~So On With 2004
2004-01-02 - 1:56 p.m.

Everybody (OK, not everybody, but many peoples) writing New Year entries makes me feel like I should, too. Except I'm really not that into the whole new year thing. I mean, there's certainly a nice feeling of shedding all the crap from the previous year (and there was a lot of crap to shed this New Year) coupled with a sense of "thank goodness that's over and we can get on with the holidays". Haha Tarot of the Gnomes is so cute. Anyway, if I were to look back and do a summary or whatever of the year, I think two trends would stand out for me.

The first would be a real sense of independence and satisfaction. Getting away from uni and having money has done wonders for my emotional and physical state. I no longer spend every moment of the day thinking that I really should be doing homework (although there certainly are times when I procrastinate over school prepration) and I am active during the day which leaves me sleeping well at night. I also tend to have weekends free, so I've actually spent time with my friends just because, whereas previous to 2003 I tended to always feel tired, headachey, stressed and poor, therefore anitsocial. Granted, I was often too tired to do anything except flop in front of the TV after work and I got well and truly sick once a term, but it was a contented, well-earned tiredness, rather than a lack of sleep, nervous kind of tired.

The second would be more negative, the feeling of constantly needing to be better than I was. A very tough grade of five-year-olds, when I'm naturally suited to the older children, coupled with a school that wasn't always helpful and supportive in the right way (although not with bad intentions), I spent much of the year feeling really inadequate and finished without really feeling confident enough in my teaching and discipline skills.

Despite this constant lack of confidence in my abilty to succeed at my chosen career (heh), it was still a far better year than I've had for a while. Of course, throwing my back out wasn't good. Right now it's twinging and I think it'll always be in danger of getting twingey if it's not looked after, which is rather restricting. And makes me feel old. Of course, despite being the youngest a work by a couple of years, all this year I've felt either older than I wanted to be or just like I was pretending. I don't like being an adult mostly. I don't like the responsibility and the expectation that I can look after myself and rely on myself and that everything's up to me. I don't like it when it seems like I'm expected to be more of an adult than I feel, more than I dislike actually feeling unchildlike.

But yesterday, driving myself home from Sally & Emma's (where I spent New Year's Eve and stayed the night, and then we went to see Love Actually) in really light and well-moving traffic, stopping off at the supermarket to spend as much as I liked on my own tea and going home to an empty house, I really relished the independence and freedom that comes from being old enough to drive and holding down a responsible, graduate full-time job that allows me to buy things at whim.

I sometimes feel that the biggest block to my getting out and doing things, getting this done, is my own personality!