2008: a retrospective (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
Since I skipped my retrospective last year, it's about high time that I do another one. So... I've read through the complete archives of 2008 and here's the really big, noteworthy stuff that's happened to us this year...As I mentioned below, Dana is surely the biggest event of the year! We were completely surprised by the pregnancy, after we'd been trying to conceive for two years. Quite frankly we'd given up hope for the time being and we'd decided to try something else with our lives. And then she appeared :) We went through a bit of a scare halfway through but finally, on the 17th of September, Dana was born.
Dana's appearence had some rather profound effects on our lives.
We decided that Marli was to be a stay-at-home mom, to always be there for the young lady. This would mean that she'd have to leave her wonderful job at the dutch railways, of which all of us were so damn proud. All in all she's only seen half a year's active duty at the NS, but in that short period of time she managed to make a lot of friends and a lasting impression on her superiors.
All of this however also meant that I had to postpone my college education. I went back to college in the summer of 2007, studying to become a maths teacher, because I'd become fed up with my career in IT. I had even reached the point at which I'd started interviewing for teaching positions. I've learnt a lot in that one year and it's a wonderful feeling to know that I was able to handle both a fulltime job AND studies at college at the same time! In the end I finished my first year with a 100% scorecard and a great experience to look back on. The one event that has left the biggest impresion on me would be the first time I taught a class.
Knowing that I was "doomed" to stay in IT for at least the next five years I took a long, hard look at my career and, like before, decided that I didn't like what I saw. After about two months of job searching and interviewing I decided to go and work for Unixerius. The breakup with Snow wasn't without its flaws and I went through a bit of a quarrel with one of my superiors, but so far my decision seems to have been a good one. We come out of the deal with a solid financial position and with good prospects for the future.
This newly improved solvability has led us to search for new housing. Specifically we're looking for a larger and more modern home that will last us at least ten years (and maybe a second child). Since houses like these don't come cheap in the west of the Netherlands we're even considering a rather ballsy move: moving to the countryside. We're still checking out all of our options (as well as all of the downsides) and, while things might get tough, we're hopeful that we'll manage to get a nice house.
Since I quit school I've been spending most of my free time with Marli and Dana. What little time I have left is mostly spent on Japan. I've been very interested in the country for more than fifteen years now, and last year I finally managed to spend two weeks in Japan. I made the trip with a few good friends (apparently leaving a few days after conceiving Dana) and my love for the country has only gotten stronger ever since. Even if this was the only time I'll ever visit Japan I'm still overjoyed because I got to meet one of my heroes: Haruo Suekichi.
So... That about sums up the big stuff that happened to us in 2008 :)
Here's a few more tidbits:
* Apparently I'm going to hell, either for this or for this.
* I've started donating blood.
* We've gotten confirmation about the cause of my hyperventilation.
* I paid my first visit to Anime 200x as a visitor since 2002.
* Over the course of last year I made little over three hundred postings to this website ^_^
Posted in: 2008 , retrospective
