Year of the Ox

A month into the new year and I figure at least a cursory attempt must be made on a "New Year" post. It seems to be the done thing in Blogosphere and since I was (almost) never one to buck the bandwagon, let's get the ball rolling on this one...

Said bandwagon usually stops first in Nostalgia-ville and thus we must take a look back into the past. The 12 months that have gone by are kinda blurry. But that's more to do with me poor memory more than anything else. So I'm just gonna put down those events which were more significant than most. And since I've written about those things across these pages, I suppose this is more like a quick summary of this blog as well for the year gone by.

Speaking of the blog, I started writing a lot more this year. OK I suppose a single post in '07 doesn't really constitute as less writing for that year but let's not get into semantics... After being re-introduced to the world of blogging via this gent's other blog, I started to explore my own writing skills. While I don't think I'm gonna win the Weblog Awards in a hurry, I'd say that this has grown to become a place where I seek comfort by venting about things important to me. Clearly some of them are topics that not many others really give a fuck about :) That said, it is quite gratifying and humbling to have the (small) number of readers I do. Their readership says a lot about their loyalty, bias and dare I say good taste (oh come on... if I don't throw it in here, who will?!!) For the statistically inclined, that's an average of 0.08 posts per month in '07 to about 2.58 in '08. A fair jump considering I only started writing halfway thru last year.

Most of '08 was dominated by work related issues. In previous posts, I've mentioned how I'd been struggling to carry on with what I'd been doing the past 4 odd years. Finally as they say, paani sar ke upar chad gaya... A lot of that had more to do with frustration at myself than anything else. Should have upped and quit a lot earlier. But finally towards the end of the year, the deed was done. Without a clue of what to do next... The answer to that question would present itself (somewhat) as the year ended.

A few posts were dedicated to writing about crushes. There were times when I thought the resulting depression of these unfulfilled infatuations would take me under. Fortunately they didn't and I have come to discover over the course of these that I am more susceptible to these things than I'd initially thought. On the flip side, I think all my suspicions of having a rhino-like hide are quite on the money as far as me getting over these crushes is concerned. Or perhaps that damn cliché about time healing all wounds might just be true...

2008 is also the year I hit 30. I expected to feel a lot more but it gave me a case of the blues for maybe half a day just prior to the "event". I figured that I could either continue to mope or look back (and forward) to better things. By then my intention to quit my job and travel at the end of the year had pretty much been firmed up. So better things were definitely on the way...

There's something to be said about the calm before the storm. A week prior to my departure to Thailand, political trouble, which was brewing for some time, escalates into this major conflict involving the current ruling party and the army. From what was a relatively peaceful protest against the PM, suddenly there were thousands of PAD supporters marching the streets, shutting down the airport and in several instances unleashing violence in different parts of Bangkok. Quite obviously I was mighty pissed off against this bunch of idiots 2000 miles away ruining my travel plans. And then four days later, 26/11 happened... I wrote two posts on it (here & here) and won't write any more since this is my way of dealing with it. I can only give thanks to the fact that no one dear to me lost their life in that tragedy.

November though also had some good news in the form of my nephew. He is quite the noisy lil bugger keeping his mum up late into the nights these days. But there's nothing to beat that cheeky lil grin he will bestow on you if he is feeling particularly magnanimous. And of course a little more than a week later, I boarded a plane to start off on my vacation. The idea was to tour a decent bit of South East Asia, take in the local sights, sounds, cuisine and culture. My base was Singapore from where I travelled to KL, Cambodia, Bali and Melaka. The list would have been longer with Bangkok and Koh Samui but well that's how that cookie crumbled...

Did a lot of soul searching about the job situation on my travels. It finally came down to doing something in the creative arena. But what exactly... I was unsure about. For probably the last three weeks of the trip, serious consideration was given to make a move into copywriting. And its funny how sometimes things just come together as quickly as they do. Next thing I know I have more than a sure idea of what I wanna do. The best part is that it didn't fill me with any kind of dread like copywriting did. There are big freakin' butterflies in my stomach but they're more of the anticipatory kind of butterflies. I am actually excited about this and I hope it will get me somewhere... A lot of this is due my friends in Singapore - Pipsqueak and her hubby, 100 Pipers. Despite the fact that they don't read this blog, I just want to say thanks in a public-ish forum and promise I will mention y'all in my thank-you speech when I collect some award :)

It's safe to say that 2009 will be a turning point in my life in more ways than one....

P.S - Just want to say a BIG thank you to all my readers. I'll be first to admit that there are only a few random flashes of inspired writing amongst a lot of personal mediocrity. Despite that, y'all keep dropping by and share this part of my life with your own. And for that I am very very appreciative.

P.P.S - To Those-We-Have-Not-Spoken-About -- It's been a very interesting ride thus far and let's see what '09 brings...