A New Year

Well Christmas and the New Year celebrations are now over and we are back in normal routines. For me that means I'm back on the job hunt again though I had to keep on top of my automatic job alert emails during Christmas so they didn't pile up. It is a quiet period on the job front but that is expected after the holidays. It was nice to not have to think about jobs and other things over the holidays too much. We had a nice mixture of relaxation, spending time with family and various excursions including my first trip up Cave Hill which overlooks Belfast as well as the area around where I live despite me having lived fairly close to it all my life. Christmas Day was very nice, as always I was spoilt by my parents and my brother but I think everyone was happy with what they received. We visited family members on the day and were very entertained by my cousins very hyper puppy. We had a lovely Christmas dinner just the four of us before having a relaxing night to ourselves. For New Year we never really do anything exciting, my brother was away so I just had a quiet night in with my parents.

Views from Cave Hill

For Christmas I got various different presents including a nice leather guitar strap which has been great for me as it a bit more padded and more comfortable than the seat belt style strap that I had been using as well as a multiple photo frame for my bedroom wall. I had also treated myself to a Nintendo Switch having gotten a great deal on Black Friday. I had resisted opening it until Christmas helped by the fact I was playing through God of War on the PS4 (great game!). I had gotten Mario Kart with it and I also received Mario Odyssey for Christmas. I'm really enjoying it especially the hybrid nature of it being able to play it on the TV or take the console out and play it as a handheld.

With the beginning of a new year it's hard not to think that time is flying by but at the same time it seems like a long time since the major events. 2018 was a bit of a strange year for me, after spending most of December 2017 waiting for my suggested revisions for my PhD thesis to be sent to me I finally got them at the start of January. Having submitted the thesis the first time, then having to defend it, going back to make changes to it including changes to the appearance, reference list etc. is frustrating. I spent the period from January to the middle of March working on it and it was difficult due to the examiner asking for things that weren't necessary or in some cases weren't even possible and he was very poor at responding to emails. It was also very frustrating working on such a large document in Microsoft Word when formatting what should be simple things becomes very difficult like having two images of the same size with captions on a number of pages like I had. I was finally happy with it and I submitted to my examiner only to have to wait until the middle of April to get it signed off. By this time I had started properly applying for jobs and learnt some harsh lessons about not even being invited to interview despite being qualified for a job.

With my thesis finally signed off I made my final checks before getting it printed and hardbound and submitting it to the university as well as the organisation who funded my PhD. My job search became my main focus although I've tried to also enjoy my free time while I can. I started meeting up with an employment advisor from a hearing loss charity and ended up working to improve my interview technique. I ended up having quite a few interviews in some cases I had two interviews on the one day but unfortunately didn't receive any offers despite thinking that certain interviews had gone rather well.

It wasn't all about the job hunt though, we had the excitement of our trip to London, having our original flight cancelled, then having to fly to Southampton and get a taxi to London with the surreal experience of arriving in a snow covered London late at night. 2018 was the year of my first music festival which I really enjoyed. We also had our holiday to Majorca which was lovely and two trips to the north coast although as my last post mentioned it was a rather mixed trip due to the loss of our cat Milo. There was also the disappointment of Northern Ireland's Nations League campaign but at least they showed that they can play well they just need to put the ball in the net!

One minor achievement I had this year was finally switching to a solid breakfast, no longer relying on the Fortisip drink, in fact the last time I actually had a Fortisip was when I took one with me to the music festival in August. I no longer get Fortisip on prescription and hopefully I won't ever feel the need to get it again. I try to go out for a walk every day as well as playing five a side football once a week (if we can get the numbers) as well as being a volunteer dog walker for two hours a week all of which means I feel pretty good physically though things may slip once I'm in full time employment.

My main hope for 2019 is for me to get a good job, I think once I get a job then that will open up other opportunities but that is not always the case. I imagine I will continue to deal with the BAHA issue and explore my options in terms of model and whether or not I would consider the surgery. One of my closest friends is getting married this year so i am looking forward to that and of course I am looking forward to seeing Captain Marvel and Avengers Endgame which is meant to be the end of an era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Thanks for reading!