One final update...and a hiatus

Well, it looks as though the doubters were right - it looks like this blog's about to die, despite all my protests that it never would.

I realised last night that my heart's just not in it the way it used to be. I've become so busy with life in general that it's fallen way down my list of priorities, which is a shame, because the original intention of Paulie Stories was as a journal of my life; something that I could look back on across the years to stimulate thoughts and memories.

Isn't it ironic that life being so busy is what's stopping me from recording what's going on in my life?

So, this will be one final general update and then I'll be gone. I'm not saying I'll be gone forever, but I'm not making any promises on when I'll be back, either. I might get writing again one day, but we'll have to see for now.

Anyway, as I'd been fearing for several months, I did lose my job at TOJOW. It happened last Monday, in fact. I am now officially unemployed. It's only been a week, but I hate it. I'm already freaking out that this will be a long-term thing. I've already had a few job interviews, but it's all gone dead since then. I haven't had any follow-up from them so don't know if I'm still in the running or if they've gone with someone else. Calls or emails of enquiry don't get any response. I'm very worried. I've already decided I can't rely solely on the Sydney market for my next job, so am looking farther afield at cities like Melbourne and Brisbane.

Money's finally sorted, helped in part by my redundancy payout. I can last without a job until October at this rate, but things will be getting dicey after that.

The boy and I are still together and still going strong. His job's safe, but he's also happy to move with me if it proves necessary to do that just to get a new role.

Finally, uni's still a big part of my life. The first part of this year finished with another Distinction grade (my fourth out of five subjects completed so far) and I'm looking forward to getting the next subject underway in the next week or so.

Bet you didn't expect another one so fast!

Just had to add a footnote to my last post.

The day I wrote it - that night J and I were due to head to Newtown for drinks and dinner with an old workmate of mine...yes, I've been living here long enough to have "old workmates" now - what a milestone!

Anyway, the weather had been pretty sucky most of the day, so she called and asked if we wanted to do something else instead. Decided to just head to her place (Darling Point), order in some food and go from there.

Turned out to be the best night ever. So random. A friend of hers was already there so we hung out with the two of them having a few wines...then another friend turned up...invited us to a birthday party at the cross. Random, random, random. We ended up there, meeting a whole stack of people, drinking Verve and just generally having a fabulous time. One of the best nights in a long while, and completely spontaneous and unplanned.

Awesome.

God, I suck at this!

Well, it's been ages. I am so bad at keeping this thing updated at the moment. The usual excuses apply, but even I was horrified to see that it's been March since my last post. Bad, bad, blogger.

To make matters worse, I have no bloody idea what I've been doing since March. There's absolutely nothing to report. Life is literally just plodding along, with work and uni making up most of it.

In April I headed off to Bathurst again for the first of this year's uni residential schools. As usual, that was heaps of fun. Jonathan came up with me this time and joined in the drinking shenanigans with my uni friends. He had a good time, got on with them all and they all loved him. We decided to stay an extra night on the Friday night, rather than driving back to Sydney straight after my classes finished. Weren't able to stay that night at the apartment we'd been at during the week, though, so ended up at this awful, dodgy dive of a place. Yuck! Hated it so much we went to the movies just so we could escape. I was quite pleased to get in the car and head off the next morning.

I only noticed for the first time during this last trip how WHITE Bathurst is. I swear Jonathan was the only Asian I saw on the streets while up there. I'm sure there are Asians there...but I certainly didn't see any of them.

After having spent two of the previous nights drinking and carrying on until the early hours, J and I actually decided to limit ourselves to dinner and that movie on the Friday night, so it was a pretty tame end to the week.

We haven't really been out partying that much since then. We've had a couple of nights enjoying cocktails at Ivy with Ex-Boss, plus have had a few uninspiring trips up Oxford St, but it's just not the same anymore. We both seem to be quite settled into a routine that is quite settled and relaxed and spending quiet nights at home in front of the telly is actually quite pleasant. God! That's not to say we don't have a good time when we do go out...we just don't do it that much.

That said, we did have a good night back in April celebrating my 39th birthday. I'd invited a few people but only a few turned up...most of whom were J's friends. But had a good night all the same. Spent most of it in Newtown, which is our suburb of choice these days. We're actually heading off there tonight to catch up with an old work friend of mine. Should be fun.

