Old acquaintance

[cosmolinguist]

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Worked a full-time job for more than six months (only nine but shut up). Passed a test on Life in the UK. Started studying a possible potential eventual degree I'm really excited about. And lots of small things.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't do them.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
When I started reading this meme I could say "three people on my friends list are all going to have babies at about the same time!" But now two of them have. Many congratulations to toastedtuna  and rainsinger , and many comforting baby-arrival thoughts to suzylou .

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank goodness.

5. What countries did you visit?
The US. And Scotland. And I spent such a long layover in Schipol on Friday that I'm tempted to say "Holland" as well. Oh, also Wales.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Permanence! In both residency and a job.

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Nothing particularly jumps out at me.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Staying in work. Getting all these little things done to keep Andrew's and my lives going as smoothly as possible.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Just generally procrastinating and avoiding things.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No more than usual.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
We paid off some debts and that felt really good. We're still clawing our way back to the point where we're running to stand still (before we were running and still losing ground). So I didn't buy much.

Train tickets, maybe.  Getting the train to London was the best thing ever.  I loved Penrith.  And I'm really pleased I went to Edinburgh that weekend in July; I debated not doing it because I'd been so busy and tired and then Andrew got sick and part of the reason we were going was so he could see his friends too... but I had a fantastic time with three people I love and think of the whole city fondly because of that.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My husband has been endlessly supportive and continues to remind me all the time why it's worth what I've given up to be here with him. My parents are loving and supportive and don't give me the slightest bit of grief about how I broke their hearts by moving away.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The governments of both countries I spend time in.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Paying off debts. Rent. Bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Christmas with my family. Good things happening to my friends.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
I'm not sure yet, it's never immediately obvious. I have to wait until I hear the songs again and think of something that happened this year. I don't listen to much new music so it'll probably end up being something that showed up on Andrew's iTunes particularly often.  Or something Radcliffe and Maconie have particularly liked.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? The same I think.
iii. richer or poorer? Not richer as such but in a less dire financial situation.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Seeing my friends. And museums and cities and just getting out more.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Crying. Procrastinating.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Christmas Eve with my mom's parents and sister and brother in law. Christmas day with my dad's siblings and partners and some extremely dysfunctional children.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
A million times all with the same person. Sorry to be sappy but it's true.

23. Did your heart break in 2007?
Many times. Mostly for my parents. Sometimes for me.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
QI

25. Where were you when 2007 began?
Asleep with a migraine.

26. Who were you with?
I imagine Andrew was around. I don't remember. I had gone to bed at 11:30 in the morning in 2006 and woke up in 2007.

27. Where will you be when 2007 ends?
softfruit 's.

28. Who will you be with when 2007 ends?
A bunch of people I know to varying degrees but who all seem to know envoy .

29. What was the best book you read?
I can't remember. I intend to start keeping a list of books read in 2008.

30. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Stuart Maconie.

31. What did you want and get?
A fecking job.

32. What did you want and not get?
A permanent fecking job.

33. What was your favorite film of this year?
It wasn't a good year for movies at all. I think A Prairie Home Companion might have been it, though I still can't watch it without crying my eyes out.

34. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 26, and I ate. We went out to eat twice. And there was birthday cake when we got home.

35. How many different states did you travel to in 2007?
Two if you count changing planes in hated O'Hare.

36. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
"I can't afford clothes I like. I don't even know what those are."

37. What kept you sane?
Andrew. rainmerlot . lostpositive . And LJ.

38. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I'm sure there's a good answer for this but I can't think of it right now.

39. What political issue stirred you the most?
I've fallen in with the No2ID people!

40. How many concerts did you see in 2007?
Um, good question. I saw Half Man Half Biscuit, Ray Davies, Brian Wilson, Squeeze... there's probably more I've forgotten. Andrew will correct me I'm sure. Didn't see the Hold Steady (twice!), didn't get the Nantwich Folk Festival, and that's all sadly missed.

