Good morning, 2013!

Woke up really early and had time to shoot this photo taken from my balcony. Then went to church to start the day and the year right. Don’t worry, I won’t go preachy but the priest talked about “new beginnings”. But I’ve been thinking of this since last night as I reflected on the past year. That it’s not just during the new year that we are given a chance to start again. Every morning, when we wake up, it’s another chance, a new beginning. We don’t have to wait for next year to do anything.

The year that just passed has been busy, as usual, it sometimes left me dizzy. I finished my diploma on multimedia journalism (part of the first batch in a program for working journalists) but I’m still working on editing videos, which is really my weakest point, but which I reckon, would be useful in my blogging and fangirling needs. I traveled for work to Tokyo, Manila, Yogyakarta and Singapore; twice to Yangon and Kathmandu. In each travel, I learned a lot about the local culture and just like a wise man’s advice, left the bad behind and took the good with me. Travel not only widens our perspective but they also make us realize that we are just specks in this wide, wide world and that we should be thankful and not take things for granted.

Getting my diploma and traveling were more than enough for me in 2012, and I’m grateful despite hiccups in some aspects of life. We can’t have everything, but yeah, we can always go on live panda camera to watch those black and white furry creatures to help us cope with life. Aside from watching dramas and Arashi, in my case, of course.

For this year, I listed “goals”. I refuse to call them resolutions.

Publish my ebook on Tokyo and earthquakes. This was why I went to Tokyo on the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, and is also part of my multimedia journalism diploma thesis; I need to fix the paragraphing in the template, which means a lot of work, before iTunes would publish it.

SAVE XXX amount.

Continue my specialized exercise. I have found a way to combine an exercise that suits my personality and my pop culture inclinations.

Eat more seafood and vegetables, less meat.

Make my own tea. I spend a considerable amount buying tea every morning when I have lots of tea in my pantry waiting for some attention.

Blog more.

Travel more. I thought that finally being able to make it to Myanmar gives me the right to claim I have done Southeast Asia. But then, there’s still East Timor. Though going there is not really an immediate part of this goal. It’s more re-visiting favorite countries.

Watch an Arashi concert live. Perhaps I can combine this with the goal above.

Sleep early, sleep longer.

Visit my mother.

Spend Christmas at home.

See more of my adopted country/city.

Live simply.

That last goal makes me feel it negates everything I have listed beforehand. For how do we live simply? We stay in our caves? We don’t acquire anything, like an air ticket to enable us to travel and see the world? What actually is “living simply”?

For me, it’s being able to appreciate what I have and not long for things I don’t need. It’s being able to stop and smell the jasmines and drink my tea at a leisurely pace. It’s being able to take a good look at the things around me and not be swept away in this rat race. Or perhaps I am just getting old.

I wish every reader of this blog the best this 2013. Live well. Laugh well. Love well.

Happy new year!

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