Merry Halo Day – er, Christmas 2004 Everyone!
I know I’m a few days late on this – I offer stress and Christmas busy-ness as an excuse – but I’d just like to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas. I hope your day was smooth, easy and fun-filled. The New Year’s Best Wishes will be delivered on time!
We spent most of our Christmas Day at Dad’s place, braving the Family one last time. There was an unavoidable tension in the air unfortunately: it was the first Christmas since Mum died, and she loved this time of the year. Dad was, of course, really feeling it, which meant that he got inebriated and took some pot-shots at me again, but I wore them as best I could. I’m not always good with other people’s pain, especially when the relationship is as strained as mine’s been with my family since Vickie and I moved in together, so I didn’t handle some things as well as I could have. But, we managed to leave in the evening on fairly good terms.
With the Christmas Party out of the way, Vickie and I have been frantically packing the joint up. We reckon it’s easier to get as much done as possible, as early as possible, so we’re not running around like chooks trying to get the entire house packed away with but a few days before the removalist’s van turns up.
I’ve had a few people asking me what I intend to do work-wise in Cairns. My usual response has been, “I’m keeping myself open to new things, but ideally something I enjoy and pays enough to keep Vickie and I in comfort.” That’s my guideline, but it’s comfortably non-committal and non-specific. I can tell you that I’d prefer to avoid IT support – I did that for a year or so when I was working for Advantra and it drove me nuts.
One thing I’ve been thinking about over the past few days, though, is teaching at TAFE. I have a firm grasp on setting a PC up and the Microsoft Office suite, so I might see whether there are opportunities teaching entry-level computing.
In the meantime, I have my name with a few Cairns agencies, who’ve told me that they can’t do much for me until I’m available for interviews.
And yes, I did get Halo 2 for Christmas. Yes, it’s fun. I had a nasty bout of insomnia last night (which is why I’m off sick today), so I wound up polishing off the single-player campaign on Normal difficulty. I’m fighting the temptation to go back in and play through it again; its eye-candy is as good as Chronicles of Riddick. If I’m lucky, I may even be able to talk Vickie into playing co-operatively with me!
Xbox Live is definitely a tempting prospect, but it’s going to wait until after we get to Cairns, I get myself a job and we establish a regular budget.
Vickie just asked me what I was doing, and I replied with “I’m writing a post of my own.” Sort of an odd answer, eh? As Vickie pointed out, who else would I be writing for?
That’s an evil thought – ghost-writing for a blog.
I wonder how much it pays?