Hey, congratuations, Q'alooaith!!!
My year was fabulous. I moved out of my family home and am living in a unit with my cat, which is so great. It is so close to uni, which really saved me this year being at uni so much including evenings and weekends - I would not have coped with having to do the 50-60min commute every day as well as doing so many hours at uni. Plus I really like living on my own, although without Tuppy I would get a bit lonely I think! My mum comes to visit me every week and we talk on the phone all the time, my brother comes for dinner, and my dad has been fantastic, fixing stuff and painting and putting pictures up and stuff. So that was a huge highlight.
Also I started practicing for real as a psychologist this year, doing my first internship at the uni clinic. This was amazing. I have worked for so long now on the hope that this is what I want to do, so to find that yeah, it IS what I want to do and I am actually good at it as well was fantastic. Because I've been a student for so long I've certainly felt a sense of accomplishment when I get good marks or something, but to actually succeed and enjoy doing the thing that is what I want to do as my career is so satisfying, and relieving as well! There were definitely a lot of times when I was frustrated and angry, because we had a bad situation at the clinic where the school accepted way too many interns and didn't take appropriate steps to make sure there were enough clients, so there was a lot of twiddling thumbs, but while I certainly didn't find that fun at the time, coming out the other side I am only remembering the good bits.
I also made a lot of great new friends and had a lot of fun. Broke a couple of hearts...
On the downside, working in a service industry you definitely see the thoughtless rude side of people. The number of times I sat waiting for people to come to appointments who just didn't bother letting me know that they weren't coming. Also people are late all the time! What is with people being late??!! It is like it's becoming acceptable or even desirable to be late to things. Having been brought up by someone who is unfailingly punctual, I have a hard time tolerating lateness from others, and really, I shouldn't have to!
But all in all, a great year!