I’ve always stood by the fact that there are no good years or bad years. It’s mostly due to the fact that I’ve never actually experienced a sunshine and rainbows all year-round kinda good year nor a bad one that I can eternally attach that label to all 365 days of it. To sum up 2009 as best as I can, it was -

• An extremely frustrating academic year –
where I failed a subject, subsequently had my scholarship terminated, and still didn’t do well enough the following semester to earn it back. No surprises on what will happen in 2010… I’m still waiting, preparing myself, for that formal letter of which the revocation will most likely be signed off by the faculty head.

Sometimes I wonder what will happen if I hadn’t taken up that damned subject that I knew I wasn’t going to do well in, that I didn’t even have to take! If I weren’t so naive as to give myself a second go at this accounting crap, thinking that maybe this time I’d be able to redeem myself, then I wouldn’t fail it. And I wouldn’t have to give the scholarship up. And it would also mean that instead of doing summer school right now, I would probably be interning at GE like I’ve always wanted to. Bright-eyed and hopeful was what I was when I was anticipating starting my very first semester in Melbourne Uni, with a recognition of my past academic efforts at my helm, it felt good. 2009 was all about learning that I still have so much to learn. Though, thankfully, unlearning how to feel bitter and sorry for myself was something I picked up quite quickly along the way.

• The year I started to worship leggings and stockings –
so much so that I thought that every pair of jeans that I have are getting a tad bit redundant. That aside, I still love my denim babies. :)

Stupid boyfriend also made a condescending remark one day regarding the over-excessive donning of leggings:

“Why do you keep wearing leggings? Is it because you can’t fit into your jeans anymore?”

• A year of perpetual procrastination –
in obvious ways, this has partially contributed to the fact that I couldn’t achieve my impossibly high target GPAs. In other less patronizing ways, I also put off a lot of things that I could have get done or done better. Little nitty-gritty everyday things such as read more, write more, upload photos on Facebook, spend time with God, learn how to use the G10 to its capabilities, call an old friend up, mend a (somewhat) dysfunctional friendship… Seemingly insignificant things that we always thought will find a place for itself tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow.

• A year accented by newness -
throughout the year, I’ve been blessed with many a new things. Tell me, what’s there not to like about something, anything, that is shiny, glossed-up and most importantly new?! There were colourful additions to the wardrobe and scarf hanger. The shoe rack in the apartment that had once been in a dismal barren state has been filled up with fresh soles. All these new-found pleasure in shopping created a thirst in me that I will continue to bring with me into the new year. Apart from materialistic pursuits, I can never be a more lucky girl than to have new girlfriends to gossip and whine to over bubble tea and wedges (you know who you are!). Also, at the very end of the year, we finally moved to a new family home, after all these years of waiting for the S&P to finalize, house to start construction, the delayed handover of keys, renovation works to complete. When the arduous waiting finally lapsed, there was the newness of living in a gated community, of a bigger room with an attached bathroom, and of stepping onto freshly-laid tiles.

Timing might be a little off, to only be wrapping up 2009 and starting out on new year resolutions almost thirty days into the year – so I guess it took me a month to finally make sense of what the last year meant to me and another hour to type it all out – but here it is anyway.

In 2010, I will:
• take a subject that I actually like and want to
• be more green, ie: completely eradicate need for the dryer, wash clothes at 30C, use less paper.
• graduate
• get a job
(the above two seems like the obvious in its progression, but still!)
• be desperate – for faith, for balance
• reignite an old hobby/interest (this one is kinda in the works already)
• say the things I want to say, aloud