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How Did 2017 Treat You?


Virginia

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On a negative note, mine was very expensive - started off with a new boiler (which we didn't need) fitted by a bunch of cowboys who took over 3 weeks, messed us around and grossly overcharged us, then a new car (which OK I did need) in the spring, so it's been a very expensive year! 

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To be fair I cant wait to see the back of 2017 - been the hardest year of my life!

 

We have lost 4 amazing people from our lives this year - 3 of which were very unexpected and have really taught me that life is not to be taken for granted and oppertunities have to be taken as you dont know if you will ever get them again.

 

We are in process of moving away from where we are and relocating our business as others have gone back on there words and have ended up costing us nearly our business which has been difficult. We have had really bad money worries with the business because of this and I dont think I've actually slept properly since about April because of all the stress.

 

However I have learnt that I do have some amazing friends in life that have been there for us when others could not be bothered.

 

I cant complain too much as I am lucky enough to have a wonderful OH and amazing DS who i adore and they adore me back which is amazing as some people dont have that and we have our health which again is brilliant as a lot of people dont have that either!

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It has been a pretty exciting year all told for me and I expect (and hope) that next year will be the same.  

 

This time last year I had a big and somewhat unexpected promotion at work which although challenging to begin with has also led to a huge increase in my self confidence. I have had to deal with a few challenges along the way, not least because I inherited some pretty heavyweight staff issues that had not been dealt with, but I rolled my sleeves up and got on with it (with the help and support of my own Manager and our HR department) and when the dust finally settled I found myself in a much better position, as I was free to hand pick a brand new team. The three people I ended up with are brilliant and I couldn't wish for anything better.

 

We also changed our supplier about 6 months ago, so that has also been a learning curve, getting used to their way of doing things, and of course new products and a brand new sales rep. As soon as I started getting to know him he left, but we now have another new one whom I met for the first time yesterday. 

 

On a personal level, my relationship with Coran just gets better and better. I really do feel blessed to be married to someone like her, and am so grateful for all that she is and for the fact that I chose to stick around when she told me all those years ago about her need to change gender. It was looking back on it, and I never thought I would say this, the best thing that could have happened to us. 

 

We have some had some great times together this year going out and about and doing different things - we had a lovely weekend in Glastonbury in May and 2 weeks in the Channel Islands in June where Coran was invited to speak at the local Guernsey Trans group - we have kept in touch with the organiser, a young trans man. We also went to see one of my (ours really, although I am a bigger fan then she is) favourite bands Sigur Ros in London in September, which was brilliant - but very loud. I am off to Iceland on Boxing Day to see them there as well - something I have been waiting a long time for. Since seeing my first live opera in Prague in October 2016 I have become somewhat of a fan and I have seen plenty more of these this year as well - mostly live cinema screenings, although I did go to a live one in Malta as well. 

 

I have had some great solo trips as well this year - to Malta in February, and Croatia in September/October, both of which I loved. I have trips to Spain and Montenegro to look forward to next hear and am thinking about some of the Baltic states as well for the summer.

 

I have been a lot more politically active this year as well - Coran and I joined the Lib Dems after the 2015 election and have become quite active locally, helping to promote their message on social media, delivering leaflets and so on. We also went to their Southeast Regional Conference last month, which was more interesting than it sounds. We have been on a few protest marches this year mostly to do with Brexit, which I have enjoyed actually. Trans Pride Brighton at the end of July was good fun as well. Then of course there are all the books I have read - 88 and counting!  

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Loved reading your post Talisman.  Am so glad that you had such a rewarding 2017. This little snippet caught my eye:

 

On 05/12/2017 at 5:59 PM, Talisman said:

We also went to see one of my (ours really, although I am a bigger fan then she is) favourite bands Sigur Ros in London in September, which was brilliant - but very loud. I am off to Iceland on Boxing Day to see them there as well - something I have been waiting a long time for.

 

I first came across this band in 2016, when their film 'Heima' was shown at the Leeds International Film Festival as part of an Arctic/sub-Arctic thread (I'm fascinated with Scandinavia and polar regions).  The film blew me away, and I've rapidly developed into a big fan - and I'm not usually into much beyond classical!  So, it was really interesting to read that they were somebody else here's favourite too.  I'm really quite green about your prospective Boxing Day trip!

 

It's been a fairly momentous year (totally unexpectedly so) for us too - but more of that in a separate post when I've got a bit more time!

 

(PS, we joined the Lib Dems in 2015 too, even if not quite as active as you!).

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There you go then willoyd we have two great things in common. I have been a fan of Sigur Ros for years and a fan of Iceland for even longer! I first went to Iceland in 1984 and first heard of Sigur Ros in 2001, when I wandered into a Reykjavik record store and asked them if they had some Icelandic music to recommend. They handed me a copy of Aegetis Byrjun and I have never looked back. I took it home, played it and was hooked. I have bought pretty much everything they have done both before that album and since. I have seen them twice in London - for the first time in 2013 just before Kveikur was released and for the second time just recently. I have always though wanted to see them in Iceland, so when I heard via their mailing list that they were doing some concerts out there I jumped at the chance. I was straight online the moment the booking opened as I knew they were bound to be a sell out as of course they are. It's a small venue with just 1500 seats and I am in the 10th row so it should be brilliant.

