Annus Horribilis And Houdini
Hello
Some of you may remember me, or at least have come across one of the 6,072 posts I have made on this forum over the years. Although I have only had a quick look around, I see some of you asking "where the fuck did Pete/chimaera/naqua go?". I'll come back to the naqua part in particular, but first (and apologies if this is long-winded) I wanted to explain my year - my Annus Horribilis that led to a Houdini act.
As you may know, our second child was due in May. It may sound odd to call a year when your child is born 'shit' but despite the positive blip he brought, that's still the best summary. Ang had a crap pregnancy and was very unhappy for most of the latter stages, not helped by the fact that the little sod decided to be late and only finally arrived on June 19th. Thankfully he's a happy and healthy boy (name: Huxley), but bloody hard work and does not sleep worth a shit, only happy if he is in my wife's arms - though starting to get better with my holding him. All of which on its own is pretty exhausting.
Backtrack to March, and my employer (the one that pays the bills, not naqua) decided that they weren't happy with me being so distracted with home life and not bouncing around the office full of motivation, so gave me a performance warning along with a set of tasks/KPIs to achieve over the coming month. I dug deep and somehow found the will to meet all of their requirements, only for them to say that they still weren't convinced and here are a whole lot more now barely achievable KPIs to meet over the next two months. Oh your baby is due mid way though that period? We are generous folks, have another two weeks. Talk about a kick in the teeth.
Backtrack again to January, we submitted our Permanent Residency application, which as a sidenote has cost us a good $10k this year in total. Normally takes 5-6 months to process, but because Ang was pregnant and couldn't do the medicals, we had to wait for Huxley to arrive and then add him to the application (net result was a 10 month long application).
So come discussion #2 with my employer in April, I am looking at potential termination from my job of 13 years, a baby due any day and with no visa the risk of being kicked out of the country at a month's notice. Needless to say, I was a bit stressed.
Huxley arrives and is full on, crying a lot which as those of you with kids know certainly raises the stress levels even further, creating tension between me and my darling wife.
These were the toughest months of my life so far, by far.
Late July I was open with my employer and told them I would leave voluntarily, but asked whether they would allow me to stay at least a few months until my PR was processed. Thankfully they agreed (makes their life easier to see me go of my own will I guess), so off I went searching for jobs. The hunt led me to Sydney where I received two great offers, one of which is in a role and an agency I know I will love. Huxley is starting to be more manageable, and oh yeah our PR came through in the meantime so we can now officially stay!
************
So now finally I am seeing the light and a 2016+ full of promise. We still have a tough time ahead - moving interstate is no small thing and having looked at places to live, I am not sure yet whether we will have to give up our cat of 4 years to find a place suitable for our two little ones (seems that most places don't want the hassle of a pet unfortunately), which is yet another heartbreaking decision to have to make. I have a new job to start, and a whole new life to start in yet another new city with no support network and no real friends.
That is my year so far. I had to make some tough choices along the way, one of which was that my head had no space available for certain distractions such as The Reefuge (which I hope you all know I love dearly), nor naqua. As much as I missed TR and all of you, it is the neglect I have shown naqua and my customers/potential customers that bothers me the most. I have pretty much closed the place down, for now at least, but still have some stock which I will sell off shortly.
****************
So that's my long-winded backwards story - what's been going on around here? :D
Some of you may remember me, or at least have come across one of the 6,072 posts I have made on this forum over the years. Although I have only had a quick look around, I see some of you asking "where the fuck did Pete/chimaera/naqua go?". I'll come back to the naqua part in particular, but first (and apologies if this is long-winded) I wanted to explain my year - my Annus Horribilis that led to a Houdini act.
As you may know, our second child was due in May. It may sound odd to call a year when your child is born 'shit' but despite the positive blip he brought, that's still the best summary. Ang had a crap pregnancy and was very unhappy for most of the latter stages, not helped by the fact that the little sod decided to be late and only finally arrived on June 19th. Thankfully he's a happy and healthy boy (name: Huxley), but bloody hard work and does not sleep worth a shit, only happy if he is in my wife's arms - though starting to get better with my holding him. All of which on its own is pretty exhausting.
Backtrack to March, and my employer (the one that pays the bills, not naqua) decided that they weren't happy with me being so distracted with home life and not bouncing around the office full of motivation, so gave me a performance warning along with a set of tasks/KPIs to achieve over the coming month. I dug deep and somehow found the will to meet all of their requirements, only for them to say that they still weren't convinced and here are a whole lot more now barely achievable KPIs to meet over the next two months. Oh your baby is due mid way though that period? We are generous folks, have another two weeks. Talk about a kick in the teeth.
Backtrack again to January, we submitted our Permanent Residency application, which as a sidenote has cost us a good $10k this year in total. Normally takes 5-6 months to process, but because Ang was pregnant and couldn't do the medicals, we had to wait for Huxley to arrive and then add him to the application (net result was a 10 month long application).
So come discussion #2 with my employer in April, I am looking at potential termination from my job of 13 years, a baby due any day and with no visa the risk of being kicked out of the country at a month's notice. Needless to say, I was a bit stressed.
Huxley arrives and is full on, crying a lot which as those of you with kids know certainly raises the stress levels even further, creating tension between me and my darling wife.
These were the toughest months of my life so far, by far.
Late July I was open with my employer and told them I would leave voluntarily, but asked whether they would allow me to stay at least a few months until my PR was processed. Thankfully they agreed (makes their life easier to see me go of my own will I guess), so off I went searching for jobs. The hunt led me to Sydney where I received two great offers, one of which is in a role and an agency I know I will love. Huxley is starting to be more manageable, and oh yeah our PR came through in the meantime so we can now officially stay!
************
So now finally I am seeing the light and a 2016+ full of promise. We still have a tough time ahead - moving interstate is no small thing and having looked at places to live, I am not sure yet whether we will have to give up our cat of 4 years to find a place suitable for our two little ones (seems that most places don't want the hassle of a pet unfortunately), which is yet another heartbreaking decision to have to make. I have a new job to start, and a whole new life to start in yet another new city with no support network and no real friends.
That is my year so far. I had to make some tough choices along the way, one of which was that my head had no space available for certain distractions such as The Reefuge (which I hope you all know I love dearly), nor naqua. As much as I missed TR and all of you, it is the neglect I have shown naqua and my customers/potential customers that bothers me the most. I have pretty much closed the place down, for now at least, but still have some stock which I will sell off shortly.
****************
So that's my long-winded backwards story - what's been going on around here? :D
