Back 'home'

I loved Christmas this year. My only regret is that I booked my ticket while drunk. Okay, I wasn't drunk, but that's the only way I can explain why I would have myself fly back so that I could work on the slowest work day of the year, December 28, instead of enjoying a few more days with the family, relaxing, watching football games, taking advantage of super-cheap US-dollar sales...oh well. I get to relax and watch football here, too, it's just on a four-inch screen on my laptop instead of Mom and Alan's 50" TV with surround sound. But that's just numbers. Right.

Anyway, back to the good stuff! Matt and I drove up to the mountain house Sunday morning, arrived in time for lunch. We started putting together a puzzle, pretty much a tradition in my family now, this one I had brought with me from London. And the four days pretty much went like that. It's almost like going into retirement for a test drive, or back in time about 20 years. No internet, no cell phone, no cable - we read, puzzled, went for long walks, watched the extended version of The Return of the King, and pretty much forgot the rest of the world. We went down to my aunt and uncle's house for the day on Christmas Eve, which was awesome, because as my aunt said, I get to see them more now than before I moved to London! It has been a pretty frequent set of trips lately, I'm getting spoiled. Also getting a bit worn out, the traveling wipes me out more than I realize sometimes. I slept 13 hours Friday night and 11 hours last night!

I've made some fairly ambitious New Year's Resolutions. I don't usually do resolutions, but the year is ending as I'm already in a very introspective evaluation-of-my-life phase, so it just fits. One is the guitar, another the piano. I brought back my guitar, so that's been fun to pluck away at, I re-taught myself the one song I learned to play years ago - Time in a Bottle. Random song to learn, but I like playing it. Need to find some other songs so I can learn one a week (that was the resolution). The piano comes Thursday! I don't have a specific goal for it, just to play as much as possible. Once I see how often I get to play, I'll figure out a realistic goal.

Socialising

I move a lot. I make new friends, but rarely hang on to them past the next move. Really, since college, I haven't made a friend that has become close enough to last through the every-six-month changes I go through. This isn't a complaint, I'm fortunate to have a few really good friends from high school and college so I don't feel like I'm lacking friends. But what I've noticed about this current set-up, where I come back to the US so often, is that I get the chance to see people who normally wouldn't last through this move, but because I can sustain the friendship by every 3 months visits, they're lasting a bit longer. It's kinda nice! Last night, I went out with a few friends from work, and then had some people over to the house to hang out and dring mulled wine. It's a nice balance - I have just enough people and depth of relationships for a social life so I don't go crazy bored when I here, but not so much that I miss life here terribly.

What is weird is having this conflict of interest - I love being with people and going out so much more now, but it's still only a very close second to loving being on my own, playing the piano, reading, going for walks. I couldn't decide whether I wanted the house (and new 50" screen TV) to myself last night, or to go to dinner/drinks with my work friends. Fortunately, the dilemma was solved because we are going to the mountains today, where I'll have plenty of chances for 'space.'

It's December 23! As soon as my brother wakes up (I'm unfortunately wide awake since 6:30am) we'll drive to the mountains, then tomorrow we have Christmas with my aunt and uncle and cousins in Winston-salem, and then it's our Christmas :D Going to be such a fun and fast week...I'll be back on the plane Thursday before I have time to register which country I'm in!

I made it!

I'm in my Mom's house, with her beautiful decorations skillfully placed everywhere, presents under the tree, ready to enjoy 6 fabulous relaxing days with my family. Christmas is great. I can't remember the last time I was this excited about the holiday! It's a good sign that for all the questions I can't escape, I'm generally happy and able to appreciate the joy of flying in for just the week. Even though this was the worst trip I've had from London to Raleigh...took over 12 hours with a delayed connection and I have now stayed up to what my body thinks is the next day and I have probably ruined my chances at adjusting properly to the time zone..but who cares! All I have to do this week is eat, sleep, laugh, give and receive gifts, and take long walks in the mountains. Bring it on, jet lag, I will have fun despite you!!

INTP

When I was 16, I was having a major crisis. Like many teenagers, I had no friggin' clue what I wanted to do with my life. What should I pick for a major in college, where should I go to college, what did I want as a 'career.' It was all a huge question mark. So one of the things my mom was advised to do was have me take the Myers-Briggs personality test. One fun Saturday, I headed out to a testing center, and it was thus determined I was an INTP:

"Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical."

From this, we determined that my current front-runner in career choices, engineering, was a good fit, and I should go for it. So I did. Except this pesky love of piano playing kept tugging at my heart, and I couldn't really settle myself with engineering unless I could find a way to fit music in there too, and then the double major idea was born, and then the auditions to go along with that, and then the eventual abandonment of the engineering altogether.

