It's an 'end of the rainbow' sort of deal

1. What did you do in 2020 that you'd never done before?
My answer to this is going to be so similar to so many other people's; wore a mask in public, went more than a month without touching another living being (broken by an off lead, determined dog who apparently knew how much I needed a waggy greeting), did all my socialising online for months, learnt new words and phrases like "social distancing", "lockdown", and "novel coronavirus"

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40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
In my place of quarantine/Gives us a chance, a chance to feel

A lot of people have been blogging daily over the last two years as a self-challenge and it's been great to read. I just don't think that's achievable for me but I'd like to try and post something of substance once a week.

I am struggling with topics but love a prompt. I'm not sure how many people read this blog anymore but if you do - or you're just passing by - I'd love you to drop as many ideas/topics/prompts/questions in the comments as you like and help me on my way to this very modest resolution

 

1. What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?
I was published - two sole-authored articles in two peer-reviewed journals. I got a book contract. I went on strike (techincally I've been on strike before, but because of how my previous contracts worked I've never had to endure the financial penalty for striking). I was interviewed on BBC Radio. I went to Tenby - which is bloody miles away.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

In 2018 I resolved to look again at my housing and decide if there is enough justification for moving to a (more expensive) one bed flat and letting my (safe, warm, most affordable option in Brighton) studio go when the future is still uncertain in terms of work. I'm also resolved to visit two new countries in 2018.

I did look at my housing situation, many times over, but have to stay where I am until I know what is going to happen with work. I made it to two new countries - USA and Austria. I also travelled to two countries I'd visited before, again.

For 2019, I resolve to commit to one course of action or another over my career (keep hanging on in academia, or pick a new direction in private sector). That's it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope, one on the way though.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My uncle - my Dad's brother - died. It was distressing for the length of his illness, and the impact it had on my Dad and my Aunt.

5. What countries did you visit?
Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, and United States of America. And Wales. Again.

I had a fucking trial and a half getting to New York - my flight was rescheduled twice moving departure back 3 hours, then it was delayed by 5 hours. Thanks to EU rules, I got compensation of a greater value than the entire holiday cost me. I never managed to extract an apology - or compensation - from Norweigan Air for making me cross the Atlantic on a plane infested with cockraoches. Then my last flight of the year, which I need to speak to my Insurer about and complain to company, I got diverted to Bristol from Gatwick and lost 4 hours of my life to a fucking coach journey to London. Czech Republic was ace for being paid for by work so I could attend a conference, and then I fit sightseeing in either side of it which felt so luxurious. Austria was my first trip with my parents as an adult and I was vile and it was difficult and the weather was terrible.

6. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?
Permanent employment. The financial security I need to move to out of my studio to flat to a one bed. A close and constant friend.

7. What date from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Nothing

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Submitting two job applications, a book proposal, and a co-authored article, and drafting a funding bid. Not going off sick from work - although I probably should have.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not making progress on writing my book.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Meh. No injuries. A lot of aches and pains that the GP can't explain for me beyond "hypermobility" in joints and some truly terrible periods of anxiety.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A new sofa. And a polaroid camera.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Caroline Lucas

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Jeremy Corbyn.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Train tickets

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Getting a contract from a publisher for a book.

16. What song will always remind you of 2018?
International Blue - Manic Street Preachers.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. Happier or sadder? Sadder
ii. Thinner or fatter? Thinner; made a concerted effort to get in control of, and comfortable with, my body in the latter half of the year
iii. Richer or poorer? The same almost to the penny, I think. Poorer in that this time next year I won't know where my money is coming from, which I did last year.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing. I put lots of needed writing (book, articles, job applications) off for impossibly long periods of time and I regret it. It's never as hard as I think it will be when I just knuckle down to it, so why the procrastination?

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Crying. I've been crying a lot since I learnt I haven't got secure employment to the end of the year.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Spent. After the success of last year's trip to Amsterdam, I booked to go to Valencia over the same period just before Christmas. Thanks to Schrödinger's Drone, my flight home on the 21st ended up diverted to Bristol, then I had to spend 3.5 hours on a bus, wretchedly trying to get home. Not the most auspicious final trip to the continent as a European citizen, although perhaps a good indication of the chaos ahead of us. Then to my parents from 23rd-28th. Dull, dull, dull. Miserable, grumpy, bored.

21. Did you fall in love in 2018?
Nope.

22. How many one-night stands?
Zero

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Loads of good stuff this year; Killing Eve, Doctor Who, A Very English Scandal, The Good Place, Star Trek Discovery, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Crazy Ex Girlfirend, Grace and Frankie...lots of value from Netflix, in short.

The Handmaid's Tale dropped off my list of things that was worth watching, and Im not sure This Is Us is good anymore, so much as perfectly designed to make you cry.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nope.

