goodbye, 2013.

Mm this has been a good year. But what's good? I don't know. No major mishaps? I'm grateful. I went over my posts to see what has happened in the past 365 days. Unless I forgot some major entries, it has been an uneventful year. But really, I'm thankful. :)

January
Started the year with a bang in chilly Taiwan! We crossed over from 2012 on a rooftop watching fireworks shooting out of Taipei 101.

Dined in the dark to celebrate J's bro's birthday.

Lost all my iPhone contacts. Thanks, iCloud, thank you very much. Can't believe it's been a year, and yes, I'm still feeling it.. hence my switch to Android :)

February
Fasted 40 days from anything Leehom for Lent. Pleasantly surprised that I could actually do it!

March
Watched Leehom in concert with WW. It was every bit as good as I had hoped it to be. :)

Started vocal lesson - I felt like my voice was getting rusty from lack of practice - and quit a month later. The classes weren't helpful.

Got hooked on Quora. Addiction has since worsened.

Contemplated motherhood for real.

April
Revisited Bali with the husband.

Re-read Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night for the n-th time. :)

Transcribed Leehom's speech at Oxford Union, and the post has been consistently the most visited page on this blog. And it's still getting 10s of hits every day. Are people still reading that speech?

May
The long-awaited general elections finally happened. Enrolled as a voting agent. Ended the day with heartbreak - it wasn't the change I had wanted, but I'm sure there was a reason for it.

June
Singapore round 1 with A and C. The last and only trip we had was one decade ago. It was good to reconnect with them, and know that time hasn't eroded the friendship that we've built although we hardly keep in touch these days.

David Tao released his album Hello Goodbye. :)

D saw Brendan Buckley in action in LA and even managed to chat him up. :)

July
Created my first Wikipedia page!

Relient K released their album Collapsible Lung. :)

August
Singapore round 2 with Jayzayyy.. ^_^ Watched The Phantom of the Opera, perhaps my only musical outing for the year. But it was good enough. Wonder what would be in store next year :) I need a reason to visit Singapore!

Night class at BCM, after two year's absence. I know I always fall back to this excuse (haha!), but really, ISFP is not made for academia. Lol!

September
Started obsessing over Eminem. Listened to every song, downloaded every album, read every article, watched every YouTube video. Yup, I signed up for the Frothing-Mad-Fangirl package. :)

October
Taiwan again! We explored different places this time, and changed hotel every night. I would have preferred a different kind of itinerary, but it was still good for most part. My dad drove me nuts with his wanting to eat 9-course spread every meal.

Celebrated 11 years of nuptial bliss and blisters. :)

Decided to stay in the job for another year.. and probably two decades more. Gulp.

November
Eminem released his album The Marshall Mathers LP 2. :)

Youngest bro registered his marriage.

Committed to meeting up with S and J regularly to have open and honest discussion about our faith. Have met up twice so far.

Reached midlife. 35 woohoo.

Came back from trip to Miri for at least the 12th time this year. I flew extensively this year, even if it was only to Miri. Woohoo frequent flier miles!

Got myself a new phone. :)

Leehom got married!!!!!!! :) They look so good (in every sense) together, I'm so happy for them!

December
Mm. Had a relaxing month for the first time in a gazillion (do ppl still use that?) years. Probably still in disbelief that the year was ending so soon.

That's about it. Okay, quite uninspired to write so going to end this now.. but will have more in my next post. Thank you, 2013, for being kind. Xoxo.

gift of hope, love and joy

I wasn't stressed about buying gifts this year, because I hardly bought any haha! I'm planning to channel some of the money usually spent on gifts or house party to charitable organisations such as World Vision. Win-win for all, right? :) Also found this quote which fits perfectly to what I was hoping to do..