Weird how it all panned out. Now I think I may have moved toward somewhat of a hybrid with an ENTP:

"Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another."

...and 12 years later, I'm still no closer to knowing what I want to do with my life.

I thought about taking the test again for kicks, but why? So I know more about myself, and still nothing about where myself should be? What I actually needs is the guts to go try something that I could fail. Something I actually, really, truly want.

Taking a moment to say...

I'm really lucky. Blessed. Fortunate. Grateful.

I have a wonderful family in North Carolina who love me and I get to visit at least once every three months, AND an amazing house of what is now my London "family" - my flatmates. We just had our Christmas and cooked a fabulous meal and exchanged gifts, drank champagne, did the traditional English Christmas crackers and wore our little paper hats, it was just a lovely evening all around. Everyone chipped in with groceries, cooking, cleaning, prepping...really cool.

I have a piano that is "mine" back in NC that my mom keeps for me and uses to teach, so I get to help her in that way, and hold on to an instrument that was a big part of my life for a few years, AND I will have a piano that I rent here in London as of January 3. I decided to go for it, and especially after tonight's festivities, I think that the choice to get a piano for at least 6 months and commit to stay here is the right one.

There are so many other things like this, but I'm so exhausted I can't think of anything but how excited I am about sleeping. :)

The piano and me

I went out with a friend from work tonight, to an awesomely English pub (wooden beams, cozy Christmas decor, cottage-y feel to it) and had a great time venting about various life decisions, situations, politics, work, etc. It was fun! And best of all, we reached the realization that my current stress is all the piano's fault. See, I want to rent a piano. But if I do, it means I'm staying in this current living situation for a while, and I'm not sure that is good for my sanity. I hate my commute, and there is someone home more and more of the time, which doesn't do well for my need-my-space side. So let's say I go ahead and get one anyway. The piano will be in the foyer, next to the living room, where the TV is. So anytime someone else is home chilling, I won't want to or be able to play the piano, because it will either disturb the TV-watching, or just bug me that I have an audience. This in turn will only cause me to further resent my flatmates for just being there, something entirely irrational and not great for good relationships or an all-around warm-fuzzy house. The logical solution for this is to move out to my own place and live by myself. But then I have to find somewhere on a ground floor with enough space for a piano. Oh, and I have to be able to afford it. Chances of finding such place in London = .001% So then I decide to work really hard at finding a way to afford this place, and I'm right back to figuring out what I'm going to do in life next year and where Lulu fits into that story.

Sigh. Why can't I play the oboe?

The importance of sleep

Okay, so last Monday night I decided to stay up and watch Monday Night Football. It was fun, I got my dose of american culture, and went to bed before the Patriots pulled out a victory. I hate Tom Brady. Sorry, had to vent. But at least I got to go to sleep happy, because at 3:30am GMT the Ravens were winning. :)

However, this pretty much killed my week. I could not recover from the lost sleep! Getting old is really no fun. I had a "launch" to go to Tuesday night, which was a fun experience, much more low key than it could have been, so that helped my exhausted brain not to have to work too hard. (I had stayed up sunday night too, so monday was just the nail in my coffin).

I had a meeting on Wednesday, so I had to muster all intelligent-sounding speech for that hour, and then I was finished for the week. Managed to get what what essential completed, and the rest was just fighting to survive. Miserable!

Thursday I got to 'entertain' a friend in town from the US, and we did the Soho thing and then ate yummy Indian food - may have been the best I've had yet :) That was a fun night, but didn't help with the sleep deprivation. Friday night I went home after a stop by Blockbuster and shut myself in for the night - it was great - slept almost 12 hours.

For some crazy reason I decided to brave Hamleys (huge toy store, like FAO Schwartz) on Saturday and drag two co-workers with me...in the rain and cold. It was insane! There were so many people in the store they stopped letting people in for a while! Five floors with escalators packed with people, kids, toys, madness. Not sure I could or would ever do that again, but it was 'fun' for the experience of it. And I managed to get the last couple things on my list.

The rest of my weekend was just relaxing, though, slept 12 hours on Saturday night, and Monday morning I felt like I could face my week! Today was an added bonus, I worked from home, which meant I had time to go running, go to the store for lunch, and fix a decent dinner for myself :)

Career Goals

I've been thinking a lot lately about a question I was asked at work last week - what are your career goals?

Honest answer? I don't have any. I didn't even want a career until I found myself in one last year. But, I have been able to come up with some sort of answer to the question. I see it basically as two options:

1) Make a lot of money in a 'career' so that I have the means to make a difference, travel, and make music. In other words, I can live somewhere nice, buy a Steinway grand for my house, go wherever I want, and spend money and influence and time to support causes I'm passionate about.