But, like I said, work and uni occupy most of my headspace these days. Work's still going really well and I'm having a blast. It's the first time I've been truly settled at work in three years. I still HATE having to drive 30ks out west every day, though. The threat of losing my job still hangs over my head, too, which sucks tremendously. I'm now trying to work out whether I should start looking now and jump to a new job before I'm pushed, or hang on until the bitter end. I'd hate to leave, only to find out a few months later that I didn't need to. But nor do I want to hang around to lose my job at a time where there might be even less jobs out there than there are now! Dilemma!

Uni's going well, though. Enjoying it and getting good marks. I do need to get off the blog and concentrate on my current assignment though!

J's good. Like I said, we're in a good pattern these days. He's lovely. He's doing well with his uni too, and at work. He had a promotion at work, so he's more a senior / manager-type nurse now which is great for him.

Sorry that I suck at keeping this blog updated, but gotta go.

Haven't forgotten you...

I knew I hadn't posted for a while...

But I didn't realise "a while" meant since March!

Bloody hell!

I'm going to spend some time writing an update this weekend, I promise. Stay tuned...

A familiar pattern...

Uni, uni, uni...

Work, work, work...

No time for the blog, blog, blog...

I think 2009's upkeep's going to be about the same as 2008's, quite frankly. I will try to do better...but it won't be this week!

I actually wrote an update a week or so ago and posted it, but when I came back to view it a few days later it had mysteriously disappeared. Quite weird, in fact. Oh well...

Life's pretty good. Everything's busy, but things in general are pretty damn fine. I'm in such a good space for everything right now, it's quite scary. When things get like this I start wondering what's about to go wrong.

Will be in touch...

A Mardi Gras footnote

(...yes, I know I mix up the spelling all the time...don't care...)

The weekend was outstanding.

Unexpectedly ended up meeting Tony and Shaun for lunch on Saturday at a local Darling Harbour pub. Was working on a uni assignment, home alone (J was on campus for his course) and they sent a txt. We caught up for lunch. It was great. With all those shitty feelings about Tony gone, it was superb to just sit and chat and get to know his partner of about 2.5 years.

Talk about moved on.

Shaun's a great bloke - I really liked him. Quite similar to me in terms of background, and probably a better fit for Tony than me. The main reason for that is I can see he'd be more tolerant of some of Tony's behaviours that eventually wore me down. Good on them. I'm really pleased it went well.

Spurred on by that experience, I persuaded Jonathan to agree for us to meet them all after the parade, which we did. We had a good time. J was a bit iffy about it the whole time but at least he made the effort.

Then we met them again for brunch at Batutta's on Sunday morning. Both Saturday night and Sunday included Little Dyke and her missus, which was great too.

All in all a good time. I knew it wouldn't be too bad when it was only looming as an event...I had no idea it would be so good.

Isn't growth a good thing!

By the way, ignore my previous comments about it seeming 'quiet' for MG this year...biggest on record so they say.

Happy Mardis Gra!

Couldn't resist posting a quick remark on this day of all days.

Yes, it's Mardis Gra again. Tonight's parade and party night. Jonathan and I are not partaking this year, mainly due to money issues.

It's also a little bit complicated this year - Little Dyke and her missus from Auckland are here again but they're also here with Tony (my ex) and his partner. Frankly, I'm over that whole sad business enough to not care whether I see Tony or not but Jonathan's not that keen on the idea of hanging out with my first 'real' boyfriend.

I can understand how he feels but it frustrates me a bit that he won't accept that things with Tony ended years ago and I'm soooo over him it's not funny. Still, I will always choose respect for Jonathan's feelings over the prospect of spending time with Tony.

That said, we will be catching up with them for lunch tomorrow. I've told Jonathan that he's got to at least sit through that.

So, for a number of reasons, no homo party for us tonight. We'll be at home watching telly after a hard day's uni. J's at campus classes all day today while I'm here writing my first assignment for the year. Struggling to write, I should say.

Funnily enough with the recession and everything, the talk about town is that pre-parade activity is way down on previous years. You usually know it's coming up by all the chaos and mayhem about the city but according to a few taxi drivers I've been chatting to this week, you wouldn't even know it was on!