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. :: Oren Arnold

Merry CHRISTmas, one and all!

birthday shoutout to my dawg Chongy

And because I'm not in a creative state of mind, I'm copy pasting my FB for you greetings here; I still mean every word from the bottom of my heart. *wink wink*

Happy birthday, Sherylee! Looking forward to another wonderful year of meaningful conversations, iron-sharpening-iron sessions and frivolous fangirling with you. May next year be your best yet! Xoxo.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship. :: Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I'm so far from what I wanna be

oh I really am my own worst enemy

please don't let me get the better of me

take this earthly thing and make it finally

something heavenly

I wanna be heavenly

If I try to soar, I will fall for sure

so let your grace break through

and lift me up upon it to be with you

downhere :: something heavenly

look who has been a good girl this year..

So yeah, Christmas came early, and..... I got a new phone! :) It's exactly three years to my iPhone 4 purchase, and it has been seriously lagging in performance (erm, not helped by the fact that I have over 5,000 photos and gigabyte after gigabyte of songs; yup, my bad)(also not helped by the fact that it could ill-afford to support the iOS7 upgrade so the apps have not been updated in a while).. I suppose I could have continued using it (that was the plan but I think the slow response time was getting to me), but I finally "caved in" to the voice in my head that screams "get a new phone already!" and somehow managed to con my husband into getting me a new phone haha! Thankiew husby! *heart*

Hey wait, come to think of it, he was the one who planted the idea in my head! He kinda asked me a few months back if I would like to change the phone, I was kinda taken by surprise at the question then because I hadn't said anything to him about my phone, but apparently I've been absentmindedly making remarks about the slowed performance. Awww it's sweet that his ears actually perked up to that haha.. And because he never said "No" when I said I'd only change if he gets it for me, I kinda warmed up to the idea la la la.

Anyway, it took me forever to convince myself that I actually needed a new phone. The main reason was that it's not cheap (close to RM2k yo) and I'm not the kinda person who simply upgrades her phone (I do have a frugal side to me).. yeah, I struggled for a lonnngggg time with the decision, and even wrestled with guilt for a good two weeks after the purchase (hence my delay in blogging about it). Thankfully I have since come to term with it (I know, my choice of words in the past two sentences made it sound as if I was going through some life-changing crisis right? Go ahead and roll your eyes!), and am very much enjoying my new toy.

So may I present you.. *drum rolls please* ... the new extension of my arm, the HTC One!

Why not the iPhone, you might ask, since I've been using it the past 3 years? Am I not more used to its interface and usability? That's actually a good reason under normal circumstances but I decided I kinda had enough with Apple and their antics. Remember how I lost all my contacts when I tried to sync it to iCloud? And how all my painfully updated album covers went haywire after one of the numerous iOS upgrades? The perfectionist in me almost committed suicide. And sync-ing with iTunes? Bleh. The only thing I love about the iTunes is the convenience of music buying, which I strongly advocate if you could afford it =).

So it was a good thing that I came across this article and I was completely sold on the idea of switching to Android. And so.. Android phones.. why HTC and not the ubiquitous Samsung? Erm, for that very reason. I never owned a Nokia in my life because they were everywhere back then, almost literally so. I like to be special I guess *cough* (I realised my logic sometimes doesn't hold water in the real world). So erm why did I have an iPhone back then since it was also everywhere? Well, I might have decided on it in a moment of weakness lol! Just kidding - I don't need to defend myself, do I? :P Anyway, I would have gone for a Windows phone then but its app market was still in infancy stage and I had no desire to be a guinea pig. So yeah, I've no regret going with the iP4, it was the best phone then.

So yeah, HTC. For whatever reason, I had always wanted an HTC - even back when I was first scouting for a smartphone, but there wasn't anything that especially caught my eye (or rather, met my budget). If I were to choose a reason behind my wanting of the  HTC, it was because my friend L got one a few years back, and I remember there was this app called Google Sky Map that would show you the names and positions of major constellations visible to our naked eyes. I was so mesmerised by it and in fact it was one of the first apps I looked for in iTunes when I got my iPhone, only to find it wasn't available on that platform (lol, just found out that I actually blogged about this). So yeah, that has been on my mind at least the past three years. But I can't just get a phone for one app right? And wouldn't Samsung have the app too? Thankfully, the HTC One has gotten really good reviews and is widely regarded as one of the top phones in its category, so I didn't need much persuasion to go with it.

