Not dead?

Holy crap I haven't updated this in a long time. A lot of things have changed. With a change of management came a change in... well, everything. It's amazing. I like work again. Everything has changed, and for the better.

I still want to change to EMS, but I don't know when it'll be financially feasible. It's looking like the best bet there will be to get my bills down a lot, and work on my novels in my spare time, and see if I can swing part time author/EMT.

Right now, I can't manage to justify taking the paycut. I hate that I'm stuck with what I'm doing because of it, but I'm getting some pretty crazy pay and just got another raise. I can't justify giving that up right now. It's the golden handcuffs.

It's been strange how I was convinced that Microsoft and software testing was what was wrong with my life (although there is also the chance that the long drawn out process that was Windows Vista was actually what was killing us all, because by the end of it we were all so fried that we just wanted to be done so the suffering would be over). I had been on the verge of leaving either Microsoft or at least testing when new management came in. New management knew this, and I made no buts about it - I told them that they didn't need to plan on me sticking around because I wasn't going to be.

When the dust from the changes settled, I got handed to a new lead who looked at me on day one and said, "Give this a chance. We really don't want to lose you."

Sucker that I am, I agreed to give it a shot.

It's been 10 months under completely new management. I have dropped all my antidepressants (although the winter may change that), and I have my life back. It's not that it's not stressful at times - it still often is, and is sometimes completely crazy. But when things go nuts, my boss says, "Management and myself trust you to make good decisions. Do what you think is right." So I do. I go to work, I do my job exactly how *I* want to do it, and not once, in an impressive 10 months, have either of my managers worried about that.

It's all been a bit of a reason to look at my life. I'd rather be an EMT, but I haven't come out so badly. I'm still stalking ambulances and I eye the ballots for EMS funding issues so I can vote for EMS getting some more money. It's weird how this sideline thing that started as research for a book has stuck with me so long.

I'm almost 30. I don't want children (which means I take a lot of crap as a female). I've got a lot still to do in life, and I know I won't be testing software forever. But for now, the change I needed found me, even though I tried to fight it. And things panned out okay.

I don't know when I'll write again - it's possible that I'll start going back to keeping in touch with people as "myself" rather than this ambiguous "cravingchange" alias. I've realized over the last number of months that part of "me" is my love of EMS, and there's no use keeping that confined here. Which I don't really do anyway I guess; they asked me for one interesting fact about me at my first team meeting with the new team. I said, "I'm an emergency medicine nerd."
I'm going to be taking the local Community Emergency Response Team training in spring, and I'm hoping to be a floor captain at work to give me some hands on emergency experience (although with my luck all it'll be is fire drills!).

I've got a new manager now and that's almost scary because it's another change. But then again, the worst that can happen is that I'm back to where I was, looking for change. Which, in the end, isn't such a bad journey at all.

I don't know if anyone is reading, but if you are, thanks.