2) Find a way to make a difference, travel and make music as a living, and the money doesn't matter so much. Like teaching music in an impoverished area, or working for an NGO, or pursuing music full time.

Both kinda freak me out - option one because I don't know what I'd be like with money and whether I could actually keep myself grounded and do what the point of the money was to start with. Option two because it's more intangible, and I can't believe I'd be so lucky to actually find a way to make it happen. :)

But you know what's amazing about this silly basic question that people get asked all the time? I finally have an answer to it, and I'm letting someone know about it. May not last longer than this week, but it's a new thing for me to have, and I like it.

So here is the problem - I'm not really on track to do either. And I'm 28. Twenty-eight! How did that happen so quickly? Sigh. Fortunately, I'm in London. There's nothing stopping me from doing whatever I want to do except fear and laziness, both of which I'm pretty well stocked in these days. But I now have the secret weapon of a written out 'goal' at my disposal, so maybe this will be interesting.

I think my first plan of action is to go all out at my current job for six months. Push myself and get some key objectives completed, see where that takes me. If it looks like I have a decent chance at either moving up there quickly or using it as a stepping stone, I'll go for option 1 for a while. If it looks like that isn't happening, or I find I'm really just not cut out for that life, then I spend some time researching how I'm going to go for option 2, and just do it.

That was a fun exercise. :)

To car or not to car?

I will tell about my weekend in a comparison story of two days, which will hopefully show the joy and the pain of living in a big city without a car.

Saturday:

I get up around 10:30am, go for a nice run around the neighborhood. Back home to fix my smoothie for the morning, shower, and then head back out to go look at rental pianos and buy some things at the market. I figure out I can take the number 6 bus straight there, and so I'm all excited, I thought, hey this should be quick and easy. Apparently, so did half the population of London's west end. So I'm crowded in more and more, and then traffic grinds to a halt, and my iPod runs out of battery so I'm forced to listen to the mindless dribble of everyone around me while crawling along about 2 feet per minute. Finally, I lose it and get off the bus to walk the rest of the way, and realize that the weather has gone from sunny to raining in 20 minutes, and I'm stuck with no umbrella, hat, or raincoat!! So I have to walk the rest of the way in the rain, finally reaching the store not nearly as excited as when I left. The pianos, at least, were worth the trip, and I went back home on a slightly less crowded bus. Problem B arises when I want to go to the grocery store, and then have to go to the little store on the way which has not nearly enough to count as a grocery store and walk back with a bottle of champers and all my stuff.

Then that night, it's time to go out to a champagne party (hence the earlier purchase) which is on the other side of town. So I get all dolled up and headed out to the bus. Except I got on, the driver pulls out, and only after I'd started fumbling through my purse did I realize that I had taken out my Oyster card (travel card) from its holder and thus could not pay for my journey!! So the driver makes me get off at the next stop, and I am stuck further away from the house, in the cold and wind, with no place to buy a new card in sight. Plus, I have now discovered I didn't write down exactly how to get to the party from the closest tube stop, and my phone started beeping that it would die any minute. So I have to turn around and walk all the way home! Seriously wishing I had a car the whole, freezing, freaking way. Chill out at home for a bit, then my flatmate is heading out to that side of town too, and so we leave together, this time with Oyster card. Party is really fun, actually, stay until after 4am...and then the travel adventure begins again as the tube is closed so the only way home is a combination of buses. First I have to wait 20 minutes out in the cold for one bus, ride that 20 minutes and then change and wait 15 minutes in the cold for the second and ride another 20 minutes. Finally home at almost 6am...again, car would have been really nice...

Sunday:
I wake up nice and late, pretty well rested considering. Rearrange my room, have breakfast, get dressed. Wind is blowing something terrible, but eventually calms down and my flatmate and I decide to go to the market. Bus takes us straight there, we wander around, walk to Notting Hill Gate stopping at all sorts of fun places along the way, get coffee, find this hilarious Star Wars novelty that will be in my brother's stocking (teehee if you read this Matt...you'll see soon enough). Then my other flatmate calls and he's out at a nice pub near our house with a friend, so we head back to meet them for Sunday roasts (okay sunday salmon for me, but I'm the oddball pseudo-vegetarian of the group). Nice place, drinks, coffee, and a short walk home with help for a few stops from the bus. So cool not to need or have a car for any of that - and so much of that wouldn't have happened as easily or as well with a car. This is life, though...can't have the best of both worlds unless you're filthy rich. :)

Sad that I took twice as many words to describe the pain of no car than the joy of no car. Much easier to elaborate when complaining than reveling, unfortunately.