41. Did you have a favorite concert in 2007?
Squeeze was the most fun. Ray Davies was the most surprisingly good.

42. Who was the best new person you met?
I met many lovely people and am starting to feel like I fit in a little bit here.


1. Will you be looking for a new job?
Jobhunting stresses me out and panics me as few other things seem to. I am utterly worthless at it. It gives me anxiety attacks. I only have the job I do because of Andrew. Ditto for the first job I got in Manchester. (The one in between I got from softfruit  and the best job interview ever, where the only questions I remember are "Do you want a cup of tea?" and "can you start next Monday?")

But I am hoping for the job I do have to become permanent. There have been rumors, nearly as long as I've been working there (i.e. March) that some positions should be opening up, but being the NHS I'm not holding my breath. Still, two more NAs on the ward I work have handed in their notice or are about to, so I'm really hoping something comes of this soon. I would jump at the chance to do what I'm doing anyway with sick pay, holiday time, and two pounds more an hour for exactly the same thing.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
I have actually been thinking that recently, after a couple of months of blissfully enjoying the simple monogamous life. But I see no real prospects. It's not a priority.

3. Will you be looking for sex?
In this house, sex looks for me.

4. What will you do different in '08?
Differently.  It's modifying a verb. 

Just keep up with things, I hope. House-tidying, budgeting (ha!), socializing, whatever.

5. New Year's Resolution?
This is just the odometer rolling back around to zero. It's a numerical oddity, not a reason to resolve to improve myself. I do need improving, but I try to do that along the way, whenever It think of things. I can't think of anything specific at the moment.

6. What will you not be doing in '08?
Worrying so much, I hope. Putting things off. Wasting time.

7. Any trips planned?
I'm hoping this is the year of America Without Telling My Parents. I love them but there's so much else I want to do and people I want to see there. I think now I've been enough times (three in the last six months!) that I can think about such a trip without immediately dissolving into a puddle of Bad Daughter guilt. But it still depends on finances.

Also, I must go to Newcastle.  I've been saying I'll meet up with signal_moon for a ridiculous amount of time; I shall make good on it soon.

Also, lostpositive and I have chatted about going somewhere warm and sunny -- the opposite of where we live then -- but that's still in the earliest planning stages.

8. Wedding plans?
Actually, I was talking about doing my "real" wedding this summer wasn't I? That would dovetail nicely with going-to-America-without-telling-my-parents, but would also involve bringing Andrew with me, which complicates everything enormously.

No one else is expecting me to go to their wedding, that I know of.

9. Major thing on your calendar?
Er, right now? The French assignment due in a couple of days, which I have not even looked at yet. Which involves speaking. Which involves getting software to work on my computer! And being able to speak French! Gods help me.

10. What can’t you wait for?
My permanent residency. Argh.

11. What would you like to see happen differently?
My work being run by sensible people.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
I hope I will be less crazy, more stable and better at coping.

13. What happened in ‘07 that you didn’t think would ever happen?
I'm not sure actually. I bet I'll think of something later on.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
I always want to be nicer to people I care about. But who doesn't? Or wouldn't at least say so.

I would also like to get better at the distinction between people I care about and people I'm expected to care about.

15. Will you dress differently in '08 than you did in '07?
Well I got a bunch of desperately-needed new clothes for xmas, so yes! I'm slowly weeding out things that don't fit and things I never liked but just wore because I needed to be clothed for work.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
I will drink about as much as I have, I imagine: hardly at all but sometimes, some.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
I hope so. But I can't complain, at the moment... except about my extended family, with whom I have no desire to better things.

18. Will you do volunteer work?
I'd like to. I kinda think I don't have time but that might be because a lot of my time is spent procrastinating in front of the computer or avoiding things that need doing.

20. Do you expect '08 to be a good year for you?
Things have been steadily improving, and I hope to see that continue. I think it will. I'm getting tougher and more energetic all the time, which are hopeful signs.

