Reflections of 2008

Blog-hopping in recent days have been exceptionally fun- probably because I get to read about the big picture lives of others as they reflect on their past year, and it kinda gets me thinking of mine.

So for me, 2008 has been an exceptionally challenging year. It seemed like there were more downs than ups though. I don't remember 2008 as being a happy year but certainly, there were some proud moments: scaling SEA's highest peak- Kota Kinabalu, downing my graduation gown, getting my dream job offer, buying my first convertible, riding my first motorcycle, truly living independently (it's not too bad under the Californian sun while at it. heh heh!).




There were also some big moves - relocating to the USA, changing jobs, cutting my hair really short (he he!). It has also been a year of much professional development & getting a clearer idea of what I'm good at and where I'm heading.

My hair went from this:

To this (which was probably the best according to most people):

To this: .... oh dear...why did I chop my hair further... Looks super toot!!!

But most of all, 2008 has been a year of crystallizing what and who is important to me. I have had the good fortune of getting closer to friends I now call gems, and appreciating more of what family means. So a million thanks to friends local and afar who have stood by me during my toughest times this year - your patience, loving words, physical presence and wisdom have meant so much to me. I would probably have set myself on fire without you.




There are a few more people I want to give thanks to but I can't find the photos right now.. If you're one of the people reading this, you're probably in the list as this new blog is kept deliberately exclusive to the people who matter to me.

All the trials this year have also made me a stronger, more mature person. I feel like the past 6 months have added at least 6 years of experience that will hopefully see me through as a better person for the next 60 years. I'm not joking when I say I've had a dramatic shift in paradigms and the way I view and do things.

No New Year Resolutions for me this year since most of it ends on Jan 31, 2009 for most people. But in the next 365 days, I'd certainly like to:

1. Let go, let flow more (in dancing, relationships, everything)
   
2. Make a trip down to South America
3. Be inspired to work out more using Body Bugg
4. Appreciate God's good work in my life
5. Spend quality time with the people who matter
   

Life is like a dwarf- it is short, and you can be Happy, Grumpy of Dopey. In this new year, I look forward to the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration and inspiration in all the areas one can possibly think of. I wholeheartedly wish the same for you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009~!

Comedy Club

So it seems Comedy Club is a big thing in the USA! Some have amateur everyday folks go on stage to tell jokes while others call world class comedians/ professionals stars of the show. Tonight was the latter- I was invited by my Meetup group (Orange County Asian Professionals) to watch the Comedy show at IMPROV.



Ok, so this Meetup thing is quite cool. No, it's NOT a dating site. Rather, it allows you to look for social groups based on your areas of interest and participate in/ organise meetups. It's a really neat idea given the mobility of people & the need to establish a social network with all the relocation taking place (not just for me, but also the average Americans who have moved out of their parents' house). I've found these Meetups to be cool- plenty of friendly and open-minded folks who have now become instant friends.

Again, I think that 人生不需要那么多朋友，几个知己就够了！But now I have a qualifier - that sometimes it's good just having a large number of friends as instant therapy when you're stuck alone overseas.

2 Left Feet

There are 3 things I really want to do when I'm in the USA:

1. Get my motorbike license - COMPLETED!
2. Work out in the gym/ find time for exercise & health - IN PROGRESS
3. Find time for Ballroom dancing - IN PROGRESS



Actually there's a fourth- to get more investment-savvy but I guess I can do that on the job. So..Today is special because I had my life's FIRST ballroom dancing private lesson!

Much of these things can also be done in Singapore but I guess I'm just more socially conscious back home than here where anything and everything is possible. But beyond that is the fact that I could hardly find time for myself back home.

Using the USD400 fitness allowance given to me, I bought the following open-toe shoe (salsa/latin dance), closed-toe shoe (ballroom e.g. waltz, foxtrot) and dance sneaker (every day dance use). I also got a plastic heel protector to prevent the heel from wearing down too fast. Super innovative - they should have that back home too for office heels! :)

Now I just have to get myself enrolled in more dance classes! It's just tough cos' I'm going home at the end of the month and I'll miss 50% of the dance classes if I sign up for group classes. Ugh. Tradeoffs- we're always facing that in life.

