Even Steven

With the help of C & R and A & M, K and I gently ushered in 2006 (our fresh, new, even year). After what Mapquest.co.uk (never using them again) quoted as 1.5 hour trip, turned out to be a "3-hour tour" of wrong turns, missed turns, and u-turns due to the appauling signage and road-laying sense of London-town (this happened the last time I tried to drive in London and I had sworn never to do it again), we arrived at C & R's new pad. Though we were one and half hours late, we had a great evening of chat, drinks, dinner, and a ceremonial lighting of three sparklers while standing around a small log-fire in their back-garden at the stroke of midnight. We could hear the big, professional fireworks going off in central London, but courtesy of various neighbors, we had a few fireworks burst above us as well. Then it began raining, so we headed back inside to while away another couple of hours talk and BS, capping off the night with the strangely amusing sight of A doing a one-footed tap-dance to pump up one of the air-matresses. Haven't laughed so hard in a long time. We all woke up this morning to croissants and coffee before K and I started our drive back down to lovely Winchester, A & M went into London for some sight-seeing, and C & R probably went back to bed for a nap before tackling the rest of the clean-up. Excepting the horrendous drive into London, it was a great New Year's Eve, bereft of vomit and loud dance music.

K and I got back to Winchester around 2pm and spent the afternoon reading the Sunday Times, so now it's time to uphold our yearly tradition of recapping the year that was.

---

2005 was a year of...

...Poverty... We hit a bit of a financial rough patch mid-year; were really concerned about whether or not we could even keep this "expatration" adventure going. For a small period of time, we considered tucking our tail between our legs and going back to the US. With the help of our supportive family, both mentally and financially, we were kept afloat and we fought through the rough patch. We're happy to report that things have been positive for the past several months and it looks like it will continue that way.

...Scholarship... R's Masters degree program in Film Archiving at UEA continued through August, encompassing coursework during the Winter and Spring, an internship at the Danish Film Institute in April, and then a summer-long slog of writing a 14,000+ word Masters dissertation. He successfully achieved the Masters degree, receiving the official notification at the end of October that he had been awarded the degree at "near distinction" level (i.e.- a B+ or "almost an A"). However, the scrap of paper will not be bestowed upon him until July this year, during the commencement ceremony. R was not the only scholarly-involved person, though. As a portion of her "pay" at her new job, K has been offered the opportunity of doing a PhD for free; an opportunity, she will be taking advantage of, though not officially until this coming "academic season." Farther afield, K's sister was accepted into Linfield's nursing program. And R's sister graduated university in August and started her first job a week or so later at a large international accounting firm.

...Employment... To support R during his studies, K held two part-time jobs (at first): one at the Theatre Royal as a box office assistant and another at East (a clothing shop) as a sales gal. She dropped the retail job in January and accepted a full-time slot at the theatre box office, which eventually led to a promotion in July to a Duty Manager and Senior Box Office Assistant. At this point in time, having finished the coursework and internship, R needed to nail down a part-time job to pad-out the household income while he wrote the dissertation. He applied to two archiving-related jobs and didn't succeed in being hired, so ended up working as a Kitchen Porter (washing dishes) and Mussel Preparer (cleaning mussels) at The Belgian Monk. K later interviewed for a researcher position at Bournemouth University. Just prior to that interview, one of the projects that had originally "rejected" him, offered R the position that he had interviewed for because one of the people they had hired went for another job. Things start changing very quickly now. K finds out the day after her interview that she has been offered the researching job, which she wholeheartedly accepts. Both R and K now have full-time jobs. R gives two weeks notice at the restaurant (later replaced by Jimny Hommunculus) and it is time to start looking for a place to live. Which leads us to:

...Relocation... this time to Winchester, initially chosen because it lies halfway between R and K's respective workplaces, but ultimately chosen because it is so damn wonderful! On August 28th, R and K close the door of the tiny Norwich apartment and drive down to Winchester to move into a larger and quite a bit nicer two-bedroom apartment. Very happy here.

