Niall’s virtual diary archives – January 2003

Thursday 9th January 2003: 3.50am. Let me begin with a "happy new year"! These past christmas holidays I think were some of the best in many years, probably because (a) I'm not the morose git of past christmases and (b) I spent a lot more of the two week break drinking. Actually, (b) is entirely because of (a) - a happier Niall is a more social Niall.

I am however sitting here in Madrid and it's already Thursday. My excuse could be that my throat is all swollen up with some infection and I've been sleeping a lot, given I have no energy from the infirmity. However, I think there is a substantial part of me that doesn't want to accept that the last nine months are finally over - oh, no one gave me funding by the way, so I have to go get a job now. Which really sucks.

Plan is I'll be in the UK 23rd January till the 11th February. It's a multi-purpose trip, from seeing friends and family to finding somewhere to live. And thereafter, well a week to ship parcels from here and in theory my tenancy should end end of February (speaking of which, I really must ring my landlord to tell him).

Right, well it's the first entry of the new year so as per tradition in this diary I shall now sum up my view of the past year's achievements:

• Terminated my first full time employment
  It sure did get sticky in the end, didn't it? Looking back at the diary entries, you can literally see the increase in frustration from this time last year. I think it can be said I was generally happy with most things this time last year, but as I began to see the cascade of problems at work affect my personal life more and more, it was clearly untenable. Thank god I with the advice of my father had the foresight to set a maximum limit on my time there.
  
  Nevertheless, there was a great financial, health and personal cost to my extrication. It could and should have been so very much better than it was. It's strange you know, at the same time I was reasserting myself after the lows of the post-Ruth period, I had to endure a great deal of further rejection and somehow while dented, I've come out all right. It's also interesting my health problems resulting from that bitter end oddly fixed themselves over the Christmas period - psycho-somatic?
• Had a wonderful period of "me time"
  The last nine months have been wonderful - my first spell of freedom since uni. Day after day spent lying in the park drenched in sunshine reading books and smoking joints will stay strong in my memory forever. Ahh, I'm feeling relaxed just thinking about it now ...
• Summer holidays
  Yup, that infamous trip to Amsterdam by rail. Having thought about it, I haven't been on summer holidays in many years, so it was good that those in particular had so many memorable moments.
• I wrote the next evolution of computer operating systems
  And it works! After three attempts, my original 1995 ideas which have taken so long to bring to fruition are now finally a reality. I don't doubt for a second this product is the maker of the next Microsoft as it offers all the key features without any of the drawbacks of similar technology.
  
  On a more personal level, I broke several personal records on the project and it proved to me that I am one of the best in my field. Since it had been so long since my last major achievement in computers, that was a self-confidence that needed restoring and I think it shows in my day-to-day levels of self-confidence too.

The past year was no doubt an improvement over the previous dire years. It wasn't fantastic, but it sure wasn't bad either and one whose experience I wouldn't mind repeating. The coming year, 2003, is likely to contain a great deal of change for me especially with the moving countries thing and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. If nothing else, I should have a day-to-day useable version of Tornado by this time next year and thus there's always the possibility of a limited binary release assuming I've got the patents. We'll see.

Right, time for a reboot and install of Mandrake Linux. I want to see what it's like . Until next time, all be happy!