OneAndOneIs2

My flatmate's bathroom is being redecorated over the weekend, so she's staying somewhere else until Monday. I haven't seen her since Thursday.

So when I got back from shopping earlier today and couldn't find my breadknife, I was baffled. I knew I'd used it on Friday, flatmate's not around, and I hadn't taken it out of the kitchen. It was really odd.

I went into the kitchen just now, and there it was, magically re-appeared in the sink, where I knew it hadn't been earlier. So I flicked the light on and had a closer look. Suddenly, all became clear.

The decorator who's doing the bathroom work had apparently borrowed it to hack open his bags of tile adhesive. Having finished for the day, he thoughtfully dumped it in the sink so I could wash all the adhesive residue off.

I really don't like living in this flat. I'm sick of the crap internet connection. I'm sick of the lack of hot water in the evenings. I'm sick of spending most of my life in my bedroom just because it's the only warm room in the place. I'm sick of the crap TV reception, the lack of space, the fact that every appliance is turned off at the wall, and the flatmate who I speak to for about ten minutes a day if that. I'll be glad to move out next year.

And there's the whole problem in a nutshell: I'm sick of waiting.

Around two years ago, I decided that it was career-change time and that I would retrain as a teacher. Naturally, that meant I'd have to wait until September. In fact, since it would involve a year off work, it would be best to wait until NEXT September, to save up a decent amount to cover any sudden emergencies.

So I waited. The job I was doing, which had never been that enthralling to begin with, went steadily downhill in this time, as my team leader retired, the company started to enforce a hiring freeze, and placed mutually-exclusive goals of higher quality and faster processing times on us as the workforce dwindles slowly away. But we got occasional "The company is doing really well, with record profits!" emails to cheer us up.

I consoled myself with the thought that it didn't matter: Come August 2007, I'd be out of there. It helped, and after a long old wait, I did indeed get out.

And now I'm a student teacher. I'm in one of the most difficult schools in the area, and though it's a superb place to learn, it's also very hard work and I admit I'm looking forward to it finishing next month. I'm looking forward to finishing the course and becoming a proper teacher next year.

Only I won't be a fully-qualified teacher next year. I'll have a very tough year still to come, as I start at a new school and have to spend the whole time familiarizing myself with existing learning plans, or creating my own. Only after THAT year will I be a 'real' teacher, and things will start to get easier as I can start to re-use lesson plans instead of having to create/learn new ones for every lesson.

There's a bunch of books I want to get through, such as K&R's book on the C programming language and the Blender foundation's book on their 3D animation software. Neither of which I can spare the time or energy on whilst I'm so busy learning teaching. So they're another year or two away, too.

There are projects I'd like to start on, such as the Gingery metalworking series and the Freestyle and/or Locost kit cars. Neither of which can be even thought about whilst living in a second storey flat without so much as a garage. So they'll have to wait until I move home. A year or two, then.

There are people I'd like to visit, but they live too far away for a casual drop-in - friends from university; an old friend from school I've only just gotten back into touch with courtesy of Facebook - or have other barriers that stop me from being able to just hop in the car and go say hello. So it'll be months before I get to see them.

I'm sick of living on the promise of "jam tomorrow". "Always jam tomorrow, never jam today" is a miserable way to live. Over the last few weeks in particular, the thought of the months it's going to be before it feels like my life is taken off "hold" has been really getting to me.

You could accuse me of wishing my life away, and maybe I am. But only this part of it. If, as they say, good things come to those who wait, then I must have a really, really bright future ahead of me...