2004
This will be my last post of 2004 catch-up, and though obviously two posts can't completely sum up an entire year, these are pretty much the main things that went on in my life in 2004.
Life
By far the best and most significant thing in my life is that I'm in a relationship with Stacey who I met at the Beta, started IMing with in January, started to fall for straight away, and met for the first time in June. I've since visited her again in November-December, and the times when I'm with her are the best in my life. While it's really hard having to be apart from her for so many months of the year, it's completely worth it. She's a wonderful person and a wonderful girlfriend, and I'm very happy and grateful to be with her. :)
On the less good side, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with my life. I don't know what career I want to follow, whether I want to do a masters or not, etc. There's something frustrating at being content with what I have at the moment (living at home with the family, not paying rent, working temp work for a couple of months at a time, and spending the money I earn on traveling) all the while knowing that it's not going to be sustainable in the long term. 2004 was definitely a year full of early-twenties uncertainty, and I see that continuing.
School
I graduated university with a 2i, which I was pleased with, and which unsurprisingly has led to nothing. All the jobs I've done so far I could have done with A-levels, or even just GCSEs, and considering I made no friends at all in university (I've not kept in touch with any of the people I used to hang out with there), I'll definitely look back at it as an experience that could and should have been a hundred times better. Still, the degree might come in handy some day down the line, I hope it will. I'd hate three entire years to be wasted.
Travelling
I travelled to America on my own twice, in June to visit Stacey (bawston48) and faithx5, which was a really excellent trip, and it was so great to spend time with people in real life that I'd got to know and like so much online, and then again in November to visit Stacey, which was of course another wonderful trip that I wish didn't have to end. It was so great being able to see some of America (politics aside, it's a country I really love, and hope to move to some day), and Jandy and Stacey were both great at showing me lots of awesome places and restaurants in their cities. :) (Though this is slightly biased since I ate out in restaurants in the States where as I don't do that back home, the food in America is sooo much better than the food back home!) I've visited Massachussetts, Missouri, Maine, Rhode Island and New Hampshire (taking my list of states visited up to 6, with Florida where I went on a family holiday to in 2002), and I can't wait to visit more states and cities in future trips to America. I really wish I'd taken more pictures the times I was there!
In those two trips some of the highlights were: watching my first baseball game in Rhode Island, taking a tour of Fenway Park, watching Meet Me In St. Louis in the outside theatre in St. Louis, going to the Gateway Arch, Six Flags St. Louis, the New England Aquarium (and seeing experiencing The Polar Express in IMAX 3-D), the science centres in Boston and in St. Louis, the audio tour of Boston and the great view from the 50th floor of the Prudential tower, riding the Swan Boats in the Boston public garden, and trips to Ipswich, Salem, Portsmouth, Kennebunkport, Rockport and Cambridge. Ok, I want to be back in America, like, now!
In September my friend Stephen decided he wanted to spend his 22nd Birthday in Amsterdam, so me and a few friends travelled there with him in the morning, spend the day there, and then came home in the night. It's a really interesting city, and such a massive change in culture. There is of course an enormously seedy side to the city, and just walking along the red light district and seeing prostitutes in the windows trying to lure people in, and sex shops all over the place, live sex shows, the sex museum (which really was just a massive porn collection, with no museum-ish like stuff about the history of sexual practices or anything. Hmph. Or so I've heard.) etc. But it's actually a really beautiful city, the architecture is really interesting, the canals were pretty, and the layout of the streets was neat (though made it sooo easy to get lost, I'd never have survived there on my own!) I love seeing new cities and experiencing different cultures. For a one-day trip where we didn't even stay a night, I think it was a really good experience.
Work
After graduating uni, traveling to the States, and coming back, I waited a couple of months and started to do some of the conveyor belt work at a factory that I'd done before, but this time I utterly despised it. There was a new boss there that I hated, and the days dragged a hundred times more than they used to, and I was wishing constantly that I'd get let out early and it never happened. I quit/got fired within 6 days, and am sooo glad I did! That taught me that if I'm not enjoying a job I won't be willing to keep doing it.
I started a 9-5 office job for the first time after quitting the factory job, and it was great. For one, I was in an office with four guys, two of which were school friends of mine (that's how I got the job.) Also, the work was supposedly a busy call centre job, but the calls hardly ever came in, so we'd just be able to sit around the office chatting, reading, playing Lemmings on the PC, and just answering the sporadic calls when they came in. After 5 weeks they realised that we were being paid to do essentially nothing, so the other four guys were let go and I was kept on to do menial tasks like filing and sorting and opening mail and data inputting. It was tolerable for a while, since I was able to listen to my personal CD player while doing most of those tasks, but it was still mind-numbingly dull. I stuck with that for 3 weeks, but a combination of the dullness, an upcoming trip to America, and a workmate that was driving me insane, led me to quit that job. It was nice to get my first experience of an office job/call centre though.
