to see the real ‘big picture’ just yet.

I think I’ve also come to realise that my priorities have been a bit off since I started working full-time. I knew that this job would be hard, I knew that it would demand a lot of my time and I knew that I would have to put a lot of energy into it if I wanted to succeed. I just didn’t think it would be this much. And maybe I didn’t think it would take this much of me. I’m not sure that I’m happy with the way it’s eaten my life. I don’t get to see my friends or my family as much as I would like to. Half the time, I don’t even know what’s going on with my best friend… that’s not the sort of friendship that I want. I come home feeling drained and don’t want to do anything more than sit in front of my computer and zone out. I don’t have the time or energy to pursue the things that I find interesting or want to learn more about. I have no hobbies and no time for band. I’m liking less and less that this is the case because I do not want to be defined by my job. I don’t believe that you should be define by your job, I don’t believe that it should be the only thing in your life. And I suppose I’m the only one that can control that. I guess I just haven’t been. So it’s time for me to re-organise my priorities, to determine what is important to me and what I should put more time towards. It’s time to learn to say no, and it’s time to say I need to be me.