Monday, June 19, 2006

Emotional whiplash...

The last time that I posted to this blog I was full of the excitement and anticipation that comes with preparing to start a new job. My head was full of the possibilities that it could bring. As is the way with these things, you cannot fully realise what something is going to be like before you experience it first hand, and starting a job is no different.

Handing in my notice was my first new experience during this period. I had been in that job since I graduated University, in fact a little while before that (but that, as they say, is another story for another day). This new experience was underwhelming in the least, work was busy and the last month past much as the five and half years before it had. I handed over what little knowledge I had that others didn't, we did the whole leaving drinks thing (which resulted in many great camera phone pictures) and that was that.

Then came the first day of the new job, with lots of people to meet, lots of administrative crap to deal with (not that there appears to be any less after 6 months) and a period of not much to do. Christmas it seems is a very slow time in any industry, except North Pole exports.

So now I am 6 months into the new job, facing my first mid-year review, and wondering where the time has gone. It has made me remember other new starts, school, University, placement year and my first job, all of which went equally as fast and equally as slow. You can never quite place the point at which the new became the current and then began to become the "same old, same old", but it always happens.

Routine comes easily when you are working away from home, as I have been each week since the middle of February. Back then I said goodbye to my friends, who understood that I would not have much time until I got on a job back in London. Back then I thought the job back in London would come a bit more quickly than this.

So 6 months have past. Sometimes it is hard to remember my old life, and at other times it feels like I am still on an extended holiday from it, waiting till I go back. Strange.