2013 Review

As its nearly the end of the year I thought I'd do a bit of a review of the things I'd hoped to do.
My goals for the year fell into 5 areas, sport, burlesque, work home and transition.

Sport

Complete Outlaw Triathlon:

Sadly this didn't happen. Working at our Malvern office for several months at the beginning of the year didn't help my training. By the time I'd found where the local swimming pool was and then worked out a cycle route that I could use if I took my bike with me I'd already committed to returning to Yeovil. 

Managing to fall off my bike and hurt my wrist during the Outlaw Half and breaking my little toe during training simply compounded things. I might not have managed to achieve this aim this year but its still there and I will do it at some point.

Complete Outlaw Half:

Completed this and managed to improve on my personal best for the distance. I was quite happy with that as I had felt so bad the morning of the race that I'd seriously contemplated pulling out and just going home.

Complete DIY Olympic Triathlon:

I managed to complete my own little Olympic distance triathlon, even if I did break my little toe while changing to go out on my bike. 

Burlesque 
Perform True Love routine:  
I managed to get my large fan dance routine developed and performed it at the start of the year at the Pink Kitten showcase. I loved performing it as it was such a brilliant routine. Now I just need to work on refining it for the future.

Other burlesque aims:

Well I failed spectacularly with every other aim that I had. I had a number of routines that I wanted to develop and performed but I've not managed to do any of them. I had planned to train to teach burlesque but again that did not come to fruition. Its a bit frustrating but I'll hang in there and work on routines in the New Year.

Work

Pass ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst exam:

I popped up to London at the start of the year and sat my ISTQB exam and managed to pass it. It was a lot less stressful than the last exam I took, no headaches at the end of it thankfully. The whole trip to London was an interesting one as it was the first time that I'd been there since I transitioned.

Develop C# programming ability:

I've had a few attempts at achieving this goal but something seems to come up. I don't have the time to do anything at work and at home I have even less time. I really do need to brush up on my programming skills so that I can do other things at work. 

Home 
Finish decorating small bedroom:
There is only a few bits and pieces that need to be done to the small bedroom and it will be decorated. It needs a carpet, a bed, wardrobe and some drawers. The area over the stairs that has been boxed in needs to be finished (minor work) and then covered over to leave it looking neat and tidy.

The room has had all of the holes filled in, the woodwork has been repainted, the ceiling repainted and the walls papered. It looks quite nice. At the moment it makes the perfect practice and exercise space. How long that continues to be the case I do not know.

Tidy garden:
The back garden was tidied up and rubbish taken to the dump several times during the year. There is still work to be done and there is yet another load of rubbish to take to the dump. That needs to be done before the end of the year.
The front garden is a work in progress. Part of the hedge has been removed. The remainder needs to be cut down and taken to the dump when the weather is good enough to get the chainsaw out. There is still work to be done but that will be part of next years aims.

Empty attic of things we don't need:
We've not really started to sort through the attic. That is also going to be something that I'll start doing next year.

Transition

Get referred back to Laurels in December:

In the end I never actually stopped going to the Laurels. I did start going less frequently. My sessions have been very useful and things are in progress at the moment so that hopefully I'll be able to have my surgery next year.

Complete speech therapy:

I think my speech therapy sessions are going to carry on for a while, although not as frequently as previously. At the moment I go every 2 or 3 months to for an hour session. They are good opportunities to go over what has been happening.

Start laser hair removal:

I managed to start having laser hair removal at the Nuffied in Exeter. Its helped a bit but hasn't cleared all of the hair. Some of it simply isn't the right colour for the laser to work on. Still it does mean that the electrolysis that I'm having can focus on getting rid of the dark hairs that have resisted the laser. The remaining hair is light coloured so I don't have a noticeable beard shadow.

Electrolysis on breasts and chest area:

I started to have electrolysis on my breasts and chest area. After several sessions I've now moved to having electrolysis on my beard area. The laser sessions reduced the dark hairs which means that the electrolysis can focus on the lighter hairs.