Step One

Finally… having patience is starting to pay off because I’ve received some wonderful news yesterday. I’ve been invited to meet up on Monday morning to be part of a group of people who will be given the opportunity to study and work at the same time. This in itself is nothing new because there are quite a few possibilities to accomplish the same.

In this case however, the government and a few other organisations expect a lack of psychiatric nursing staff in the next three years so they have invested money in a special project to train people. It means that the required study which would normally take four years will be taught in three years instead, starting with a three months crash course.

After the crash course you’ll be working four days a week and attend school on the fifth day for the next three years to get a bachelor degree. My goal is a master degree because I’d like to finish the psychology study that I started years ago. At the time -causing disagreements- I was forced to stop because of an unwilling/unsympathetic partner.

I’m really looking forward to start the study and try to get another degree. My personal situation and this recession have forced me to think about my future in a creative way. I’ve been lucky to have turned a hobby into a career at the time, but things have changed and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a career that will provide for the next twenty years.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be side projects and I will never give up on the creative part of me. In fact I’m still working on the long-term business plan which involves design and that along with the webdesign business will be the creative outlet that I’ll be needing to keep things interesting in that area. I’ll need that outlet because it’s part of who I am.

Although I’m totally committed and enthusiastic to make this application work for the next three to seven years it will still be ‘a way to pay the bills‘ and live a comfortable life. I’ve to choose security over current instability, people are still getting laid off and no one knows what’s gonna happen next but it doesn’t mean I’ll be giving up on creativity, far from it!

There are more steps planned ahead but for now I’m taking one at a time because that one step will cause a chain reaction once I’ll be on a roll and I’m getting all excited thinking about what lies ahead. It seems I’m finally about to get that long deserved break *wink*

Wait A Little

Draft from: 2009-10-08 15:31:03 updated and published today

I’ve noticed that a lot of my blog friends or blogs that I read seem to have the same issue for a couple of months now. They all struggle to write posts because of a lack of time and/or inspiration or because they’re caught up in daily life and its issues/problems. I wonder if this is like a subconscious kind of mass reaction… ;)

I too am having problems writing posts because I’m currently in a phase of my life where I’m trying to build something again from scratch which isn’t easy. But at the same time it’s challenging, exciting and going way too slow to my liking. But there’s not much to write about or perhaps there is too much and/or I don’t feel like sharing, I don’t know…

Earlier I was blog hopping and noticed this Thought For Today called ‘Solutions’ We are never without the solutions to our problems. It’s just that sometimes we may have to wait a little. Learn how to remain peaceful and patient. About a week ago I received an email from someone close who complimented me on my perseverance. Both remarks made me think…

I guess I am trying to be patient and learn to remain peaceful while I’m waiting to receive some good news about the start of a new education/job opportunity that I really want to be part of. It took me three months and a few meetings/phone calls to find the right person within the organisation and she promised to keep me updated about the progress.

Another waiting game is ‘China’… I’ve contacted the intermediary again to ask a few questions and was told that they will make a decision later this year and he asked for my sympathy with regard to the Chinese way of the hiring process which is different from our Western way. So what else can I do besides being patient and collect all info I can get?

In the meantime I have been installing eCommerce software to test it, I must note none of it is doing what I would like it to do and I’m saying this from a designer’s, developer’s and user perspective. Some are way too complicated, some are way too slow due to too much Java scripting and database issues, have no easy design options and no good UI.

One of my client’s eCommerce website is also finally live after almost a year of pushing them to push things forward. It almost feels outdated again for some reason and if I could redesign the webshop all over again, I would. I’ve built a landing page which looks much nicer than the actual shop *sssh, don’t tell anyone*. This week they want me to design a voucher.

I’ll be installing new eCommerce software today and see if I can design a nice webshop. I’ve read good reviews about it and I’ve seen some cool shop examples. This is not for clients but for my own project, I have two months to test and finish this in preparation of the bigger plan which is still a work in progress and highly confidential *LOL*.

See? All sorts of stuff going on in the background… But I’ll better keep quiet if what I write starts to sound like an old skipping record that’s being played over and over again, until I’m really into the groove of things… ;)