San Diego Rocks! (Part I of II)

Just came back from a weekend road trip + beach hopping + outlet shopping trip to San Diego. It was 1.5hours drive each way..an ideal way to spend the weekend! This is what life should be- workless weekends! But guess it's back to Accounting Project for me now that I'm done with Accounting Exam.

Pictures to come later! Super tired right now...gg to bed to rejuvenate for tomorrow's Ballroom dancing class! :) Can't wait!!!

- - - - - - - - - Ok. 1 day later- I'm back to post the photos - - - - - - - -

This was what greeted me when I first arrived: blue skies and really neat architecture!



I bought my first purchase at Victoria's Secrets before fuelling our appetites at this super clean, yummy restaurant called Little Korea.



We (Jason, Cheryl & I) went to the famous La Jolla beach and I totally loved the feel of the town, the warmth of the sun and the sight of the blue Pacific Ocean.



La Jolla is famous for its dramatic cliff drop-offs and magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean at its best. (well..until we get to the Salk Institute... to be posted...)



The place was so picture perfect that I couldn't resist getting Jason & Cheryl to pose for their fun "wedding shots". ha ha :P



More photos of San Diego (Part II) to come later- Salk Institute & Coronado Island to name a few...

Mann....every weekend should be like this!

It's finally a happy, happy week!

Close friends know that the past 3 weeks or so have been challenging to say the least. But with the see-saw theory: what goes down must come up. My highlight of the week was to learn that I've been approved to work from the Singapore Office during CNY- so yippee!! I'm coming home for 2 weeks! I'm excited just thinking of the familiar faces I'll see again!

I just met XT and his parents and brought them to the Christmas Boat Lightup Parade. It's the 100th anniversary this year so the parade was bigger than usual despite the economic crisis. It's THE biggest Christmas parade in the USA and brings in millions of people in just 5 days! There's ~100 spectacularly lit boats - from simple canoes to lavish yatchs vying for the best and brightest award.



And then I had Corrine coming to Orange County for her audit assignment. She work just 5miles away from my house so we had dinner together then went to my favorite YogurtLand! I've been thinking of how the YogurtLand concept could work in Singapore: it has >20 flavors of frozen yogurt (Strawberry Cheesecake, Pomegranate, Green Tea, Peanut Butter etc.) with >20 flavors of toppings (Fresh fruits, chocolates, nuts, mochi etc.) and you'll pay by weight. It's really yummy! & it's a super bigggg sensation in the USA right now!



I love musicals! So I was absolutely delighted to hear that Cats! was playing in town. I got tickets for Deb & her daughters; and we had a SUPER meal at Mesa Grill before that. I had asked for coupons that the restaurant was quick to give given the recession and we got 2 Half chickens, BBQ baby back ribs, tri-tip, pulled pork and Mesa wings for 50% off at $22! - It was too much food even for 6 people!



The only not-so-happy thing now is I have an accounting take home exam that I've got to struggle with. Yikes! So it's back to the treadmill so I can read the 1 inch thick FASB Statements without falling asleep!

Cool Gmail

Anything that bears the Google stamp gets my approval.

So today, I was on Gmail when a sudden button popped up that says "customize gmail"- I clicked on it, selected a random design & within 1 sec, my Gmail inbox looked like that:





It's super cool!! The only thing is... that popup button disappeared and now I don't know how to change it back. I'll go figure it out when I get some free time. :)

Amazon Shopping!

Came home and found this shipping/ handling note hanging outside my door. Cool. The elliptical machine I ordered from Amazon.com has arrived! :-) Thought I'd take the chance to post some photos of my living room before folks back home complain why I haven't sent them photos of my new place. :)



The highlight of the 2nd photo is the wooden table at the bottom left corner- I got it assembled in 5 minutes and am absolutely loving it. The carpet on the floor has an interesting history... I bought it at the ancient Aztec pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico and it's since gone with me to the USA, then Japan before returning to Singapore- had no place for it at home and now it's shipped to the USA and finally has a happy home now. :)

Ok. I've digressed. The aim of this email is to talk about the shipping/ handling notice I got from Amazon.com and how much I've enjoyed online shopping.

If there's nothing else about the USA that interests me anymore, Amazon.com certainly makes up for it. Pre-purchase reviews have been part of the experience besides having stuff shipped to me in 2 days, and for free! I've gotten a GPS, GPS stand, Screwdriver, and now my new elliptical machine. Next on the list is the Amazon Kindle!