Oh yeah, this last piece of the puzzle came later but it sealed my decision: The One has two additional brownie points going for it... okay, I'm going into fangirl mode, just so you are warned... for one, Leehom endorses and uses an HTC Phone (he switched some time last year and here he is in NY Times Square doing a commercial for the One so yeah, woot!).. andddd.. the audio system in the One is provided by beats, yup, the very one by Dr Dre, who as we all know, is Eminem's mentor. So ta-dah! My two most favorite singers, connected by One phone... so yeah, what can I say but SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

^__^

Moving on, 'tis the time of the year.. the annual Big Bad Wolf book sale is upon us once again. Like how people look forward to some music festivals, I look forward to this particular cheaper-than-dirt book sale.. it's really the best thing since.. sliced bread (urgh for lame idiom but right now, I have nothing better to offer). Brand new books go for as low as RM3 (USD1), with the average paperback going for RM8 and hardcover between RM10 and RM25. While I would lurrrve to splurge (I do love a book with a nice cover, and there were so many!), I usually cap my spending at RM200, which is really a pittance compared to how much other book lovers spend, but that amount yielded me a good 22 books (some are not pictured below because I haven't bought them yet at the time the photo was taken - yup, I've gone there twice over the weekend - on Fri with J and again last night with the husband, and I won't mind another round before they're done) and I'm more than delighted. I'm a slow reader and this is just the right number of books to keep me occupied for the next 12 months. So yes, I'm a happy bunny all around. Xoxo!

fact: cats sleep an average of fifteen hours a day

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I didn't even get the chance to properly say goodbye to November. December is already 35-minute old as I write this. I'm so tired right now everything's a blur. And it's beyond my own understanding why I'm not curled up in bed, and that I'm here typing away instead. I guess it's my masochistic side teasing me, or that I'm reacting to my own plan of waking up at noon tmrw (whee) because I know I still could get at least 11 hours of sleep after this.

Anyway it's been a tiring month, one marked with extensive traveling (just checked the calendar and found that I have only been home two weeks in the past five)(wow)(whee), and being under the weather. I'm not going to complain about any of that, because in the end, I have enjoyed the days away, although I didn't realise my body is so weak. But no, not gonna complain. :)

I've been working on a book project at work, which aims to chronicle the company's birth and growth over the past five decades. One of the things that we have had to do was talking to people, in particular the company's pioneers, key management personnel and long-serving staff, so the past few months have been the most intense in term of human contact hours I've ever had in my life. I think I've probably met close to fifty people so far (and with each meeting lasting an average of 90 minutes (the longest was 4 hours, the shortest, 30minutes), that's like 4,500 mins (75 hours)(wow)(wow.) of getting people to opening up and thinking back to the good (and not so good) old days and talking and listening. So much talking (them) and so much listening (me) omg. Thank God I'm not writing the book (we've commissioned a writer) because I wouldn't know where to begin. And end.

Anyway, I brought this up because I got to meet a spectrum of people and their various perspectives on life. There were those who are going strong and active despite being advanced in years. Chatting with them has been inspiring and amazing. You feel like life has so much to offer, and that you would like to be up and about and all over even when your whole head's gray. And on the other hand, there were a few.. for a lack of a better term, zombies. Tired, cynical, stuck in a rut, counting the days to when they will punch the time card for the last time (figuratively speaking). And the whole time I was with them, I kept thinking how I don't want to end up like that! I'm not terribly ambitious, and I'm getting comfortable where I am.. but I just don't want to be that listless and dull as I grow older.

I won't right? Mm, right.

Anyway, Thanksgiving's just passed. Too bad we don't celebrate it here, but 'sokay, I'm still really thankful for everything I have. The tangible and felt but especially the unseen and uncountable. Okay, I should go. The hotel bed is calling my name.. and I can't wait to go home tomorrow. Last thought before I slip into unconsciousness for the next 660 minutes: if December would last 60 days, I'd appreciate it very much. Kthnxbai.