Inspired by the "Happy New Year" thread, I thought it'd be nice to summarise the Noughties (2000-2009*) - your ups, downs, achievements, whatever you feel has been important.


Anyway, over the last decade, I have:

• Achieved A-grades at A-levels
• Completed two degrees
• Started my first proper job
• Moved away from home (though this year I came back)
• Bought my first car
• Lost a friend, who died young. Made me realise the value of life.

* Yes I know technically the decade ends in 2010 since there was no "year 0" but I think we have to go with popular convention (the way we go with conventional current).

over the last decade, I have:

• Kicked my drugs habit
• Joined a cult
• Completed a degree
• Left a cult
• Started my first proper job
• Quit two-thirds of the way through teacher training
• Got Post-Traumatic Stress
• Spent two-and-a-half years unemployed
• Moved away from home (though this year I came back)
• Got my chainsaw licence
• Got treatment for PTSD
• Got engaged
• Completed two years of voluntary work
• Started planning my wedding
• Rebuilt the relationship I had with my best mate before I f*cked it all up

*Strictly speaking conventional current is a technical convention rather than a popular one (negative charges in one direction is equivalent to positive charges the other and all that). A better example would be using positive and negative terminals for a.c. mains connections.

In this decade I:

- Achieved good grades at GCSE.
- Underachieved at college, on account of being lazy.
- Got into University anyway and am about to finish a course I have enjoyed.
- Got into debt, mostly but not completely to HMG. I now owe somewhere between £20-30K.
- Half worried myself to death about finding a job in a recession come graduation.
- Developed Asthma.
- Lived in a city for the first time.
- Lived away from home for the first time.
- Made some amazing friends.
- Met my current girlfriend and I think she is "the one".
- Travelled abroad to Europe, the USA and Russia.
- Failed my practical driving test twice, and have yet to pass (trying again Summer 2010).
- Discovered the joys of open source computing, particularly Firefox and Linux.
- Built my own PC for the first time.
- Broadly expanded my knowledge in a variety of subjects, particularly criminal, consumer and European law.
- Been hospitalised four times.
- Held 4 jobs, 3 of which I quit and one where I have an open invitation to return.
- Developed a reliance on a number of Google services, including GMail, Chrome and I even now use Google's DNS service.
- Developed what is probably an unhealthy relationship with my PC, PS2/3 and the internet.
- Been technically homeless for a short period.
- Learnt that 'good karma' mustn't exist, because I always try to do the right thing and end up getting screwed/worse off, but all the bastards seem to get away with it and do well.

In the next decade I want to:

- Settle down with my girlfriend, get a steady job and start paying off my student loans.
- Have a child/children.
- Pass my frakkin driving test.
- Travel to parts of the UK I haven't been to, like Scotland.
- Travel to Italy.
- Stop hoarding crap and buying stuff on Amazon et al I don't need.
- Learn how to get through life with bottling things up and stressing myself out.

Well, 2009 was a bummer, so I'm hoping the last year of the first decade in the 21st century will improve it, if it goes like 2009, it will be a crap decade...

- father died
- met a girl in Frankfurt, she was crazy.
- got glandular fever and was stuck in a hotel room in Germany for nearly 2 weeks, before I was fit enough to travel (lost 4 stone in weight)
- girl was crazy and screwed me up, costing me my job+
- finally split up with her
- found another girl on the rebound, got engaged
- moved to Germany with my redundancy money
- girl left the moment I landed in Germany! (She took the ring with her )
- learned German
- switched to using Linux as my main desktop
- best mate's wife left him for his best friend (not me), spent 4 months living in north Germany at his place, because he had never lived alone
- warned him off the rebound girl, who was like crazy girl above, he didn't listen, but it cost him much less than it did me!
- got addicted to Anarchy Online
- grandfather died
- took a voluntary teaching job at Augsburg University
- got some work at Daimler Chrysler
- went back to playing Anarchy
- met another crazy woman, luckily got out before it went anywhere
- visited best mate for New Year
- met Tina
- fell in love
- found a job
- moved to new flat within a month of meeting Tina
- job not all it promised to be
- uncle died
- mum diagnosed with leukaemia
- uncle died
- gran died
- found new job
- mum died
- bought new house

I'm hoping that 2010 will top the decade off a bit better, if it is as bad as 2009, I don't really want to see the end of the decade...

- went freelance from a reasonably secure job which had no prospects.
- hired as a freelance studio manager for a small design company.
- left the job after three months due to hating it and the boss.
- picked up a couple of reliable customers and managed to keep my head above water.
- things began to get tight, so I got a job as an artworker, which looked like it was really going places.
- was promoted to studio manager and had some staff under me.
- due to company owner financial mismanagement, I was made redundant after a couple of years.
- managed to keep my head above water.
- rediscovered photography as a hobby and artform.
- worked for a software company writing test procedures and user guides.
- nearly went loopy, so I had to stop writing test procedures and user guides.
- found another job where I've been ever since.
- started to realise I was not enjoying my chosen career path.
- job where I've been ever since has been struggling to keep head above water (can you spot a pattern here?).
- not been paid properly for the whole of 2009, but I'm managing to keep my head above water.
- lost three friends during the year (one to long term illness, two to old age).
- looking at a couple of big things in 2010, if I can get everything sorted out. One will be potentially life-changing if it ever happens. The other will be more drudgery, but will involve photography.

