Well, this sure went tl;dr awfully fast...
Since 2006 is now properly over…
2006 was a year that started pretty bad but got better. It was my first year out of uni after graduation - which put it off to a bad start straight away because 2005 was a hell of a tough act to follow. I really loved doing my university degree, and I went through my last couple of years with an awesome bunch of people, far too many of whom have since left the state to find (probably disgustingly high-paying) work. I found a job without any trouble, and I have a lot of reasons to be glad I’ve got the one I have - not least of which the fact they’re not too bothered by my habit of disappearing for a few days here and there (since I’ve been doing some part time work for my university supervisors as well, which is a little messy to organise, but I like having some variety in my week). The sad part is that apart from that, it’s pretty much just a salary job to me - there isn’t much about it I enjoy. The other people who work there are decent enough to deal with, provided I don’t try to talk to them about religion, politics, women’s rights, gay rights, a couple of major environmental issues, anything that might lead to debate over the origin of the universe or anything I’d consider enjoyable fiction. And of course, the other problem with nine-to-five jobs is that they don’t leave a lot of time for you to hang out with anyone you don’t see at work. I didn’t do a particularly stellar job of finding time to catch up with people outside those hours in those first months either.
I’m guessing this is all pretty standard stuff for anyone adapting to Life Beyond School, and I usually try to avoid whinging too much up here in any case. But suffice to say - the first few months of this year aren’t any I’m going to look back on too fondly.
Fortunately, from here on out it gets better.
There was a bunch of stuff that helped turn the year around. The trip to Japan we took earlier this year was, of course, fantastic - the kind of holiday where you come home thinking ‘how soon can we go back?’ Even our annual skating nationals trip to Sydney was unusually enjoyable (even the couple of days I spent sitting around the house feeling sick and making a serious dent in the remaining space in my writing notebook) - I got to go to my first ever con outside Perth, tour the Chinese Gardens with zhalaya and Tini. And so what if I didn’t actually bring home a lot of medals, that was still easily the most fun in a skating comp I’d ever had.
On the local front, Lisa and I have both been going to PenCafe meetings for the last few months, Officially, it's a place for everyone to get some serious drawing or writing done, however, the biggest attraction is just having our first regular social Saturday-night activity since JAFWA started losing interest for us. From a random collection of Perth would-be-artists, they’ve managed to build up a group of some amazingly fantastic people to spend your evenings with - most of whom I don’t think we’d have ever had the chance to meet otherwise. I have this theory now that both the president and vice-president are themselves actually poorly-disguised anime characters - specifically, the variety who, just when you’ve gotten used to the idea of them being the wonderfully insane, porn/yaoi-obsessed loonies they are, turn around and turn out to also be the sort of people to whom organising things actually comes naturally. Alright, so maybe it's not always 100% perfectly successful organisation, but they’ve still managed to put together one hell of a great club for the rest of us. And somehow, we even get work done there sometimes. How weird is that?
Of course the other big group of generally awesome people we’ve gotten to know so much better this year would have to be everyone from cosplay circles. While I’ve said it before, I remain in awe of the talent there is in this pokey little city (and maybe even more in awe that Lisa and I somehow got to the point of being considered part of it). It may not sound like a big thing, but getting together with cescat and nekomiao for weekly costuming days is definitely another one of those things that helped turn this into a good year. And to everyone in CosArt, I’m only sorry we didn’t get to see you guys more often, because I can’t think of one time when we met up where we didn’t have a great time. I trust you can all see where I’m going with this where plans for next year are concerned. ^_^
There are still one or two last things to relate in the Stuff Which Made This A Good Year category, the big one being that - somehow - writing suddenly isn’t so hard anymore these days. There’s still work required, of course, and I’m feeling a little superstitious about making too much fuss about it at all in case it goes away again as mysteriously as it showed up but it must be said: hitting the point where I seem to be able to turn out a couple of finished stories in an average week? That is a Big Deal. I’m so very not kidding. Even if I am just turning out fanfic at the moment, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The last of those last little things is a fandom thing. See, I’ve been in and out of various CLAMP fandoms in a casual sort of way for years, but I’ve never really gotten very involved online until my last Tsubasa/xxxHOLiC binge, so it was a really wonderful how great so many of the people in it have turned out to be. Apart from anything else, this is by far the most generous fandom I’ve ever been in when it comes to getting a feedback on fic, and while that’s not the only reason I’m turning out fic at such a crazy rate lately, I’m sure it can’t have hurt.
So, that’s been my year. If you want a little summarising thing at the end, run a quick word count on the uses of the words ‘great’, ‘awesome’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘fantastic’ in this post. Naturally, there are always going to be ups and downs, but I think that’s about the best summary of the last few months of my life as I can give.
