Happy New Year!

Someone needs to tell my neighbour's tree that it is still summer! It has decided that it must be autumn, as the leaves are turning yellow and brown, and starting to fall.

Yet the heat continues, with a forecast high today of 30C. I love the heat, but the cooler evenings and nights are a welcome counterpoint to the heat of the day.

Although I'm not quite ready to concede that summer is nearly past us, I look forward to the fall. This time of year is my new year, more so than the cold and frozen January. I think it has to do with the number of years when I went to school. I started my university classes the year that my son C started kindergarten. At the time I was 33, had been out of school for 15 years, working in a dead-end job at a financial institution.

When I made the announcement at work that I was leaving to pursue my education, I was met with reactions that ranged from, "good luck" to "you'll never manage with two kids", and even "you, you're too stupid to go to school". I still wonder why the last was even spoken aloud, but in a sense, it was a good thing because I was determined to prove the speaker wrong.

And I did, graduating four and a half years later, with a degree in Business Administration with an average of 84.7% overall. I remember walking across the stage to receive my piece of paper that I had worked so hard to get, and thinking, f* you, just watch me. Probably an inappropriate thought, but one that has stuck with me throughout the years, whenever someone has suggested I cannot or should not do something.

In the next few weeks I plan to spend some time reflecting on the past, and thinking about my future. I won't be making resolutions, since those tend to fall by the wayside, but rather some goals to reach over the next few months. By publicly sharing these goals on my blog, I hope to encourage prod myself towards success! Just don't expect anything too lofty, I'm more realistic these days.