* passed 10 GCSESs
* passed four A-levels
* left home for the first time to live at uni in Leeds for 3 years
* met girl, met loads of cool friends
* still managed to get a degree in English Language and Literature
* moved to London for 2 years to work for Custom PC
* left that job and moved back up north as relationship broke down
* spent 10 months unemployed
* decided to go to South America with a friend
* got a job at Cash Converters to save money
* the plane leaves in the first week of the new year, i leve the job on New Year's Eve.


It will have to be an exciting decade to top that one. And it shall.

Fourth attempt at writing this

Way too many good friends / family died.

Watched my kids go through the teenage years.

Went Grey.

Waist line grew

Worked for some great organisations.

Met some fantastic people.

Gave up smoking.

Went to some beautiful places.

Hmm. Although it's all blurred together, I guess a fair amount happened. It's a quarter of my life, after all. I think I bought my current house in 1998, so this all happened while I lived here.

1. The Yanks who bought up the company I worked for spat my department out. Work was all down hill from there.
2. Discovered the Internet and really got into animé.
3. Met an extremely wonderful responsible girl on-line and spent several years going to Holland a lot.
4. Broke up with the responsible girl and got incredibly depressed.
5. Met a crazy irresponsible girl on-line who promptly moved in with me.
6. Got a cat.
7. Spent about a year fighting with the crazy girl, got engaged, bought a wedding dress and then broke up.
8. Lost my job in February.
9. Watched the cat die in my arms about a week later.
10. Got a new job in May which worked out pretty well.
11. Worked so hard since I've not had time for much else.
12. Spent years decorating, but never seeming to finish.

I buried a couple of elderly relatives too, but to be brutally honest I was far more upset about the cat.

There's not much that I could or would change. I sometimes think maybe if I'd tried harder I might have married responsible girl, but I don't think it was meant to be. I also think I could have treated irresponsible girl a little better, but she really wore me out past breaking point. Currently looking for something in between...

not necessarily in the correct order

Qualified as a paramedic
Moved house
Second son born
Grandmother died
Father in law died a week later
Wrote off my V40 (the best car I've ever had)
Got a Mini Cooper (the second best car I've ever had)
Cat disappeared
Dog died
New bitch obtained
Seven puppies born- DOH!!
Get my name in paper and national ambulance magazine for the first time- Yeah!
Became a mentor
Became very disillusioned about being a mentor
Joined Scout Group as secretary and assist as leader

I can't think of anything else specific, just done all of the usual stuff.

Have visited
Mexico, Florida, Portugal, Majorca twice, Gran Canaria, Fuerta Ventura, Lanzarote, Paris and Disneyland Paris, Fuengirola and I'm surprised that I haven't been anywhere else in all that time

I got in to photography in a big way. It's now one of the very few things I get pleasure out of.

Mark

Hmm, this could be interesting:

Did GCSEs and A-Levels. Did ok, but was lazy as so nothing like what I could have done.
Wasted 4 years trying to get a degree before running out of money.
Got a girlfriend (only one so far).
Got engaged to said girlfriend.
Got a reasonable ish job with potential for promotion.

That's pretty much it, which doesn't seem to be much to show for an entire decade, even if I was 14 when it started.

Did GCSEs & A-Levels

Passed my driving test first time and owned 2 cars

Got onto the uni course I wanted and learned a lot in a short space of time

Met my girlfriend 4 years ago and still together

Got a placement at Microsoft which was extended to over a year in length + retainer and hopefully a job when I graduate

Released my first independent mobile phone app, which won 1st place in the national competition it was entered for.

Dog was put down last week


Pretty much it that I can think of...

Quit my job
Went to Australia
Came back from Australia
Started a business
Joined young farmers
Bought my first Alfa
Moved to OSX
Moved to Indesign
Went to Australia again (just for a holiday)
Bought my second Alfa
Had my first relationship
Had my second relationship
Had my first serious relationship
Lived with a girl for the first time
Got married
Carried a coffin
Got quite handy with CSS and XHTML
Bought my third Alfa (actually not yet, going to pick it up the day after tomorrow)

A lot more's happened, but the decade has pretty much encompassed my twenties which, as far as I can work out, is where a lot of stuff changes. I was 21 on New Year's Eve 1999 and I'll be 31 this New Year's Eve.

PS, just realised, I joined the MacUser website in 1999, so have been reading and posting on these forums for pretty much all of the past decade.

In no particular order:

Started working full time in the TV/Film/Advertising industry as a runner.
Met someone really special who then left me too soon.
Learnt how to be a good bar man.
Worked for some insane people.
Worked for the BBC, ITV, and at least 30 other companies besides.
Worked in a factory putting greeting cards into boxes.
Produced a short film that was screened at the Marché Du Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, as well as at the ICA and NFT in London.
Produced and directed an hour long programme for the Extreme Channel.
Drove a Ferrari F430 round Thruxton as fast as I could.
Met lots of famous people.
Got drunk(er) with Lemmy.
Got thrown out of a hotel at 2.30am.
Took Olivia Williams for a pub lunch.
Worked in Italy for a couple of weeks.
Went to Amsterdam. Twice.
Let work become my only focus in life.
Suffered from suicidal tendencies.
Got better.
Wondered what I'm going to do now.

One of my best mates has just restarted his entire life after starting off doing that at the beginning of the decade. He's just realised he's probably not going to become a massive famous film director and is now back at the stage we were both at ten years ago. What with my sister's experience as a formerly aspiring actress and another mate as a researcher, I'd say it's a pretty tough industry.