Thursday, December 31, 2009

Tutto Passa, Good Riddance

Hello people of the Earth on this last day of 2009, which in my side of the world will be ending in less than 3 hours. All this year you've heard me complain and say that I am depressed but as I look closely at this year, it has some really good moments. The good ones really make this year to be quite a year for me, a memorable one. This morning as I opened my door and on my way out, I saw a stack of mails in front of my door. One of them was a christmas package from Dagi. It really is good to start your day opening present :) She gave me Jodi Piccoult's My Sister's Keeper. Looking forward to read it. Kinda a nice start to this last day, someone cares. Oh! It's also a nice surprise to see a christmas card from Ms. J :D Anyway, I am going to write some of my reflection of this year, 2009.

1. Number one have to be the trip to Italy. That is the biggest thing that has happened in my life currently. Think about it, what is the biggest thing that has happened to your life. When I think about it other than Italy. I thought of about being bornt :P I guess the biggest thing in your life are the milestones, the life changing things in your life, in which I can also say, getting accepted to NUS. Many people my age could claim getting married and having kids as the biggest thing that has happened in their lives. Even Dagi is getting married next September. I guess the time has really come for people my age. However, these are things that I can't say. Hopefully it is written for me though. Italia per me è libertà. Quando ho deciso di studiare l'italiano, è stata la prima cosa che ho fatto qualcosa che ho veramente voluto e con il mio proprio potere. To be going to Italy and to do it on my own and alone was a challenge and a great achievement for me. Yes, it may not be a big deal for many people but it was 2 things that I really wanted that I accomplished, travelling alone and Italy. It's a big mountain and to overcome it was just amazing. I think my most thankful moments to God in the whole of this year were when I was roaming around Italy, feeling the wind and the sun, seeing all the amazing things that I saw. I still cannot forget the first time I saw Colosseum, when I accidentaly found my way into it. It was so surreal. It still feels kinda surreal now, reliving those moments as I am writing this. I really have to hold on to this feeling. This is that happy and peaceful feeling. I kinda get now what Elizabeth Gilbert was saying in her book, Eat, Pray, Love. She was saying something about that happy place that you need to remember and go back to.

Anyways so I climbed a mountain and managed to come back successfuly. Now I am looking at other mountains. Somehow I still get nervous thinking about them. I wonder if it happens to other people as well, for example real mountaineers. If they have climbed the Everest, do they still get nervous climbing other mountains? Well, I know one thing for sure, even though I am nervous and perhaps a bit scared about new mountains, I will not back out. I know I have made it before and it can be done. So it can be done again. Italy gave me that and I really look forward to come back to Italy and have lots of gelato!!! :P

2. This year also brought some big changes in life. Sometime in March, I wrote about it felt like being tossed by the waves of the ocean. Lo and behold even as this week flies to a close, another change was put on me again, another big wave of the ocean which tosses me to I don't know where. So it's pretty certain that my 2010 is going to start with a big change. I had mixed feeling about it, but I did pray for a way out. Not quite what I wanted but since when God really gives you things as precise as what you ask? Like one of the Rolling Stone's lyric, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find, you get what you need. We must put our faith in God, right? So this is the time to repeat the mantra, If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. Amen!

Talking about lyric, I will also throw in something from U2, what you don't have you don't need it now. You see in the middle of December last year, I was having a bad time that there were times when I was in tears. One fine day it saw me sitting under a tree and someone was standing listening to me or trying to listen to me. This person is not in my life anymore but the fact that this person was there, maybe because precisely I needed someone then. This December, I am not having the best of time, but no matter how bad it is and how I curse, I haven't cried. I can't remember the last time I cried. So not having anyone to listen to me is probably not a really sad thing because perhaps God thinks, I don't need that as much, so hence I don't have it. Yes, maybe I am in denial :P

3. Talking about people, well I have to say that this year I have lost the so-called friends but I have also made friends. I guess I did go in to a bit of selfish mode some time ago, in which I really didn't feel like pleasing anyone. I don't want to do things that I don't want to do and I want to do the things that I want to do and perhaps in the process I pushed some people around but here we are and I don't really feel sorry about it. Seriously. I'm done having to compromise or strike people's ego. Guess what, those people don't even care about me. So good riddance :)

4. About new friends that I made. I also have to say that this year I also started something new. I am putting more things into my brain. At the beginning, I did wonder why I was there but as I've grown accustomed with the people whom I do it with, it begins to feel not so bad and fun. This is also something that I feel grateful about this year, meeting new people and making new friends.

