Who, what, and where do I want to be?

Between taking a vacation, getting the flu (halfway through my vacation, which carried on through well over a week), and finally the power outage that has been going on in Downtown Vancouver for 2 days now (and not expected to be fixed until at least tomorrow night, possibly Thursday morning) giving many of us an unexpected couple of days (almost--still have to keep an eye on things) off or at least working from home, I have been doing some extended thinking about where I want things to go with my life.

As a lot of you already know, I resigned from my job at the end of last week. I know I've rarely written about work here, and that is mainly because it's such a small community we work in and I've kept this mainly a personal blog, and therefore thought it best kept somewhat separate. But I will say this--all in all, it's been a great experience and if I were to do it again, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to accept the job. I've learned so much, and it's been great working with such wonderful people, including our great clients, and I will absolutely miss that.

I know, however, that it is my time to move on. I've been itching for more challenging work, and would really like to further hone my Drupal skills, as well as learn to do some more advanced programming, and that is something that I will now have the chance to pursue. The other main reason is that I have been feeling really burnt out lately, and it's not something that has been letting up. My body just isn't cut out for the 9-5 lifestyle, and I have known for a while that I really do need some more flexibility if I really want to optimize my quality of life to accommodate my health needs.

I'll probably be writing a bit more than usual about work in the days to come as I figure out where exactly this next adventure is going to take me. For a variety of reasons, several friends and acquaintances have found themselves at a similar cross-roads, as well, so it will be interesting seeing how everyone's journeys progress.

Part of what I've been pondering more intensely is what exactly I want the next few years of my life to look like. I think I've gone through some pretty big changes over the past couple years since finishing grad school, and I need to take a little reprieve to reevaluate what my options are and where exactly I want my road to go. As much as I believe in fate, I also believe you have to make your own successes a lot of the time, and that luck is what happens to people who work hard and make solid plans. Mapping out options and opportunities is a necessity for me to feel like I can take all this on and stay on track.

On a somewhat tangential note, as some of my Flickr friends have noticed, I've been practicing doing more self-portraits lately. I started posting to Flickr just over a year ago, and here are some of my favorite self-portraits since then (from oldest to most recent: