flying into the future

Happy December 1st everybody! It is officially the first day of summer. It is my first real summer in a long time - i managed to skip last years by being in the wrong hemisphere. Should have picked my travel dates better - i'm definately a summer person.

It is hard to imagine that one year ago i was in the midst of my big adventure, the happenings of which are perminantly etched in the pages that precede this scroll. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday, sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. Sometimes I wish it was now, sometimes I'm glad it's over. Most of the time now I am happy about it. It didn't work out the way I had planned, but that is not necessary for it to have been a wild success. Did I grow for it all? Undoubtedly. It was the most intensely interesting, fun, amazing, wonderful, terrifying, exhilerating and satisfying time... it is but another building block of the person I am today.

I found out a new colleague at work used to manage one of the sites of a restaurant i worked at for a brief stint back in '03. I came clean and confessed that for 3 weeks I was a waiter. I told her how i quit because waitering was too stressful for me and I hated it. She interrupted me at this point and said "hang on a second... being a waiter is too stressful for you and now you work in an emergency communications center?". Made me think maybe I have grown up in the past few years afterall. I'm all about life and death now ;).

Actually I've been thinking about my work situation... and as much as I enjoy it and thrive on the chaos and strangeness of it all, it is one of those jobs that has a tendency to take over one's life. It is never healthy to have work constantly swirling through your head. So for some time now I have been seeking a hobby... i mean other than movies, xbox and drinking. I considered learning to sail or something... but then the other night i had a dream that i died in a plane crash. Far from being distressing it simply put flying on my mind, and i thought maybe flying would be more fun than sailing. So i've booked myself in for a lesson on Tuesday! I will be flying a two-seater Cessna 152 from Wellington Airport, touring the skies above the city and harbor for 40 minutes, before coming back to land. If I like it i'll make flying lessons a regular thing and set out to go solo and get my pilots licence.

Also this coming extended weekend (i'm off saturday thru tuesday) - Visiting parents on Saturday to view house renovations, 'farewell' party at Log Central on Saturday night (he's moving to Whitby), bowling on sunday with work group, followed by a 'uge barbeque with my colleuges for our group's christmas party. And on Thursday, which is not officially part of the extended weekend is the center-wide christmas party at zebo's. Its gonna be non-stop this summer, i'm going to make sure of it.