home for a year

so, tomorrow is my last day on the job, and i think i'm really going to miss it. i know that i've only been there for ten weeks, but it feels like i've been there forever. in a comfortable way, not in a stuck-in-a-rut kind of way. over the past couple of weeks, i've really felt like one of the gang (what a nerd) and i like it! yesterday i trained some of the hr managers in the company on a new workshop about stressful conversations and one of them has already put the training into practice and told em today that she felt way more confident about having this kind of talk! so nice to hear that my work this summer is making a difference. i love getting that kind of feedback.
i've spent the last year really appreciating all the fantastic things about vancouver that i took for granted before i went to japan. things like really good falafel, the view from the lion's gate bridge, drinking beer at locarno, shopping on main street, strolling around kits (making it maybe a block or two in an hour - leanne), tiny kids and their parents at soccer practice on saturday mornings, delicious muffins, live music at the commodore, eavesdropping on the bus and a million other things...
and i really do keep asking myself why i'm leaving again... i know that 4 months will fly by, but i just don't feel ready to leave. it's probably just that last time i left (to move to japan for two years), i was leaving a job that i hated, a boyfriend that wasn't right for me and was generally dissatisfied with my life. i was nervous, but excited and had no idea what it was like to go off into the unknown without a family to support me. this time, i'm well aware of (and thinking a lot about) the first week away. in japan, the first couple of days was a jet-lagged gong-show of foreigners carousing around tokyo, then a quick train ride out to the country where i was dropped off at my apartment in the middle of nowhere. the first two days were pretty intense... i definitely had second thoughts about being there. i know that once dennis gets to hk and i'm settled in i'll love it, but i just hate the feelings of chaos that come with change.... as we in HR like to call it - the valley of despair...working on change management doesn't actually hep you bebetter at it - sometimes it's worse cause you know all the stages that you'll go through... ugh.
otherwise, things are great! peach pie and cheesecake in the fridge, lots of free time as of saturday, enough cash to support myself for a few months and great friends that i'm looking forward to seeing in january.