21. How much did you change from this time last year til now?
Well, this time last year I'd just lost a job for a stupid reason and I was in a terrified panic. This year, I have to do lots of French in a couple of days and work on my application to stay here past the end of the month, so I'm in a terrified panic. Hm.

Actually, I think I changed a lot. Mostly because Andrew tells me so! He insists that even when I don't feel like it, I'm a lot less depressed (both less intensely and less often, though of course there are moments of both still). I have done a lot of stuff I didn't think I could do, just because it needed doing (not big stuff: it might be going to a job interview on an unfamiliar bus, cooking something, going to bed, getting out of bed...). That there are still plenty of those things that need doing that I'm still avoiding should not take away from my victories in doing even some of them.

22. Do you plan on having a child?
No.

23. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
I hope so! I met lovely new people in Manchester this year, found out that even if your crash space in London has forgotten about you you can find someone else you barely know who's happy to let you stay on about an hour's notice, and even met some more lovely people in Minnesota.

24. Major lifestyle changes?
No thanks, I've had my full complement for a while I think.

25. Will you be moving?
I don't like this house, but I do like our landlords and it's a reasonable area and Andrew's sure we can't do any better for the rent we're paying.

26. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 08 that happened in 07?
I'd like to not have to flake out on Thanksgiving dinner and do it properly this time.

27. What are your New Years Eve plans?
I spent it in the company of lovely people at softfruit 's, drinking ginger beer and vodka, talking about Alan Moore and Dave Sim and computer languages and Garrison Keillor.

28. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
As I said several times, I was grateful to be the only person in that room not dating/married to anybody else in it. :)

Though it'd be good if Andrew had been there; he would've done even better than I at talking about Alan Moore, Dave Sim, various computer languages, and life at UMIST (okay I just listened to those last two).



Also! I just remembered that while I didn't do that first quiz last year, I did do it in 2004 and 2005. It's amusing to look back at the answers. Some never change (I never do resolutions! but also I never stop saying that I wish I worried less...) and some mark such big paradigm shifts for me (I find it hard to believe now that there was a time before I'd read Illuminatus!). I'm quite pleased to be able to tell 2005 me that I did end up in a house in South Manchester, even if the washing machine has been broken for a month now.

They were far more eventful years than this one, where my major accomplishments and so on all seem to be about just keeping daily life rolling along. How did I manage to kiss a girl, get drunk, and get engaged in the same year?

Comments

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the America Without Telling Parents thing. I'm definitely doing Ireland Without Parents this year, after much agonising. It feels grubby, but it's the only way.

[cosmolinguist]

We can be grubby-buddies then, happy to remind each other of our gruesome relatives so that we stop agonizing at least long enough to enjoy the trip.

[rainmerlot.livejournal.com]

Can you come to America without telling them.... and then drop in on them as a surprise at the end of your trip? They don't have to know how long you'd been in the states already do they? Then you might be able to avoid some guilt. :-)

[cosmolinguist]

That's what I was thinking i might have to do. Especially with Seth having almost given me that idea, with sneaking his brother back to Minnesota much to his parents' delight this Christmas.

You realize of course that if I do plan that it'll almost certainly mean you and/or S having to drive me all the way home instead of just to Burnsville, right? :)

[rainmerlot.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do. I'm sure we can figure something out. Make a day of it or something. :-)

[cosmolinguist]

I'd hope to see you guys for longer than that! One of the reasons I want to go to the US is to see you and everybody else who lives in the Cities for more than a couple of hours every six months. But it's no more than a wish now, it's not even a goal yet because there are too many layers of complication and unknown things at this point.

[rainmerlot.livejournal.com]

Ha, no I meant Scott and I would make a day out of taking you back home... Take our time on the drive down, (you can show us the sites! LOL) and take our time on the drive back. Stop to eat, etc, etc.. :-)

I fully expected you to spend time with us and others for several days prior to that. :-)

[cosmolinguist]

There ARE sights! Well, not so much if you take the freeway, but that is the point of freeways. There, the sights are mostly limited to a strip mall and Cabela's. :)

But yes, that sounds lovely.

