I hit forty next week

Hopefully I'll bounce.

Anyone who knows me and is in range that day, Saturday the 19th of May, I'll be having a party; if you don't have my address, let me know. munchkinstein, psychochicken, tanngrisnir, that means you and your partners and friends. banhe, you know the way; If you and TEP can make it it'll be great to see you. If you can't, I'll understand.

Someone who recently turned thirty asked me how I was handling it. The answer has to be: about the same as at thirty, maybe a little better. These milestone things seem to bring about a contemplative mood in people; I'm not any different.

This time ten years ago I was at Dundee University, in the first year of my PhD. The longest I'd kept a steady job was two years, I was just out of four years of contracting, and I was looking forward to a career in microengineeering. I was single, I'd had a couple of girlfriends, but no relationship had lasted longer than about a year, and my life was shared by a small tortoiseshell cat. I could put all my possessions in a transit van and had done several times.

In the last ten years, I burned out on my PhD, got laid off my next job when the electronics industry crashed, my cat died, and I spent nearly two and a half years unemployed. I re-trained in environmental management, got a graduate job in a consultancy and here I stand at the beginning of a new career in sustainability. I've had a couple of girlfriends, but no relationship has lasted more than a few months. It takes a couple of box vans to move my stuff now, but it still happens more often than I'd like.

So, in the last ten years, my achievements have been:
- I've published a peer-reviewed scientific paper
- I've developed a new way of forming piezoelectric materials in thin films
- I've designed and programmed a new system for a photolithography machine
- I've sung character parts in Godspell and The Boyfriend
- I've seen orcas in the wild
- I've done "Wadlopen" - walked from one of the islands off the Netherlands coast to the mainland at low tide
- I've gained another degree (on the dole - hooray for the welfare state!)
- I've climbed a Munro
- I've become a godfather (becoming an uncle wasn't really my achievement, but it's still great)
- I've helped organise a performance group - the Word Dogs - that meets regularly
- I've had a story selected from the slush pile (not yet published) by a magazine
- I've talked someone through the worst panic attack I have ever seen
- I've pushed some large companies towards better environmental practice
- I've taken some beautiful pictures (Real Soon Now I'll put up some photo sets)
- I've learned to play the whistle
- I've entertained some people, singing, reading and playing in jazz bands
- I've made my nephew and niece laugh
- I've kept some friends and made new ones
- I've lived these ten years
- I've made some people's lives better

I'd like to take on a couple of kittens but I won't until I'm better settled, I think.