Delusions of a fundraiser

Well…

It has been 12 months since I last posted on here.  One whole year.  In that time I have done the following:

• Moved job and relocated entirely
• Moved house (twice)
• Started talking with my mother again
• Been to Milan, Morocco and Iceland (the last two with groups of kids)
• Dumped my boyfriend
• Got a certificate in “Rescue EmergencyCare” (not just ANY first aid!)
• Had another 2 cars drive into the side of mine… gee thanks!
• Fired staff and hired new staff
• Took arabic lessons
• Bought motorbike lessons (test on 24 August 2010!!!!)
• Been stranded in the snow, twice!
• Looked after a desperately ill teenager with pustular tonsillitis (ugh!)

Here’s to the next 12 months!  After whinging terribly about the previous year’s misfortunes, I would say 2009/10 was a truly wonderful and exciting academic year, as years go.  The opportunities and activities I didn’t think worth listing above as “major” events are just as important as those above.  Today is the first day I’ve truly taken time out to reflect on the past year.  It has truly been amazing!

We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

A facebook quiz of all things, taught me more about myself than I realised.  It was a simple “either or” question:

“Forgiveness or Revenge?”

This time last year, I would have answered revenge.  In fact, I believe I did write revenge on a few of those personality questionnaires.  I took a quiz yesterday, and for the first time in my life, without thinking about “looking good” instinctively wrote “forgiveness” in the answer box.  Reading it through this morning, I felt a little shocked at my own answer and the realisation that it is true. 

I’ve had a terrible 12 months where quite frankly, nothing in my personal life has come good.  I lost my job, my money, was crashed into by a van, my family fell apart (we’re at 16 weeks of non talking, by the way), my father was off work with depression – it hasn’t exactly been the year i was looking for.

And yet, it’s given me the most enlightening experience – being on the dole gave me a taste of humility that i would have had nowhere else, and i learnt that some people have attitude only because they are angry at everything else, not you.

I could have taken offence at everything that has happened, really brought up a storm – but through it all, i just cant be bothered.  It’s better to give a second chance and forget the bad.

Secretly, i’m qite proud of myself.

Snaps to Doug Floyd for the quotation.

It is inevitable that wherever you work, live or generally participate in other people’s lives, there will be differing personalities, politics and points of view.

It would be slick, but incredibly dull if we all spoke the same language, had the same political persuasion and followed the same thoughts. 

Our differences are what make us unique, obviously, but our differences are also what makes us continue.

People ought to recognise that fact before things are said unecessarily.

Whilst it appears i can spin money like Rumplestiltskin for my charity, my own finances leave a lot to be desired.  Mostly a hangover from university days that seems to still hang around like a nasty smell many many years later. 

Therefore i have been busy trying to spin a bit of money for myself, which explains the blog drought recently.  Rather than run myself ragged getting a night job to earn pittance, i have turned inwards to earn the extra cash.  My entire DVD collection is on amazon marketplace, and so are all of the books i can bear to part with.  So far so good – i’ve made about £100 this past week.  I used to sell such things on marketplace years ago, just after i graduated and made a couple of thousand pounds over a few months selling all my old academic books (mostly rare things only specialists would be looking for).

I got a bit sad yesterday, when my most favourite film ever – a cinderella adaptation with Richard Chamberlain and Gemma Craven from aeons ago – was sold to a guy in Norway.  They dont make this DVD anymore, there were only 4 available on the marketplace other than mine anyway and i know that if i want to get it again in the future it is going to cost me big time.   This is the film i watch when i’m ill, sad, lonely or nostalgic and makes me feel better every time.  I’ve watched it since i was about 2 or 3 years old,  its the only musical i can stand!

My angst at it having been sold displays a side of myself i’m trying to change – my reliance on others and tangible things to support my happiness.  

I’m watching it one last time before it goes into the postal ether…!

Update on blackberry dead-ness.  This morning at about half 9 it just decided to turn itself back on – nothing wiped, no battery loss and no, it wasn’t programmed to turn on/off at a specific time.  Maybe it just decided that death wasn’t the way forward.  I will monitor its behaviour closely over the coming hours…

Another work colleague who sits adjacent to me (on the other side of the original oinker) has now contracted suspected swine flu.  Perhaps because of  my recent and prolific trips out of the office i have either become immune or just been out of sneeze/cough range.  Or maybe i’m next?!

Work is good today, notification out of the blue that a little old lady has left us almost £100,000.00 in her Will and it will be paid in August. So only 400k to go this year and i’ve hit my target.  No big cheque to wave around though – it’s going to be paid via BACS instead.  Shame, i like holding huge cheques in my hand.

I’m trying something new.  Saying yes to MOST things – ie things that will open doors, not boring everyday things like “oh, will you take out the trash” - and i dont want to go into the argument that even the tiniest action could open doors… so not the point right now.  The crux is, a recruitment company send me individual job opportunities that arise every few days/months whenever and i always just ignore them in my inbox or think “oh, i’d never get that”.  SO last week i basically replied yes to all of them bar one in scotland i’d have to seriously move for.  I clicked yes, send, without opening any of the PDF job descriptions or looking at the salaries.  I just looked at the location (almost all london, so thats perfectly realistic).  I have an interview next week for one of them, a really good one too.  We shall see how it progresses.

Friend from pakistan who i haven’t seen since we graduated Cambridge is in town next week too, so i hastily arranged a bunch of overdue work meetings to coincide for when she’s in london so we can sneak in a few lunches/selfridges trips after the meetings are finished She’s a way-important news anchor over there now, and i’m just a fundraising schmuck, i am soooo proud of her!

Nothing much happening at work at the moment, legacies are thin on the ground and i cant sort out events or marketing bits and bobs until this year’s budgets have been stamped sealed and delivered to our desks, so i can start portioning out the pennies.  Bummer.