I'm not a gadget whiz/ geek for that matter but this little thing here is totally revolutionizing the way people read/ live. E-books/ bestsellers can be downloaded for $9.99 and newspapers of all kind are fed into the device. U can also read blogs, highlight quotes, bookmark pages and browse through reviews and read random chapters before purchase. Aww mann, all the books (50kg?!?!) I've shipped here for nothing! If I had one of these when I was stuck in the body crushing MRT back home, my life would have been so much more meaningful/ productive. (Flipping books in the train was close to impossible, much less reading newspaper!)

Maybe Christmas is a good reason for me to splurge. :)

Cool stuff!

Been spending the past 2 evenings working out at 24 Hour Fitness, which is the sister company of California Fitness back home. Glad I made sure I could use Cal Fitness's membership even when I relocated before I signed the package. :) Now it's GREAT!

The 24 Hour Fitness here is not as posh as California Fitness is back home. But the one I'm going to is the mega centre for 24 Hour Fitness so it's 3 storeys high, at least 10x the size of that in Bugis and has multiple squash, racquetball and basketball courts, a huge swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna etc. It's really neat.

But I really like it because I fall asleep on boring accounting notes at home, and now I've shifted strategy to reading them while I get my adrenaline pumping on the elliptical machine. Yippee!

Just saw this on promotion: looks promising, has awesome reviews and I really want to get it! But it's only PC compatible so far..the Mac version is coming out in Dec (!!!) but I bet it's going to be >USD$300 :(

OMG!! DD is the next advice

So my hunch was right.

She is now together with him.

It's weird when I have to ask to find out when anyone could have guessed. So last piece of advice- DD: Date Defensively (not like people hot in the fervor of "love" listen anyway). In the beginning of dating, when the love, infatuation and romance is out in full force, there is a strong desire to move closer and deeper as quickly as possible. The danger in this is that you barely know the true person you are dating. So it's a good idea to date defensively. Don't let basal animal instincts cloud both 理性 & 感性。

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What is love? The following sentence "We love because He first loved us" always pops into my head before Corinthians's “Love is patient, Love is kind..." does. Actually when you think about it, that sentence is really applicable in real life. In any relationship, there's always got to be a person to initiate interest first. The other party, no matter how stone-hearted, will observe what the initiator says/ do and at some point, feel touched/ loved and at least it's off to a good observatory start. The rest is corollary if 3 basic factors (*see below) come into play. This is where 感情 vs. 感动 ought to be distinguished- although there's often a lot of the latter in the former. But that alone isn't enough to sustain a relationship.

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Which brings me to the next question, what are the basic factors*? I call it 天时，地理，人和。And of the 3, the most important one in my opinion, would be 天时。Sometimes 2 people really appear like a perfect fit- wavelength, interests, habits and attraction- but things just don't work out because the timing is wrong. Maybe she came too late. Or he came too early. People tell me you need to date a few people so you know the right one when he/she comes along. That could be right. But a bigger part of me feels you don't want to date random people- what if the right one comes along?

Interestingly, I actually told someone he came too late. What was I thinking back then? How can anyone be too late if I'm still single and not at my prime? -_-"' I could use some bullets.

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Most of my close friends already know of my 5 Cs or perhaps even the extended Cs. They are the Characters, Charismas, Competence, Confidence, Chemistry- the Courteous, Compatibility, Cultured. But really, as I grow (hopefully) wiser, Commitment reigns high on the list. Which is why even when I finally see someone as my prototype of an ideal half, I know this is not going to happen. As with all tragic love stories, it's got to do with 天时。。。。。

Interesting Dichotomy

I'm a huge fan of words. Just got a new revelation:
第一次是纯真，第二次是无知， 第三次是愚蠢。

But it could also be:
第一次是偶然，第二次是必然， 第三次是命中注定。

Goes to show many things in life are often a result of the frame of mind－ the half-full vs. half-empty dichotomy. Very often, if something has past, and there's nothing you can do about it, you should rejoice and take the positive path. I know this is easily said than done. Many of us often indulge in melancholic self-pity- which could be a healthy part of internalising/ grieving - but it's just important to realize that pain brings possibilities.