It is that time of the year once again. Seems like only yesterday that I wrote the same thing about 2012 - Cliche!! But once again, the year is coming to an end, how fast is that! And I'm writing this ahead of time now because for the first time in 6 years, I have no plans to be anywhere this Xmas and New Year! Well, I had a plan to visit somewhere or I thought there was a plan, but it went kaput/cancelled/denied.I guess I knew from the start that it wasn't really gonna happen anyway, was it. Words, easy to say. Disappointed? I guess a little yes....
That being said, it just means I'm gonna be boring back home and probably sleep through NYE. It happens, I get lazy back home.
2013 - Ah the supposed new beginnings. At least that was what I told myself back in 2012. I told myself a lot of things in 2012 that I was supposed to do or not do in 2013 - Like not to cry over someone again. But reality has its way of twisting words and resolve, and it didn't plan out as I had hoped - hurting over the old one, yearning over the could-have and pondering over the 'is it?', at one point it seemed as if whatever resolve made in 2012 was going to be whitewashed by the newly found emotional person who is typing this piece!
2013 - I started the first day of 2013 being extremely hungover, and puked on the boat and just felt really terrible the entire day. Yes, it was a result of the hard partying on NYE. Yea, sungsom and redbull mix isn't exactly friendly.
Oh and I dyed my hair red for once and it was fun! I probably can't do that anymore now that I'm in a different industry, but at least I did it..
I had a year of wonderful travels and knowing great people from around the world and I am truly grateful for that! My 2 weeks impromptu vacation to the Philippines brought much joy to my broken soul. I got to meet whalesharks, thresher sharks, immersed myself in the wonderful underwater world in Bohol and saw the smallest creature in the world - the tarsiers! And finally able to tell the world I've been to Boracay! That fancy, touristy place in Philippines that everyone raves about but seriously isn't really all that fantastic! The trip presented me with great opportunities to be the adventurous self that I am (though it was not the most adventurous trip I've had, in fact nothing really went wrong in terms of mis-adventure this time which is unusual for me), and meet with great people - The fun-loving bunch from Taiwan, the adorable hip Finnish couple, the young danish lads, and the south african Divemaster! We had loads of fun and these are people I really enjoy being with and getting to know! This was the trip where I missed my boat to another destination because I was too hungover from the Valentines' Day party the night before, or was it the wee morning hours before? But all is not lost as a missed chance brought about a new opportunity! I got to travel with the Finns and that was one of the best decisions I've ever made because they are so chill and cool. And they are likely to pop by for a visit soon!
My another 2 weeks impromptu vacation to Flores was another gem. It was amazing how raw that place still is and how nice generally the people in Flores are. At least I think so, but that is probably because I was a tourist there and not living there long term. It wasn't overly populated with backpackers or tourists, which is what I really admire and like and throughout my trip I can almost say I did not see a single tourist from China! Except for that fateful day when a Shanghainese walked into the dive shop. Damn, she spoilt my record! But it was real nice to be in a place that is still not swarmped by Chinese tourists. Also, Flores brought about much joy and great friends and people. An unexpected stay in labuan bajo turned into a week long diving vacation and brought me so close to the people I dived with - The nonchalant Russian, the rapid fire Spanish and the cute sexy American. Not to mention the locals who partied with us. I never expected to build such close ties with these people but I guess I did, and it brought me much joy to be in that place and for those 2 weeks, I forgot the fact that I had a job waiting for me back home. It was also a trip that made me think twice about my life (but more on that in a bit).
What was also nice was visitor(s)! Visitors from my travels coming over and spending time and having fun! Which was real nice because most of the time, people you meet on travels are just that - people you meet on travels. They add you on facebook and never really catch up again. And these are friend(s) I treasure who visited. And I am expecting more next year - My adorable Finns and how can I forget the Canadian might be making a repeat appearance!
This was a year of bad health for me. I have no diagnosis for what I'm sufferring or have sufferred but it has taken a toll on me physically and mentally. Starting with the insomnia, which begun in 2012, it got so bad at one point I just felt like killing myself. Waking up at 1-2am, falling back to sleep at 3, and waking up at 5 again. Torture! Someone told me that I probably need to sleep with someone (doesn't have to be sexual) to feel the security, comfort and be able to doze comfortably. And I must say, I agree with him. That was a spot-on remedy which worked. But I do not have that luxury to have someone to cuddle me constantly. And so, the insomnia looms its ugly head on and off on occassions and I to suffer its wrath! Then it was the mysterious case of the back pain that almost paralysed me for 3 days. What was scary was not just that fact that I was bedridden for 3 days, but the fact that for no reason, the backpain morphed into something so serious that I literally couldn't move or breathe. I pride myself on the fact that I try to live as healthily as I can, and I exercise to keep myself fit and injury-free, but this episode brought me straight down to earth and really shook me to the bones. Anything can happen in a flick of the hand, just like that, and you probably will never know what hit you. Just like my fucked up digestive system, for whatever reason, it is a little fucked up right now. And it is not a good feeling. Maybe it has to do with the insomnia, maybe it has to do with me. Who knows? The doctors don't at the moment. But maybe I just need to get checked for it. When I get my butt over to the doctor's. If I ever get my butt over.
