Rewind 2013.

So after almost a week, I finally am getting down to do this review of the year.  Compared to the previous year, I think 2013 had been pretty good for me.  There were many good things that have happened to me and as someone who don’t really remember things that upset me, I guess this review should be a little more positive and pleasant to look at.

January 2013

I started the new year with a new church.  After being with the Shatin Baptist Church for 3 years, I thought that I needed a bit of a shake-up within myself and I found it at the Christian Faith Hope Love Church.  It was nice to be able to enjoy the fellowship with people around my age with similar life experiences and going through similar paths.  The experience at the new church was a bit hard because it was nothing that I was used to, but with the help and love of the brothers and sisters I think I am adapting pretty OK.  There are still tough times, but I’m sure I could pick up my spiritual life.

February 2013

This has to be the best month of my life.  Initially when I decided that I would visit Korea in this month, I didn’t know it would be a trip that would changed my life.  I thought it would just be another trip on my own, with the primary objective being to experience real winter again.  In the end I managed to find myself a whole bunch of new friends that I would turn out to treasure so much.  Of course, watching the AFC Champions League for the first time in my life was something worth remembering too.  One bad thing about the trip though was that I came back to Hong Kong with a bad cold!

March 2013

March was also a memorable month.  First it was me joining Toastmasters.  I think it was probably one of the best decisions that I’ve made this year.  Initially things were a little patchy, but after a while and getting to really know the people well, I think I’m having a good time!  The second thing that was really memorable was the football match between Hong Kong and Vietnam at the Mong Kok Stadium.  A sell-out crowd, non-stop cheering and singing, and Hong Kong winning 1-0 were all ingredients of a great night.  Work-wise, there had been some changes and to be honest, I was happy with those changes.

April 2013

April was low-key, with the only highlights being South China and Manchester United winning the league championship in Hong Kong and England respectively.

May 2013

May, as usual, was reserved for Mayday.  But since I have been to Mayday concerts every year, I was slacking off quite a bit this year – I only went for one show this year.

June 2013

Had the chance to be a “teacher” and brought some students to Singapore for a visit.  I was lucky in a sense that the students I brought were bright and well-behaved, even though some of them did gave me a few things to think about.  I enjoyed being with them, because being with students made me feel young.  But if you ask me if I wanted to go back to teach, I’d probably say no!  Besides that, another highlight would probably be the failed promotion exercise.  Of course God has His way of planning for things, and looking back now, I was glad that the promotion didn’t happen then.

July 2013

July was a good month as far as football was concerned.  The Barclays Asia Trophy saw South China having the chance to take on Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, as well as Manchester United coming to Hong Kong to play Kitchee.  The weather didn’t help the games, especially in the Barclays Asia Trophy, in which the Hong Kong Stadium made international headlines by being a mud pool.  It wasn’t easy on us fans too, as we were braving the rain to cheer for South China – nobody gave us any credit and instead we got mocked by the Spurs fans.  I can safely say that Spurs is one of the teams that I have come to really dislike.  On a lighter note, my group of friends got to the Premier League’s tweet, and I was being photographed by gettyimages.  Boy was I not chuffed.

August 2013

My birthday month.  I had more than 60 friends saying happy birthday to me on Facebook, my church friends treated me to a great dinner, and I had a great chicken and beer session with my Toastmasters club friends.  I was always grateful about people remembering my birthday because it’s just one of the days in their lives.  I also took part in the Humourous Speech Contest of my Toastmasters Club and with a bit of luck, I came in second!  I was way chuffed.

September 2013

September was the month in which I started my new role at the office.  It was a promotion, even though it was only on an acting basis – meaning that I could be deployed back at my old position if things don’t work out.  The job has gotten tougher, but I was just happy to have been given the chance to do it.  As I said, God has His unique way of planning things, and I am quite sure that this was how He has thought things out for me.  I also had the chance to fly back to Singapore for a couple of days.  The trip would have been slightly different and I was slightly disappointed that it didn’t turn out the way I have hoped, but then again, things happen for a reason and I was happy with the trip home nonetheless.  It was always great to see my family and my friends.  Seeing Juana and Roland’s kid at 2 years old felt really surreal though!

