common trends

it is amazing that there are some themes in life that run common through everyones lives regardless of differences of religion, culture, and national origin.
MD and i have worked together for over a year now, and on the surface you would think that we would have little in common, besides our employer. but lately we have found a mutual subject of conversation:elderly relatives.
he is not the only one i discuss this with. caitlin enjoys the same phone calls i do, only hers come from toronto. our phone conversations with our parents are identical: on saturday i was informed that the temperature had fallen overnight by 5 degrees. amazingly, the weatherman had got it all wrong and my father was cross that he had not had time to prepare psychologically for this climate transistion. caitlins father suffered a similar shock over in ontario. it seems the weathermen around the globe were consipiring to trick pensioners.
i get these phone calls at least once a week. the go on forever and are almost entirely uniform in content, yet provide great entertainment to my family.
weather is a standard feature in my conversations on the phone to home. international politcal conspiracies, real or imagined, are another. MD gets his share of these as well, but he has another issue to face: the car. his father has driven the same car since 1975 and refuses to change it. but MD complains that he spends more repairing the thing than it would cost to but a new one. i completely understand: my dad has had the same fridge for THIRTY SIX YEARS. we unite over such dilemmas at the till point. MD is plotting a way to make the car disappear without his father noticing. that would be rather hard to manage with a fridge though...so i must think of another way!
oh and needless to say none of our fathers can use a mobile phone.....

friends

as the comments to my last post show, i have been a distant friend in the past few months. i have the impression i have been turned into a zombie: wake up, run to library, run to work, come home, collapse in bed.
i live nearby several friends i have barely seen in months. even my dearest feline companion is feeling neglected, and she is absolutely right to lay on the guilt trips as she does.
so i promise, i will make a greater effort this year to try to visit all of you, where ever you are.
but mainly i dream of a time where i will be able to have only one job, and enjoy things like weekends, like normal people do...

january

i didnt even manage to mark the new year effectively. all my friends were gone awya or ill, leaving me to the gloom of london's most touristic place to spend the night, not because i wanted to be there, but sincethat happens to be where i work, and as luck would have it, i was on a late shift new years eve, and an early shift new years day.
but i hope this year will be different from 2007, which was not my best.
everyone lays out goals for the new year (i know, as the book industry makes loads of money this way, as soon as the new years hits, sales in rubbish like paul mckenna's I can make you rich soar) these goals should be realistic and achievable if they are meant to ever be realised. i know this, but still i am going to break the rules and be overly ambitous with mine: this year i want to submit my fucking phd thesis and change jobs.
two very big things, but if i can manage it, i think i will be better off. wich me luck, i am going to need it.