T Minus 6 Weeks and Counting …

I finish up at work tomorrow, after six years at the same company I am finally moving along.  December will be filled with frantic organisation, my moleskin thrums with activity to make even the most hardy GTD jedi knight gasp in awe, and I will tackle with increased gusto the discarding of personal effects hoarded over the years.  the movers arrive in early January and we board our plane shortly thereafter bound for a new country and a new life. 

The pendulum arc of emotions range from excitement and optimism to the throat clasping ‘oh my God what have I done’ but those who have moved life and country assure me this is a perfectly normal reaction and not due to horrible disorders of my autonomic nervous system. 
Tonight is our work Christmas function where I can say goodbye in good cheer to people who I’ve known for a long time even if the cogs, enthusiasm and workings of the job have long since gone luke-warm.

It is indeed a great moment in time, a closure on things now done and a crisp new page on which to etch a new beginning.

Tags: job, emigration, leaving, christmas, party, closure, GTD

The Next Generation of Tolkien Appreciation

Tonight I started reading The Hobbit to my 5 year old and was amazed by how easily he took to the story. Wide eyed he begged for another 5 minutes and was bouncing around at the thoughts of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, The dwarves and Mr. Gandalf setting off on an adventure: those "nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things that make you late for your dinner."

So much better than TV.

A Leaving List

As part of the psychological preparation for emigrating, psychologists recommend a list of reasons why you would want to go. I am preparing such a list and am adding to it regularly. I don’t want to take up too much space on my blog with what is happening at the moment in SA but for those interested my list is here: http://www.forsyth.co.za/leaving/

Enough with the Diabetic Pets

For the last six months the Labrador is getting two insulin shots, one in the morning with breakfast and the other in the evening with dinner. Now our one cat also has diabetes, I mean what are the odds? Two pets with diabetes, costing me an arm and a leg in insulin and syringes.

Now the thing that I find interesting and very annoying is both these pets are eating the very expensive vet approved pet food. The cats and dogs enjoy the Hill’s range of foods that are unavailable from your local supermarket or pet shop. You know the kind of food I mean, the type that is perfectly nutritionally balanced – so why the pancreatic melt-down? Growing up we had 2 Rhodesian Ridgebacks that both lived to be older than 13, they ate Epol from the supermarket – cheap dog food.

Go figure!

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More Career Changes to Come

In my ubiquitous quest for personal meaning I may be making one final change to my career stream as from next year.  I have contacted UNISA and found out what would be required for me to make the change to Psychology.  As I have a degree already I require only psychology modules and as I have majored in psychology as a part of my Masters I should be able to go straight into the honors program.  This means I could get back into the social and health services within the next 2–3 years whereas if I were to proceed with the business degree I am looking at another 6 years of study on a genre’ that really holds very little appeal.

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
Viktor E. Frankl

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Bonsai Garden

I love how my bonsai are taking up chunks of my warm Saturday afternoons, whether it be sketching, planting, potting or pruning. Jill and I have a good few trees now, each demanding our attention in different ways, the windswept Natal Fig (Ficus natalensis) needs to be facing the right way to catch the afternoon sun so all the branches grow in the same way, our paper-bark needs to have it’s moss sprayed in the heat of the day and the Bauhinia needs a little more soil after a recent planting. Last night I did some sketches of a few trees which I may post if I am feeling brave and this morning we saved a small Bougainvillea tree from certain doom by repotting him as a bonsai. I can quite happily see myself at some point in the future running a nursery with a large bonsai garden and clinic.

Above is a picture of our trees on their new shelving, click on the image for a larger one.

Below is the latest addition to our garden, it is a paper-bark tree (Commiphora harveyii) bought at Rocky Glen Nursery on the South Coast. It was bought native in plastic wrapping and took a lot of pruning and love to get it looking like that, again click to get a larger image.

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The wall, part 2

The migration quest continues. I have hit the wall a bit with the current migration agent we are using, I need a second opinion. In this vain I have sent out about 16 requests to different agents detailing our circumstances in the hope that someone will have experience with this extended family arrangement. If it turns out that all say similar things then we will probably stick with Arams as we have gone a certain distance with them already.

There was a time where emotional dependency was considered in cases such as this but now it is down to 100% wholly financially dependent upon the primary applicant and that is what we have to prove if we are going to be successful.

I find this a sad state of affairs, it effectively says that a person, not of working age, can no longer contribute successfully to the society in which they live.

Hints of things to come, part 1

Ahh nothing like grabbing your togs, thongs ‘n a cuppela stubbys with your favourite grog in the tucker-bag. Sitting with your feet up in front of the bush-telly, amber fluid by your side and the shrimps sizzling gently on the barbie. Definite Fair suck of the sav I tell you! [where is my slang dictionary!]

The clock is now ticking down, the plans are in motion and the outcome yet uncertain .. we shall see!