2013 - I just realised I have come to my 10th year of working life! 10! Fuck! Where did all those years go? 4th job in 10 years! How did I get so old? Just a few days ago, I was reading a magazine and looking at a caption saying 1991 and I thought yea that was not too long ago only for my mathematical mind to set in, telling me that was 22 years ago!!!
Yes, I started my 4th job right about when my 10th year anniversary started. And it was scary. It was a right decision to leave the crap that was my last job, not for the fact that the company was not good. In fact I liked the company, I liked the people in my Singapore office! I just didn't like my department, and the way they treat the staff. And of course, that particular colleague. I wanted to move, but yet again I didn't want to move. I had an opportunity from outside my department which I yearned for, but after months of waiting, it didn't materialize and I understood that it was time to move on. Was it a right decision? Professionally, I'm in a better department now. But deep down inside, I do question myself alot about what I have done in my entire 10 years. I'm ok at my job, it's a comfortable line of work for me and I know what I'm doing. I'm not great at it but I manage. Passion? I don't think so, but I survive. I admire those people who have the fire and passion in what they do, the dive instructors who live on whatever they get paid when they have a customer but truly enjoy and love what they are doing, people who quit their job to follow their lives and passion. What do I live for? What is my passion in life and what do I want? I cannot and do not know how to answer that question. My trip to Flores really hit me hard and made me think a lot about my direction in life, influenced by the people I met there. What do I like? I like the ocean, the sea, the freedom, the adventure. But I don't like the hassle, and the administrative part of planning an adventure. I have a friend who told me to set up an adventure agency. Sounds like a great plan, but the problem is I can do adventure but I'm not the most organized person in the world! I live by the organized mess philosophy. Look at my room and you will know. Sure, I can plan and when I get really into the excitement of a place, there are a lot of things I can do and dig out. But multiply that to a great scale of 10 people? Geez did I mention that I hate crowds? Thinking about what to eat for dinner when breakfast is not over? I can't even think about breakfast when I wake up! So herein lies my dilemma. Which I may never solve. For all you know, I might elope with someone and end up somewhere at the very ends of the world, living on a yacht, cruising through the oceans around the world. Now that would be a story worth telling.
The nice dinner gathering with my ex-colleagues and boss was a great reminder of the me back in the older days - how much younger I was then, how much fire I had in me, how much I didn't really care back then. I travelled the world with excitement and eagerness that befits a young girl, I loved the fact that every trip brought me to a different place. I loved that fact that I enjoyed the company of my colleagues and I had a great boss who supported us. I could just pack my bags and be gone for 2 weeks without a care of what was happening, come back and pack again for the next one! Nobody to make me think twice about going some place, no worries that made me go "I dread going away". I jumped at every opportunity to fly and get out to the world! And I really realy love my team - the Charlie's Angels. And I do miss The Boss. And I came to realize it is probably real hard to find a boss like him ever. I've only ever had 2 great bosses in my life and they are both ex-bosses now.
That is not to say I don't like travelling now. I still do. I guess I'm one of those who can't sit still. Need to be on the move. Can't imagine me having a deskbound job where I just sit in the same office, on the same chair facing the monitor day in day out, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. Of course, even when I travel, I still face the same monitor, but it feels different to be out of the office and be somewhere, interact with new people. But it seems that it gets harder and harder to face the same arguments, to have to find issues, report and start the process of reporting the finding to people who sometimes just do not seem to comprehend. And then the fighting starts and it gets tiring to have to fight your way through something that is so apparent. But such is the job of an auditor isn't it?