[rainmerlot.livejournal.com]

it's fun to dream though - isn't it? And what is even cooler is this dream has the potential to become a reality.. (unlike winning the lottery or something :-) )

[ecdysiasm.livejournal.com]

In this house, sex looks for me.

Ohh, I didn't need to put soda through my nose laughing this early in the morning...

It's true though!

[cosmolinguist]

Don't drink soda so early in the morning!

There, problem solved.

[patrick-vecchio.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping you get another dose of Ray Davies in 2008. I saw The Kinks in '75. I've seen more shows than I can remember, but The Kinks were special. I don't think I've ever walked out of a concert feeling so exuberant.

[cosmolinguist]

It sounds like you had a not-entirely-dissimilar experience from mine then. :) Here's hoping you get another dose too.

[patrick-vecchio.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for that link! You're right: There was a lot of singing along. A lot. What I recall the most was that I didn't have a single Kinks LP in my collection, and I kept being surprised by the song selection because I knew so many of them.

It's tough to pick a favorite Kinks song, so I'll go with four: "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," "Apeman," "Celluloid Heroes" and "Dead End Street."

And "David Watts." OK, five then.

"Plastic Man." "Victoria."

Seven. And now I'll force myself to stop ...

[cosmolinguist]

::laughs::I'm sure the same thing would happen to me (of course I immediately started thinking what would I say my five favorite Kinks songs are? as soon as I started reading yours and by the time I got to, for example, "Victoria," was already thinking ooh, how could I have forgotten that?!

The Squeeze gig was even more like that for me: there were only a few I didn't know all the words to in that show (and Andrew tells me those few were the ones included so Chris Difford could sing something, not because they were part of the pantheon of Squeeze songs).

As for the Kinks, yeah: children of the (American) 80s such as I are probably not supposed to know any Kinks songs at all, and indeed my precocious infatuation with oldies radio still only introduced me to three: "You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," and "Lola." Imagine, then, my surprise at "Waterloo Sunset" or "Village Green Preservation Society" or indeed "Days." I really thought there must have been another band with the same name.

[patrick-vecchio.livejournal.com]

Amen to all of those. And I suspect you could name a dozen more to which I'd offer the same reply. What a great band ...

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

re 7: I still haven't told my parents about going to LA. I'm booking my flight tomoz! Hmm, LA vrs Appleton, WI....not really a contest!

[cosmolinguist]

I am reading a biography of Houdini that speaks glowingly of Appleton and it makes me think of you and laugh.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

ah man, the Houdini thing! They use it to gloss over the Joseph McCarthy angle:)

Also Mrs Garret from tv's The Facts of Life was from there. True!

[cosmolinguist]

When I met him Andrew told me he knew three things about Minnesota: 1) Garrison Keillor (his mom's appreciation of which was enough to get her to like me right away, which is handy), 2) Fargo and 3) oh shit I was going to say that somebody from The Facts of Life was from there but now I've realized it's actually one of the Golden Girls. Which ruins the whole point of telling this story. Just because I can't tell my old-lady shows apart...

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

Was it Betty White? Cos wasn't her character from St Olaf, MN? or something.

Ahh, old lady shows. Good times, good times.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

We give tough interviews at my office. It's good that you warn your friends.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm pretty sure you also said you liked my sweater.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

I know some of the questions may seem unusual but it's all part of the psychological profiling section of the interview process.

[cosmolinguist]

I would say it was "brutal" or "intense" or something, but knowing you (and your friends who read this) they'd actually believe me...

[taimatsu]

Okay, I wasn't there ar midnight, but I wasn't dating anyone else at the party either ;)

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you were sat on someone's lap for about an hour - minnesattva can be forgiven..!

[cosmolinguist]

I think softfruit may have a point there. When someone else specifically mentioned that they enjoyed flirting with you, that means I win for sweet and innocent. Dubious prize, perhaps, but hey. :)