This post was inspired by Topic 32 from Topical Tuesday´s My Year Competition Challenge. I will not be entering of course, because I can design a site for myself anytime.

As I wrote my entry yesterday I realised just important my archives are to me. I had previously deleted them, in a mad symbolic gesture to mean I was moving on and leaving the past behind. But the past defines who I am today, and to a certain extent I will never leave that behind. So, I am returning the archives gradually, but only the select entries that I still have tucked away.

Yesterday I left off where I mentioned the significance of animals in my life. I have always loved animals, and I love nothing better than to sit and watch Nature Programmes, Steve Irwins old programs… The bio-diversity on planet Earth fascinates me. We live on such an amazing planet, don´t you think?

My love of animals lead me to become Vegetarian again in 2001, and eventually to follow through and become Vegan in 2002. The only problem is, despite researching diet and nutrition more thoroughly than I had done since my last attempt (at 14) I once again became severely anaemic. In the end I was forced to abandon my attempt and return to the land of guilt ridden meat eating. I have ethical issues with the idea of eating meat, no matter how natural to the human condition it appears to be. This is worsened by knowledge and experience of working with animals, and knowing just how poor the actual meat production process is. At the moment I try to only eat organic ethically produced items, but I know that once I return to the UK I will probably return to Veganism once again. I generally try to avoid drinking milk anyway, and prefer to drink Oat/Rice or Soya Milk. I do love Cheese however, especially Feta, and Vegan Cheese never quite lives up to expectations!!

January 2003 started off really well. I broke my leg on the 25th January 2003. I´ve survived more falls off horses than I can count, usually without injury (though admitedly with some painful repercusions). My broken leg, rather ironically, was a result of climbing down from a stack of straw. How humilating. The coming few months were a nightmare as Mum and I struggled to look after two highly strung horses with little or no help from family, friends or fellow owners.

Late October 2003 see me returning to university yet again in a vague attempt to complete my History degree. Only years later do I realise the reason I cannot complete it is because I´m not all that interested. I love to read about the past, especially Medieval History, but to study the subject is a different ball game entirely. By this time I have already been to four universities and frequent utterings of  “She has the intellect to go far, but lacks the commitment to complete” start to appear in reports.  Most recently I realised that the only reason I chose to study History was becase a lecturer told me I had a talent for it, and so I steam rollered ahead and chose that subject to pursue to university. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy of its own kind, gone wrong. I did have a talent for it, I can waffle extremely well in Historical babble. I just don´t enjoy doing so, and ask any of my friends and they will tell you. Eliza has a very short attention span.

So I never completed that History Degree. I had my Equine Science one completed of course,  which is really worth the paper its written on, really…

I played at formalising my qualifications in Website Design & Interactive Media, eventually finishing by doing it part-time.

I´ve found my niche now however, but I will discuss this in Part III.

In 2004 my Mum was d¡agnosed with Breast Cancer and I had a breakdown resulting in three months in Hospital. 2004 was hard to endure. When the cancer treatment was over I, well, I brokedown. I spent Christmas 2004 and New Year 2005 in Hospital. I was suffering from severe depression, and for a while at least, various Doctors debated diagnosing Bipolar. I lost a lot at that time. I had been working in design for sometime, I had built up a steady income from design and hosting. I lost nearly all of it because there was no one there to pick up the pieces when I was incapable. For a while at least I also felt I had lost most of my friends.

During this Sam, one of the Jack Russel´s we bought in 2004, was given away to a new Mum. Jezebel was sold on. Both with my consent.

The next five years was spent piecing all that back together. Depression would return, but this time in moderation and I could cope.

Thats it for Part II. Part III tomorrow.