...Disasters... (but not for us). Neither of us were anywhere near the July 7th London bombings, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the Pakistan earthquake, or any of the other disasters (and we feel very fortunate for that). R's parents felt a bit of Hurrican Wilma's force, however. She unleashed a fair amount of fury on Coral Springs, FL, though luckily, not enough to severely affect loss of property, infrastructure, or limbs as far as our family is concerned.

...England... Despite initially planning to move to Copenhagen to wait around for the Danish Film Institute to hire R for their archive, we quite wisely decided to stick around here for a while (hence, going for interviews at the various jobs). It wasn't our plan, but the latter half of this year was all about accepting our residency in the UK. K's visa got extended for 5 years and her job at Bournemouth University is a 5-year contract. This means we'll likely stick around here for a while, so we've been trying our best to start integrating. R even decided to donate £2 for that guy's farewell gift in an attempt to participate in the customs of this society! We're learning more about it all the time and, to be honest, we're starting to talk like them, too. R is particularly fascinated by comparing the British society to both the American and Scandinavian societies. We will have more blog entries about those differences this year, no doubt.

...Organic... After moving to Winchester to start our dual-income life, we decided to get more serious about "thinking globally and acting locally". We signed up for a "box scheme" which delivers seasonal organic produce to us every two weeks from local Hampshire farms. It's something we always look forward to and R has been expanding his cooking repetoire for dishes including things like kale, celeriac root, and various types of squash.

...Holy Dust... Winchester has a famous cathedral, Winchester Cathedral (c. 1067). K, being the cathedral-fan that she is, signed up for volunteer-work there as soon as we arrived in town. She was "hired" as a "holy duster". Her AOR (area of responsibility) is a section of the central choir stalls (c. 1385), which she dusts/polishes once or twice per month.

...Family visits... R's dad came for a day's stop-over in Norwich on his way to Denmark. R went for a quick trip to Florida. K's sister came for a visit in Winchester, followed by J-Mom and J-Dad.

...Mobile phones... After over two years of living "off the grid" (as far as cell-phone contact), we both got re-connected this fall so that we can keep in touch during our long commutes to work. It's a bittersweet situation, really. Great to be able to communicate when the need arises, but bad because it's just another tether to keep you from interacting with the real world around you. Luckily, neither of us has been consumed by it and we rarely get anywhere close to using up the 100-200 monthly minutes and texts.

...Television... We got hooked on quite a few tv series in 2005: Desperate Housewives - season 1, Six Feet Under - season 4 (on DVD), American Idol, The Office (on DVD), Lost, Life in the Undergrowth, and X-Factor. Not to forget all the movie rentals we got in the mail from Screenselect and Lovefilm (while we were in Norwich).

...Exercise... After more than 5 years of wearing down R's resolve, K finally got him to agree to try yoga... and he liked it! His slightly dodgy left knee has pretty much healed and the occasional kinks in his back are more easily unkinked. We now do yoga on Sunday mornings before our "Ritual" (eggs, bacon, pastries, coffee, and the Sunday Times). K has been exercising regularly, five to six times per week, as usual. And now R walks half an hour each way to and from Waterloo station to work.

...Books... Lot's of reading got done this year. Some of our favorites: The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (which K read in 2004, but R got around to this year), Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, State of Fear by Michael Crichton, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (thanks to K's sister for leaving that one for us), and Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (which gave K her brilliant PhD idea).

...Movies... We don't get to the movie theatre is much as we'd like, but we see a lot on DVD (as mentioned above). Some of our favorites: The Corporation, Goodbye Lenin, War of the Worlds (but only in a nice theatre with a good sound system), Batman Begins, Sin City, I Heart Huckabees, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Saw, Lilya 4 Ever, and Tilsammans (Together). There are more but we can't remember them right now.

...Gaming... FINALLY, to celebrate being hired in an archiving job, R bought himself an X-Box in November. Not that he gets much time to play it!

Happy New Year to you all!

-RP- & ~K