Well, Christmas is over, 2005 is here, I'm back at work, uni starts again on Wednesday night and it's all systems Go Go Go! I'm sitting here listening to Kasey Chambers singing 'The Captain' on a compilation cd we bought last night on the way home - Music from the Sopranos (mafia TV series!) and editing my essay which I should have finished weeks ago. Whoops. Meant to complete it over the Christmas break but spent too long playing Halo 2 on the Xbox, reading things other than text books, and trying to forget about the realities of life for a while! Got a bit bleak for a while there around New Years. 2004 was a tough year. Farewelling it, thinking back on it, thinking of what's to come, what needs to be done, it was all a chunky mouthful of food for thought. Life is unpredictable, it's how we roll with the punches that gets us through. And it's the people we surround ourselves with that get us through as well. You know who you are. Your wings have carried me over some rough ground and I am forever, deeply grateful to you. The older I get the more I appreciate my diamond friends, my precious and rare beautiful people. There are always autumn leaves, friendships that don't last the distance, that are right for a season and no more, people who want you for what you can give to them, who leave you stranded and alone at the first hint of trouble. I have less time for them now. There are things about life that I now know. There's plenty that I don't know too but as time goes by, some things do become clearer.

One more thing about the trials and tribulations of life - in the words of a gorgeous woman I know, "It is what it is".

Enjoy the pics of my precious niece Lauren that follow... I'm off to finish my essay and then read about causal and dependent variables and control conditions in experiments!