2006 was a year that started pretty bad but got better. It was my first year out of uni after graduation - which put it off to a bad start straight away because 2005 was a hell of a tough act to follow. I really loved doing my university degree, and I went through my last couple of years with an awesome bunch of people, far too many of whom have since left the state to find (probably disgustingly high-paying) work. I found a job without any trouble, and I have a lot of reasons to be glad I’ve got the one I have - not least of which the fact they’re not too bothered by my habit of disappearing for a few days here and there (since I’ve been doing some part time work for my university supervisors as well, which is a little messy to organise, but I like having some variety in my week). The sad part is that apart from that, it’s pretty much just a salary job to me - there isn’t much about it I enjoy. The other people who work there are decent enough to deal with, provided I don’t try to talk to them about religion, politics, women’s rights, gay rights, a couple of major environmental issues, anything that might lead to debate over the origin of the universe or anything I’d consider enjoyable fiction. And of course, the other problem with nine-to-five jobs is that they don’t leave a lot of time for you to hang out with anyone you don’t see at work. I didn’t do a particularly stellar job of finding time to catch up with people outside those hours in those first months either.
I’m guessing this is all pretty standard stuff for anyone adapting to Life Beyond School, and I usually try to avoid whinging too much up here in any case. But suffice to say - the first few months of this year aren’t any I’m going to look back on too fondly.
Fortunately, from here on out it gets better.
There was a bunch of stuff that helped turn the year around. The trip to Japan we took earlier this year was, of course, fantastic - the kind of holiday where you come home thinking ‘how soon can we go back?’ Even our annual skating nationals trip to Sydney was unusually enjoyable (even the couple of days I spent sitting around the house feeling sick and making a serious dent in the remaining space in my writing notebook) - I got to go to my first ever con outside Perth, tour the Chinese Gardens with zhalaya and Tini. And so what if I didn’t actually bring home a lot of medals, that was still easily the most fun in a skating comp I’d ever had.
On the local front, Lisa and I have both been going to PenCafe meetings for the last few months, Officially, it's a place for everyone to get some serious drawing or writing done, however, the biggest attraction is just having our first regular social Saturday-night activity since JAFWA started losing interest for us. From a random collection of Perth would-be-artists, they’ve managed to build up a group of some amazingly fantastic people to spend your evenings with - most of whom I don’t think we’d have ever had the chance to meet otherwise. I have this theory now that both the president and vice-president are themselves actually poorly-disguised anime characters - specifically, the variety who, just when you’ve gotten used to the idea of them being the wonderfully insane, porn/yaoi-obsessed loonies they are, turn around and turn out to also be the sort of people to whom organising things actually comes naturally. Alright, so maybe it's not always 100% perfectly successful organisation, but they’ve still managed to put together one hell of a great club for the rest of us. And somehow, we even get work done there sometimes. How weird is that?
Of course the other big group of generally awesome people we’ve gotten to know so much better this year would have to be everyone from cosplay circles. While I’ve said it before, I remain in awe of the talent there is in this pokey little city (and maybe even more in awe that Lisa and I somehow got to the point of being considered part of it). It may not sound like a big thing, but getting together with cescat and nekomiao for weekly costuming days is definitely another one of those things that helped turn this into a good year. And to everyone in CosArt, I’m only sorry we didn’t get to see you guys more often, because I can’t think of one time when we met up where we didn’t have a great time. I trust you can all see where I’m going with this where plans for next year are concerned. ^_^
There are still one or two last things to relate in the Stuff Which Made This A Good Year category, the big one being that - somehow - writing suddenly isn’t so hard anymore these days. There’s still work required, of course, and I’m feeling a little superstitious about making too much fuss about it at all in case it goes away again as mysteriously as it showed up but it must be said: hitting the point where I seem to be able to turn out a couple of finished stories in an average week? That is a Big Deal. I’m so very not kidding. Even if I am just turning out fanfic at the moment, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The last of those last little things is a fandom thing. See, I’ve been in and out of various CLAMP fandoms in a casual sort of way for years, but I’ve never really gotten very involved online until my last Tsubasa/xxxHOLiC binge, so it was a really wonderful how great so many of the people in it have turned out to be. Apart from anything else, this is by far the most generous fandom I’ve ever been in when it comes to getting a feedback on fic, and while that’s not the only reason I’m turning out fic at such a crazy rate lately, I’m sure it can’t have hurt.
So, that’s been my year. If you want a little summarising thing at the end, run a quick word count on the uses of the words ‘great’, ‘awesome’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘fantastic’ in this post. Naturally, there are always going to be ups and downs, but I think that’s about the best summary of the last few months of my life as I can give.