Fag End of Another Year

So, here we are at the fag end of another year. It's that period when we all rake through the ashes of the months gone by, looking for some evidence that we've achieved something, that we've somehow moved our lives along. That's not to say that theses dying days of December can't still spring surprises, throwing up major news stories when we least expect them and are least prepared for them. A few years ago it was the tsunami, this year there's the shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. However, regardless of the import of such events, they ultimately cannot shake us from our introspection. I'm afraid that I'm not immune to the urge to look back over the last twelve months and beat myself up for having achieved fuck all during them.

Having said that, a lot has happened this year. I spent the first half of it juggling my regular day job with a new teaching placement as I put in the ninety or so hours I needed to complete my teaching qualification. I then spent another couple of months putting together the course work that had to accompany the teaching practice. All of this was punctuated by the various outbreaks of ill health I've chronicled elsewhere on this blog. Finally, by September I was a qualified teacher. That's right folks, I'm Doc Sleaze PGCE these days. Not that I'm actually teaching yet. I'm still doing my lousy day job to pay the bills while I try to find teaching work. Maybe that's why I initially felt that I hadn't achieved much this year - my actual everyday life has remained pretty much the same. I think that's part of the problem - we tend to measure 'progress' in terms of our personal circumstances. Just because I haven't got married/divorced/fallen in love, etc, doesn't mean that I haven't done something . OK, so I haven't done anything as tangible as having a novel published, getting a top ten hit or starring in a film. But getting that PGCE was still quite an achievement.