jetaime

It was a couple months ago. I thought, “surely by now I’ll have reached the minimum weight”. Hitting 46kg has been a personal goal for a very long time. Almost 5 years.

I weighed in at 47kg – enough to donate blood! :) Iron count fine, blood pressure fine. The interviewing nurse even said I could have a steak and a pint for lunch after. Did you know that stout beers are high in iron?

In went the needle. So far, so good, but then – UH OH. Haematoma. :( Bugger. Try the other arm – vein too small, room too cold, not enough pressure to push the blood into the bag.

“Come back no sooner than 3 months,” they said. “Maybe it’ll work when the weather is warm.”

TBH, I can’t remember when I did this. Or when I logged in here that I wanted to do it. It wasn’t even a big deal. My mate was having a Viking picnic for his birthday. We all wore horny hats and I made a platter of gourmet sandwiches for a laugh.

I’d like to do a bigger party with more artistic stuff, but turns out I don’t really like parties. Not the sort you’d ‘cater’ for anyway. But if you need home-made snacks for a weekend pissup, I’m your chef.

Going to consider this goal reached, because that was the first and possibly only time I’ll ever be content to put effort into party preparation.

Only advice – focus on what you’re doing, work fast, be ruthless. Perfectionism is the enemy and only makes you enjoy the process less. The point is to have fun. :)

This took ages and was long overdue by the time it arrived. Many delayed promises and false deadlines, not cool.

But secretly, I’m pleased it didn’t come too easily. I feel like the process taught me a lot about managing expectations (mine and others’), patience, influence, reputation, control and all those other things that sound like corporate & self-help platitudes. They’re certainly not meaningless when you come across them in real life; they’re pretty fucking stressful, actually. Despite now being a little jaded, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have come across those things.

It seems seniorship isn’t really about being skilled at your job. I mean, that comes with the territory, but you don’t have to be a senior to be recognised as good, don’t have to be recognised as good to be a senior. Someone told me recently that getting your black belt in martial arts doesn’t mean you’re good, just that you’re finally ready to learn and play with the experienced folk. I don’t know my arse from a hole in the ground when it comes to martial arts, but I can relate to that ‘journey doesn’t end here; it begins’ sentiment.

My official title is Senior Web Designer. I consult on user experience, usability, content strategy and emotional engagement. Got a little payrise, spent it on booze. ^_ Ahh, keeping it real.