2004 was one of the better years I've had, and I'm hoping that 2005 will be better still. :) Ok, that should pretty much do it. I'll hopefully get started on commenting later!
Life
By far the best and most significant thing in my life is that I'm in a relationship with Stacey who I met at the Beta, started IMing with in January, started to fall for straight away, and met for the first time in June. I've since visited her again in November-December, and the times when I'm with her are the best in my life. While it's really hard having to be apart from her for so many months of the year, it's completely worth it. She's a wonderful person and a wonderful girlfriend, and I'm very happy and grateful to be with her. :)
On the less good side, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with my life. I don't know what career I want to follow, whether I want to do a masters or not, etc. There's something frustrating at being content with what I have at the moment (living at home with the family, not paying rent, working temp work for a couple of months at a time, and spending the money I earn on traveling) all the while knowing that it's not going to be sustainable in the long term. 2004 was definitely a year full of early-twenties uncertainty, and I see that continuing.
School
I graduated university with a 2i, which I was pleased with, and which unsurprisingly has led to nothing. All the jobs I've done so far I could have done with A-levels, or even just GCSEs, and considering I made no friends at all in university (I've not kept in touch with any of the people I used to hang out with there), I'll definitely look back at it as an experience that could and should have been a hundred times better. Still, the degree might come in handy some day down the line, I hope it will. I'd hate three entire years to be wasted.
Travelling
I travelled to America on my own twice, in June to visit Stacey (bawston48) and faithx5, which was a really excellent trip, and it was so great to spend time with people in real life that I'd got to know and like so much online, and then again in November to visit Stacey, which was of course another wonderful trip that I wish didn't have to end. It was so great being able to see some of America (politics aside, it's a country I really love, and hope to move to some day), and Jandy and Stacey were both great at showing me lots of awesome places and restaurants in their cities. :) (Though this is slightly biased since I ate out in restaurants in the States where as I don't do that back home, the food in America is sooo much better than the food back home!) I've visited Massachussetts, Missouri, Maine, Rhode Island and New Hampshire (taking my list of states visited up to 6, with Florida where I went on a family holiday to in 2002), and I can't wait to visit more states and cities in future trips to America. I really wish I'd taken more pictures the times I was there!
In those two trips some of the highlights were: watching my first baseball game in Rhode Island, taking a tour of Fenway Park, watching Meet Me In St. Louis in the outside theatre in St. Louis, going to the Gateway Arch, Six Flags St. Louis, the New England Aquarium (and seeing experiencing The Polar Express in IMAX 3-D), the science centres in Boston and in St. Louis, the audio tour of Boston and the great view from the 50th floor of the Prudential tower, riding the Swan Boats in the Boston public garden, and trips to Ipswich, Salem, Portsmouth, Kennebunkport, Rockport and Cambridge. Ok, I want to be back in America, like, now!
In September my friend Stephen decided he wanted to spend his 22nd Birthday in Amsterdam, so me and a few friends travelled there with him in the morning, spend the day there, and then came home in the night. It's a really interesting city, and such a massive change in culture. There is of course an enormously seedy side to the city, and just walking along the red light district and seeing prostitutes in the windows trying to lure people in, and sex shops all over the place, live sex shows, the sex museum (which really was just a massive porn collection, with no museum-ish like stuff about the history of sexual practices or anything. Hmph. Or so I've heard.) etc. But it's actually a really beautiful city, the architecture is really interesting, the canals were pretty, and the layout of the streets was neat (though made it sooo easy to get lost, I'd never have survived there on my own!) I love seeing new cities and experiencing different cultures. For a one-day trip where we didn't even stay a night, I think it was a really good experience.
Work
After graduating uni, traveling to the States, and coming back, I waited a couple of months and started to do some of the conveyor belt work at a factory that I'd done before, but this time I utterly despised it. There was a new boss there that I hated, and the days dragged a hundred times more than they used to, and I was wishing constantly that I'd get let out early and it never happened. I quit/got fired within 6 days, and am sooo glad I did! That taught me that if I'm not enjoying a job I won't be willing to keep doing it.
I started a 9-5 office job for the first time after quitting the factory job, and it was great. For one, I was in an office with four guys, two of which were school friends of mine (that's how I got the job.) Also, the work was supposedly a busy call centre job, but the calls hardly ever came in, so we'd just be able to sit around the office chatting, reading, playing Lemmings on the PC, and just answering the sporadic calls when they came in. After 5 weeks they realised that we were being paid to do essentially nothing, so the other four guys were let go and I was kept on to do menial tasks like filing and sorting and opening mail and data inputting. It was tolerable for a while, since I was able to listen to my personal CD player while doing most of those tasks, but it was still mind-numbingly dull. I stuck with that for 3 weeks, but a combination of the dullness, an upcoming trip to America, and a workmate that was driving me insane, led me to quit that job. It was nice to get my first experience of an office job/call centre though.
2004 was one of the better years I've had, and I'm hoping that 2005 will be better still. :) Ok, that should pretty much do it. I'll hopefully get started on commenting later!