Time and place over the last five Februarys

I'm sitting here in a Slough office park, looking out the window on a partly cloudy (which means partly sunny!) winter day, and I started to think about where I've been at this time of the year over the past 5 years...

Feb 2007 - Working at a client site in Canary Wharf, London and enjoying the mid-week City nightlife, but for most of the month, traveling all over the world (Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and South Africa) for work. Vying for promotion at work, I was working hard/playing hard and still adjusting to London after moving here 6 months before.

Feb 2006 - Ecstatic to be back in the US after 6 months in India, I was on a local SF area project, having lots of dinner parties and going to Tahoe twice in the same month (once where I severely damaged a rental car, oops).

Feb 2005 - Recently back from a fabulous trip to Costa Rica and having just broken up with my boyfriend, I was ready to make a change - I made a conscious decision to start looking for another job and had my resume out the door and phone interviews lined up within a few weeks. All this whilst traveling to/from San Francisco/Orange County, only to be living mid-week in a hotel next to the mall I went to growing up!

Feb 2004 - Living at home with the parents and just 6 months into my first consulting job, I was traveling to/from Detroit, Michigan/California for 5 weeks. This was in between two stints on a Delaware client. For both, I spent alternate weekends traveling around the country to visit friends on the East Coast and Midwest courtesy of my company-sponsored flyback policy.

Feb 2003 - Working at the same company as my Dad, we carpooled to work together every day (amazingly, I usually took the morning shift!). I had recently become debt-free (and have been ever since) and was saving up money for my next move, both job-wise and location.

Interestingly, I've had a pattern of living places in two-year intervals since leaving my university town. Two years in the OC, two years in San Francisco, and this September will be two years in London. Maybe not so coincidentally, that's why I'm planning to start a leave of absence right at the next two year mark...