Some Updates, or The Last Year (and a bit)

1. I've quit my PhD. Paying too much for too little. Going nowhere. No potentially positive outcome. Vanity project. Etc etc...

2. I've buried my dearest friend. He died too young. It's a mark of the loss that the only person I feel I could properly talk to about it, is him.

3. I've found God. He was behind the fridge the whole time. /sarcasm

4. I've fallen in love. This time with a person and not an idea.

5. I've started writing a novel, or rather, I've started writing my thesis as a novel. Sort of. Vanity project, take two.

6. I've decided to try and post more regularly on the blog. That is, at all. Give it a week.

7. I've got a job I don't hate, but that doesn't pay that well and doesn't give me enough hours to live on.

8. I've got lovely hair. I'm told.

9. I've turned 34. Not dead yet, but feeling that I'm old! Urgh.

10. I've lost a dog. He died, he didn't run away. He was a good dog. Damn shame.

11. I've stopped being a Pescetarian. Decided I didn't really care enough to continue with the whole personal martyrdom thing.

12. I've made a good few friends. No, better, a few good friends. Maybe. People come and go I suppose.

13. I've got back in touch with someone I thought had drifted away for good (see above). Actually, it was all because of my mum. Thanks mum.

14. I've gone through the most serious and sustained period of depression in my life, thus far. It came before falling in love and before the death of my friend (this is perhaps more surprising) about a year ago. In the end nothing really brought me out of it, no single event anyway, I just came out the other side.

15. I've changed my name again. I've added my friend's and my dad's first names to my name. I'll talk more about this later.

16. I've decided that I'm better suited as an artist than as a philosopher, that I need to work creatively and openly and not in the confines of academia. What will come of this? We'll see.

17. I've also decided to not be so precious about certain things, i.e. maintaining a personal distance on the blog (hence this list), being overly concerned about upsetting some people (hence the joke @ 3), generally acting in a manner that protects my fears and does not combat them. There's only so much time.