it's the end of another year...2009 year-end post

No one's more surprised than I that I am now writing an end-of-the-year post. The laziness bug is out there again, and I just woke up from a short nap that I feel I must have if I were to stay awake this midnight (and not get all cranky come the first day of the new year). But here I am, waiting for the annual street party dinner to start, and typing away.

2009 is kind of a weird year for me. If you asked me right now how I fared for the year, I would answer instinctively that it has been a so-so, bordering on the bad, year, compared to what I was hoping or how I was feeling the year before that. But now as I try to look back on what I've experienced, I can now characterize it to a case of The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.

The Good
If there's one thing I'm vastly happy about the year, it's that I had the most diverse travel experiences yet. The flight bookings came in early in the year, and the plans were actualized starting mid-year till the end of the 3rd quarter. It started with a trip to Coron, was an overdue trip for me and Daene. The travel group was mixed, with friends in HS and College in the mix and I must say it turned out pretty well given the varied swimming skills of the five girls. I want to go back there again just to go to Barracuda Lake and of course swim in the Twin Lagoon once again. The year ended with an impromptu (but well executed!) trip to Anawagin Cove in Zambales. Though I know that I'm relatively more outdoorsy traveler than most, I just realized in this trip that without modern day comforts (i.e. tv and cellphone at the very least), I get easily bored. Nonetheless, here's to going back there and attempting to do the 5-hour hike instead of the boat ride!

When I finally resigned from the latest job, another three trips further capped the this-is-me-trying-to-reconnect-with-myself phase I experienced. Starting from my trip to Bacolod, where I visited my brother for his birthday and also got to catch up with my relatives whom I haven't seen for nine years. This is then followed only a week later by a trip to Macau and Hong Kong. I'm looking for my pictures of the trip online (still haven't gone around to blogging about it) but I can't seem to find them. Oh well, this trip was also special, going to Macau to watch my friend go bungee, watch Cirque du Soleil, and recreate all the scenes from Boys Before Flowers, and then going on to Hong Kong trying to do all the stuff that I wasn't able to do last year. My favorite trip I think of the year is when we went to Boracay, which is just pure relaxation at its finest. Won't expound on that. Also was able to go on little road trips courtesy of my friends who can't seem to sit still and always want to go somewhere.

It was another fun year of fangirling for me, highlight of which is getting to see Kim Bum in the flesh. Now, there are only a few Korean stars that I'm willing to go the extra mile to see and he was one of them. I'm superbly happy that I have another friend equally as crazy as I am and we saw him up close. Series highlights of the year for me is watching Boys Before Flowers, You're Beautiful, and the anime version of Nodame Cantabile. Though I would want to fangirl more, I think this deserves a separate post entirely.

The Bad
Well not exactly bad, but this is the year that I turned 25 and I experienced probably a very bad case of quarter-life crisis. I've never done a lot of self-evaluation as I did this year. Work life was an intense challenge for me this year and though I managed to handle it as best as I could, it made me think about certain decisions that I've made for the past few years. Okay that's it, this is kind of the cloud that has been hovering over me for the entire year (and hopefully not spillover for the next year).

The Weird
What's weird about this year, especially since I've spent the last quarter of it unemployed, is that I realize to a certain extent what my limits are and how I process things as they come. I and my friends are also having a lot of weird realizations lately, but maybe it's because we're at that stage that we're supposed to be mature young adults and we're now contrasting our present selves with who we were before.

Also went to two weddings this year, both of which are to the weddings to really close friends. I guess we can also categorize my love life into the weird, eh? Sa akin na lang yun, haha.

So that's it, my haphazardly-typed end-of-the-year post. Didn't even make a draft for such an important post, hehe. Happy New Year everyone, and may 2010 be an awesome year for all of us.