Relationship. Relationship with people is a funny thing. Let's start with the new company. There is a very weird dynamics between the people of the department. It is very weird till this very day. Although we are a team of 3 auditors, there is absolutely no team dynamics present. Or rather, there was no team dynamics before I joined. They are very individual and separated persons, and even though they work in the same office, they go their separate ways during lunch. It is a very strange phenomenon I noticed which took me by surprise. You would expect that colleagues would lunch together, but no! Come lunch time, one of them would just walk out quietly and the other would just stay in or lunch somewhere. No talk no nothing. The very first time it happened, I still didn't quite grasp the fact and was waiting for that colleague to come back for lunch. And then there is the manager. So the fact that we auditors do not lunch with the manager, well not really that strange but still a little harder to comprehend. It is quite individualistic over here. And sometimes, I don't blame this situation! I lunch with that one colleague because she is the one who has nobody to lunch with. But I've come to realize that we have no common topics to lunch with, and that is exactly the reason why the other colleague chose to go his own way. And it is indeed quite awkard at times, lunching with her in complete silence, racking my brain on topics we could talk about. I do not like awkard silence. As much as possible I try to think of something to say to fill the silence, but try as I may, I couldn't do it often enough. So as it is, I lunched on my own a few times, preferring to read my book over lunching in silence. And it is these times that make me really miss my old team. How we always talk and laugh and discuss about things outside of work. Believe me, I am as private a person as anyone could be and I do not like to share private matters with colleagues. But with my old team, it felt natural.
Relationship with my friends and others. I have abused my journal too much this past year, writing tons and tons about the happenings around me. There are things I should have said to people but chose to keep it to myself, and things I should not have said or done but I did. They may not be pleasing to the ears, but I guess sometimes I should express what I feel. Maybe it will help my insomnia! But still it may be hard to say it in person, so I'm just gonna write them down here, if you read my blog, you will read it. If not, well....
I will be lying if I said I am not disappointed that my besties and I have not met up/ catch up on things since a gazillion years. I guess the last time we gathered was June 2012. And that gathering was a gathering of the hubbies and kids, not really what I had envisioned. But such is life isn't it? It has come to a stage where the only gatherings we ever had were baby showers, baby 1st birthdays or house warming, and even those are usually not in full force and weren't much catching up involved. Is it so hard to find a day or even just a 2H dinner once to come out with the girls and talk? Believe me, i've tried to organize but as always it has never been a success. I could blame kids for taking the attention away from the mummies, I could blame my besties for not making the effort to try to organize a gathering, but I guess that would seem selfish of me. I could also blame myself for always being out of town during those baby showers, for not making enough effort to maybe make a personal visit to each of your houses, or simply just giving up trying to gather us after so many failed attempts. But what I really want to say is I really do miss you guys very very much. I miss the days when we didn't have the families to tie us down and talked like there was no tomorrow. But we grow up, and priorities change. I love you girls very much and do wish to catch up with you girls, just us without distractions.
I want to tell him that it really did hurt a lot what happened and what you said. I guess I didn't tell you because I still cared for your feelings more than how I felt. But in part that was what was holding me back and I couldn't let go. I poured my heart and soul for months, only for you to say that you never wanted it to be this way. And that one sentence basically erased all those promises you made, all those words you said and the things we were supposed to be doing together. How hard I fell and how deep I hurt. And it took me a very long time to go pass all that, to move on and forget about everything. I'm happy that you are happy now.
To that person who tortured me so much in my last job - I hate you! I don't know you personally, and maybe you are a good person, but working with you killed me physically and mentally and I couldn't stand you as a colleague. The degrading way you talk to people, like we are all stupid and guilty folks. The way you lose your patience and temper and started shouting at the auditees - complete and utter disgrace of the profession. The way you used to say 'I work more hours on weekends than you do', completely demolishing my entire week of hard work. I don't work for you, and you have no rights to measure how much effort and work I put in based on your crazy idea of working on weekends. And my weekend is my time, I do not have to entertain you on weekends! I do not have the obligation to tell you anything about my personal life and I certainly do not have an obligation to make you feel looked after even overseas.
You know, they said that 2013 is a good year for the Saggitarius. Good for work, and personal relationships. Especially you singles out there, romance aplenty and new romance may bloom into something concrete. I guess I'm old enough to take all these with a pinch of salt, but at the same time enjoy reading them and seeing how they pan out. Afterall, your destiny lies not with predictions and fortune telling, but in your own hands.
Next year is a new year. 2014. I don't make resolutions. I tried, but they are not helpful or useful. You just do the things you want to do. You don't need resolutions for them. I wait for magic to happen, as I always do. I wait for friends to come (hopefully when I'm around in town). I wait for my sister to get married, so she'll move out of the room so I can have the room to myself and remodel the room! (throw away her bed, change mine to a bigger one, remove her desk, change a bigger wardrobe etc etc) I wait for more adventures. I wait for the day when I finally say "I've had it with the 3H to and fro travel to work, I quit!". And I wait for the day I strike the 10M ToTo lottery. So I can wait for the day I buy my yacht.
I think I might just grow out my hair. To long. Ya, just for my sister's wedding. We shall see till it gets to shoulder length. If I can still stand it. Check back in a couple months' time.