25. What was the best book you read?
Marginally better year than last year, although not by much. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet was certainly my favourite and I recommended it (successfully) to almost everyone I met. I was also really inspired and enlivened by The Argonauts

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nothing new in my world. Lots of singles I like but can't name that I heard on 6Music

27. What did you want and get?
Holidays

28. What did you want and not get?
Same as last year: a girlfriend. Financial security I could [literally] take to the bank [and get a mortgage with]

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Ladybird. Broke my heart a bit

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 34. I invited everyone to the pub and we all had amazing Sunday roasts.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Certainty of career, and financial stability.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?
Nonexistent

33. What kept you sane?
I took up more fitness stuff, got a fitbit, and generally embraced exercise as a general good. That has been the only constant, and the only thing I always do which is definitely Not Work.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Probably Jodie Whittaker/13. It was a bit of a sexless, desire-less year, all told.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Brexshit. And America locking children up in cages and then letting them die for want of water.

36. Who did you miss?
I'm not sure I have any relationships significant enough to have anyone to miss.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
I met a friend of a friend for the first time. She is nice. And it's nice to meet new people at all as you get older and believe they will be in your life longer term

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018:
You can do everything right and still fail. Which is something I should have taken more notice of when Picard said it on ST:TNG

39. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?:
My Mum.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I'm really looking forward/To when I won't be here/When I fly, fly away/To a better day.

1. What did you do in 2015 that you'd never done before?
Nothing 'big' but I was in a cinematic release movie, available on bluray later in the year, appeared on BBC tv. I had an operation - my first ever. And I kept ploughing on with the PhD - a determined continuation is new in a roundabout sort of way.

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1. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Interviewed a lot of strangers after putting adverts on the internet. Even a year ago I didn't really believe in my ability to do this - the key data collection method of my entire thesis - and I've not only surprised myself in my ability to do it, but found I absolutely love interviewing and have so many complex emotions tied up in talking to people about their lives.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
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What a year. What a life. What a world.

I feel the need to tidy away 2011, make room for 2012 but attempts to do so seem doomed to failure as a sense of hopelessness in front of 'fate' overwhelms me each time I try. The irony of course being that I don't believe in fate.

I've been trying to form in my mind the things I want for 2012 in the belief that determination is 90% of the route to realisation. 'Space' is right up at the top - I simply can't live in my parents house, if I want to be alone I have to sit in my bedroom. If I want to cook I have to squeeze in the kitchen in between them being in there and endure endless questions. I really value silence and solitude and time to myself and for the last year and a bit that has been completely absent. The main block on that road is not knowing where I want that space to be and whether I should rush for the short term pay off (very tempting) or play a longer game for savings and a place in September. Much of this is dependent on the current PhD application I have.

The PhD is second on the list; I am struggling to motivate myself to complete the application which has been further frustrated by my laptop killing itself this week so any work must be done in an environment I don't enjoy working in - namely on the family PC in the spare room. I am pushing myself to have the application in by today (which is difficult as yet again I can't get a second referee and have been told in fairly unequivocal terms by my first referee that this is the last reference he will write for me, which whilst fair given it is now 4 years since I started my MA, royally fucks me over for any future plans) and the funding application in by the end of next week. I am basically shooting in the dark though as have nowhere to turn to ask for assistance in writing the application and online guides only tell you how - not if what you've written is any good. I had a dream where the person I have asked to supervise me told me my application was a pile of shite and there was noway I would get a place. Thanks for that one subconscious.

Third and finally on the 2012 wish list is a relationship. This one really complicates the first wish the most - where I choose to live and perhaps buy a house, is going to impact on my potential love life. There do not seem to be any women my age in the area. There are older women (significantly older, I have no problem with 8 years or so difference) and there are teenagers who are just leaving for university or at university. There are no mid-late twenty somethings who have ended up somewhere they never intended to be and would quite like to meet someone and build a life. Buying a house in this area feels like condemning myself to singledom for the foreseeable future and I don't want to make a potential positive of owning my own home into a life sentence to loneliness. Unlike the above two where there are numerous routes and options available to me this 'wish' is the one which seems to pose the most insurmountable obstacle to my own happiness.

I feel more conflicted and lost now than I ever have before and that in and of itself is quite distressing. I'm at an age now where I thought I would have things straightened out and I'm angry at both myself and the world for not delivering on that - I feel I've let myself down. It struck me yesterday, as I walked past my University college graduation photo in the hall, that 2012 will be 6 years since I first graduated and whilst I would not claim for a moment those 6 years have been wasted - I travelled round the world and I lived in a great city and I got a good Masters degree - I still find it hard to understand how 6 years could have passed without me getting a clearer idea of not only where I was going but where I am now. Indeed, in that 6 years I've lost some of the things I thought were a sure thing - like the certainty of marriage and not returning to live with my parents.

I recognise of course that we live in difficult times; the economy is poor and both jobs and funding for educational opportunities are scarce. I am lucky enough to be in a stable, secure job with strong prospects; I regret that I cannot *feel* the meaning of that though, I simply acknowledge it to be true. I came across a Nietzsche quote last night which, whilst I do not know the context of the writing it was taken from, certainly seems to express the reason I cannot settle at this time for 'adequate'; Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

How true that is - something I feel all the more keenly since the death of my colleague in November.

Life is a thousand times too short to live without fulfilment and joy.

2011: Bring it the fuck on.

This is the year.