 

It has since been announced that this is more than just concerts but a four day music festival featuring all their favourite artists who are flying in from literally all over the world. The tickets for this are being sold separately, and sadly I won't be able to go to this, as I have to be back at work before the four days are up. It was tempting to change my flight and come back a day later than I had planned so that I could stay for one extra day until 29th December, but most of the artists I am interested in are performing on the last day of the festival - 30th December and I definitely have to be back by then. I just have to keep reminding myself then that it is Sigur Ros I wanted to see and that is the reason I wanted to go, rather than all this other stuff, which nice as it would have been is not the reason why I wanted to go. You would no doubt have fit if I told you how much I am paying for the privilege but happily I have just learnt that I am getting a rather nice tax refund which will pay for most of the trip anyway.

 

It will be a great way to end the year that's for sure.:clapping: 

Edited by Talisman
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2017 has been a pretty great year for me, and it hasn't been often (if ever) I could say that. It started off on a very bleak note, as I came out the other side of losing my favourite house I've ever rented, having to take what I could get (a miserable, dirty student house shared with like 5 guys), and adapting to taking medication for the first time ever for my anxiety after I basically had a breakdown in November/December 2016, partially due to losing the house but also due to inability to go through with a job interview that I should have done and just the pressure on every level weighing down on top of the day to day anxiety. Christmas also wasn't great in 2016 as we all knew my dad would be leaving after Christmas, and the stress, anxiety, and financial difficulty that still plagues my mum to this day as she attempts to pay enough that the loan companies don't take her to court to repo her house, has been unpleasant to say the least. That said, she has been seeing a nice man recently, which has lifted her spirits endlessly and which I am delighted about.

 

For me though, after those first couple of months, 2017 started looking up, and up, and up. I met my OH at the start of Feb and by May (partially coz he needed a tenant to help pay rent, he'd been paying 800 a month since his ex-wife left in 2016, and partially because I was living in a hole) I moved in with him. I can't really get my head around how much my life has changed since then. It just works so well and feels so natural that it's actually very easy to take for granted that, yes, of course we live together and are together etc. But sometimes it hits me how fortunate I am. I got a lovely house in a lovely quiet neighbourhood and a dog out of the deal too. On top of that, my job contract was supposed to end in September, so I did a course in Medical Admin so I'd have some kind of admin speciality behind me going hunting for an admin job (really all I'm qualified to do). As it turned out, my contract got extended a month, and then three months, and the job I bailed on last year is coming up again, and everyone wants me to go for it. No guarantee I'll get it as it's a university and they have strict guidelines on assessing candidates, but still. And on top of all THAT, I learned just how much I don't want to work in admin when I discovered a single-semester 6 module certificate course (Level 8, basically equating to half an undergrad), online in the other main college here in Cork. It was in Digital Media Development and Design, and was created as a special purpose award for seguing into a Masters in E-Learning. So I did the course (with modules like Animation and Sound, Creative Strategies, Digital Cultures, and E-Learning), loved every second of it, applied for the Masters, and got offered a place.

 

So that will begin in Feb. I'll be doing it part-time (not least because it's too expensive to do in one go, but also because the single-semester course was way too intense while working full time). The masters is also all online, so flexible around work. And, if I get the job, the work will align nicely with the masters, because I'll be working in a training centre. AND even if it doesn't work out, I've now got a cert and will be working on a masters in digital media, instructional design and e-learning, which will hopefully open up job opportunities in an area I'd prefer. (Basically what I've been doing all along, but with a bit of academia to back it up.)

 

So yeah, if I can just get that job here in UCC, which will probably come up in January, that will be the absolute icing on the cake. It's really weird coming to the end of a year that didn't suck. This is usually my time of melancholic contemplation during which I think about how crappy my year was but how I got through it anyway, Happiness is a nice change.

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Great idea for a thread, Virginia!

 

How lovely to read what lovely years some of you have had, though I was sorry to hear that you had such a horrid year, Laura, I hope that 2018 is much better for you. :friends3:

2017 has been pretty good to us, I still have my Obi dog, despite a big scare a month or so ago, he has bounced back and though slow he is still enjoying life in his own special way. :wub:

My two eldest both did well in their A Levels/GCSE's, my son didn't fancy university so is working as an estate agent locally, and enjoying it, whilst my daughter has started at Sixth Form college, studying Psychology, Photography and to my delight, English Lit!  My little man, though not so little now, just lives for his football and PS4, and goes to school because I'd go to prison if he didn't! :P

I've had two wonderful holidays, the first to Amsterdam with my daughter as a treat for working her for her exams, and the second with the whole family to Split, Croatia; what an amazing place, we will definitely be returning at some point, the scenery is beautiful, there is so much to do and it is still relatively clean and unspoilt.

The only downside was injuring my knee in June playing netball, I really messed it up and am still having physio. It is slowly getting better though and there are people all around me dealing with far worse. We are planning to go skiing in February though, not sure how that will go! :wacko:

 

Have a fabulous Christmas and a happy and healthy 2018 everyone! :cheers:

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On a personal basis 2017 has been pretty good even if the political and social situation at home and abroad has been bad. At the start of the year I left my work secondment in Spain to return to working in the UK. Working away from home and living in hotels isn't for me and I'm much happier being able to relax at home after a days work. I did a lot of leisure traveling in the middle of the year and did a mini-tour of Scotland visiting some of the most spectacular places I've ever seen. A new niece arrived in September which now means that there are 2 little girls to give us all the run-around at family gatherings.

 

I hope everyone has a great 2018.

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