Year in review 2019

As many of my friends are reporting, 2019 has been an excellent year personally against a background of terrifyingly awful politics. I've spent far too much of it in a mindset of, we might or might not leave the EU in a few weeks, and nobody has any idea how that will work. And, surprise, I still feel like that as the year closes. I started the year hoping to emigrate to escape from the politics, but that didn't work out.

At the same time, I've completed a successful and very positive short term project at work, taken a couple of months (not entirely intentional) break, and started a new job I'm really excited about. I've remained in stable, happy, long-term relationships of 12 years, 10 years and 5 years. And I never see enough of my friends but there have been some great moments of connection. There has been some tension over our different reactions to terrible politics, but an amazing solidity underneath that. I've done enough learning new stuff to keep me really happy. I like where I am Jewishly, just the right level of community commitment, connected and active but not overwhelmed.

Significant events

• The first half of the year was dominated by my partner's amazing road trip. Being apart for so long was difficult, but it was really brilliant to be able to support her in visiting every country in the EU and several more besides.
• I successfully completed a major educational research and innovation project in February, and then had a glorious half year extension when I got to pursue and develop my academic interests and build on the skills and institutional knowledge from the main phase of the project.
• There was a period around July-August when it felt like everything was in crisis, and I just felt really lucky that this fell towards the end of my job contract. In particular, my father-in-law died suddenly. I was there with jack and his mother for the last days, and a few weeks later helped to run the funeral. I found I have a lot of what's referred to as "resilience" but is actually a sufficiently comfortable and secure life that there is spare capacity to deal with this sort of bolt from the blue.
• I lead a seminar on the Hagaddah. I took two excellent online courses with the Leo Baeck college, one on Exodus with R's Kahn-Harris and Ashworth-Stein, and one on Maimonides with R' Solomon. I sort of half completed a more in depth online course with the Woolf Institute about Jewish, Christian and Muslim relations in Europe. I really want to go back and at least learn the material even if I've got somewhat behind the group discussions. I also went into my third year teaching cheder, and started an online pre-bar mitzvah Hebrew class which Judith has been joining in with.
• In October, I started the best job ever, and I'm really loving it.

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