5. On other things, as mentioned in some post, there were deaths in the family and babies being bornt. Everyone's life is moving and ending in their own ways. I am trying to chart my own life though perhaps I still haven't done a good job in doing so. In the topic of other things, the last movie I watched this year was Sherlock Holmes with Vivy on Tuesday. I like it very very much! It's a good ending for the year. Though I have to say that I didn't understand some of the English :$ and the weird me thought that Holmes and Watson sometime felt a bit like a gay couple, in which I have to say it's Holmes who is more gay. Still though, it was a really good film. I think Jude Law did a better job than Robert Downey Jr. As I was watching it, it did make me think how Dr House in the TV series House is really being based on Holmes and Dr Wilson on Watson. I know it's mean to be rude and condescending but I really like how these brilliant smart people can really just say what they want since they are so bright! If only I am smarter! :P Go watch it peeps, it's really worth it. It's been awhile since the Ocean's 11 movies last showed us smart twist and turn in the story and Sherlock Holmes is really all that, smart and witty :)

6. Oh yeah, I did manage to squeeze in another accomplishment this year. Finished reading my first Italian book bought from a bookshop in Florence. It's called Che Animale Sei? by Paola Mastrocola. It took quite long because I got distracted many times and I'm not actually good in Italian, so there are a lot of words that I have to look up in the dictionary, mostly in every paragraph. This make me think that I will not last reading Il Nome Della Rosa (The Name of the Rose) by Umberto Eco :( Maybe I should have studied more Italian so that I can go through books like that without the dictionary :( Anyways, Che Animale Sei? means What Animal Are You?. It tells the story of a duck on a journey of self discovery. The story is actually very deep and philosophical but told in a fable kind of way which I think make it easy for younger readers to follow. There are many other animals in the story, like a beaver who didn't want to go through the same profession as his family had been doing for generations. Then there was a young bat who physically didn't measure up to his species. Both the beaver and the bat had to deal with the differences between them and their fathers. Then the duck dealt with losing something which she had been calling as a mother. Then she found a new family but to fit in she had to change even though she didn't like it and didn't feel like herself, but she was told that's how ducks are. Then she fell in love and felt happy but then she was betrayed. Then her friend, the lizard, told her that she just needed to wait for the pain to go away, like when lizards lose their tails, they just have to wait for it to grow again. Then she met new friends, the moles. Do you know that moles are blind? I am learning something new! Since the mole could not see her and she could not see the moles, she could be whatever she wanted to be. Then she learnt to fly. In the end she married a wolf (of all animals!). So it really is a good story. I really like it. I kinda hope it would be translated to other language like English. I finished it yesterday and a line jumped out which I feel it is so apt considering this is the end of the year, it's tutto passa e niente in verità mai passa, which means everything pass and in truth nothing never passes.

So I guess that's it peeps. Last post of the year. I am not one who make new year's resolution but I do have some things that I want to do in 2010 and even in 2011. I don't know why I stop there, like life is just gonna end after 2011 :P but that's as far as I can see it now. Well, afterall the world might come to an end in 2012 :P Whatever it is, of course I wish for a better year but to be really in detail, I just wish for more time. It sucks when people leave as in when they die. So I really hope everyone in my prayer every night will always be safe. You know it's kinda funny that on this last day, Astley still managed to pop up and made me give a thought for him a bit. You see we kinda didn't tell people that he died, so people were still sending him stuff :P I really really don't want any death news next year *sigh* Okay peeps, hope you guys are having a blast. See you next year! :)

:) eKa @ 9:09:00 PM •