October 2013

I went to Korea again.  And I think it was at this trip that I felt that I’ve left my heart there.  I also got to know more friends through the Toastmasters circle, and it would be safe to say that a part of me has got Korea stamped all over, and I can’t wait to go back again.

November 2013

I went for the Toastmaters District Conference in Huizhou and I must say that it was a great experience, to be able to witness great speeches and workshops.  Of course, meeting other Toastmasters from other clubs were great too.  To be honest, this year in the Toastmaster was just nothing short of spectacular for me, and I must thank my lovely Korean friend Minjung for re-introducing me to Toastmasters – that’s why I keep saying that the trip in February changed my life.  This was also the month in which I kind of became even more sure that I left my heart in Korea.

December 2013

The year ended on a high.  Went to Chengdu for a working trip and finally realizing how big the scale of the projects that I was handling was.  It was also a month for parties, as I went to several and really had a lot of fun.

Looking onto 2014

I know the new year has started for a few days already, but it’s still early anyway so there’s no harm in looking forward to things.  In a way, I think I had a blast last year, so anything on a similar level this year would be massive.  Some wishes last year didn’t come true, but as I’m one who’s never too down on things not working out, I guess it didn’t matter to me that much.  After all, life is always about ups and downs, and as long as you are alive, you’ll experience them.  So there’s really no point in getting overly happy or overly depressed about things.  Honestly speaking, not having a girlfriend was something that was always going to bug me (actually it bugged my parents more than me), but if I were to exchange the experiences that I had in 2013 for a girlfriend, I probably wouldn’t do so.  Some things didn’t work out as far as relationships are concerned, but I do believe God has His plans, just as how He planned for my career.  Just gotta believe in Him, right?

2014 is going to be massive.  It’s going to have ups and downs, but it’s going to be a blast in any case.  And if everything could work out the way I want the to be, I would be over the moon.

Review.

Usually I would do a recap of the year on the last day of the year.  But this year is a little special.  It’s not like it’s that special, but I kinda had too much to drink just now during the dinner with my friends so I’m not really sober in that sense, meaning that I can’t really remember that well what happened in 2013.  I mean, I could remember, it’s just that I couldn’t really put them into a proper journal entry.  But don’t worry, I’m do it very soon so that you won’t miss out on what happened in 2013 for me.

I kinda just came back from a rather mad dinner with my fellow Toastmasters Club members where they made me drink – it’s not like they were forcing me to drink, but it was more like none of them could drink very well so I was left with the task of not leaving any alcohol behind.  I wasn’t one who like leaving alcohol untouched, after all…

When I look back at 2013, I would say it was a really eventful year.  I had my fair share of ups and downs – it started with a down, but it definitely ended with an up!  I think I could probably say this only with the influence of alcohol – when 2013 first started I really hated it, because I started the year with a failure – I failed with my nth love subject, getting rejected yet again.  I thought I would never fall in love again.  But 2013 had really taught me that there were more to life than just romance.  And I end the year seriously thinking that I could fall in love with someone again, even though that person is kinda far from me as far as distance is concerned.  But you know you are in love with someone when you start missing her the moment you said goodbye!  I don’t know if things are going to work out, but even if it doesn’t I wouldn’t be too disappointed because I know I have all the great friends to back me up over chicken and beer.

If I have to sum up 2013 with a song, it probably would have been this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAM9diIDHqs

I know it’s an old song, but hey, we get knocked down, we get up again, and nothing is ever going to keep us down!  That should be the way we live our lives, right?

Rewind 2012.

I think it’s been a while since I last did this kind of lookback of the year, and I think it should be a good time to do this now. 2012 has been a pretty good year for me and while there were always something better that could have happened, I guess I can’t complain too much.

For this year’s review, I think I’ll do away with those that I’ve been doing for the past couple of years – listing the top 10 things that happened, then see what are some of the things that I had wished for and come true… it’s quite subjective anway, so I’ll do something different this time round – I’ll try to look back at how each month went and see if there were anything worth remembering. But just like previous years, if you are in a rush, I suggest that you read it at a later time. So here goes…

January 2012

I started the year in Taiwan, watching the Mayday concert in Taipei Dome. Countdown was done during the concert, though I think it went a bit off as far as the time was concerned. Besides that, perhaps witnessing Mateja Kezman hanging up his boots in Hong Kong was a bit special, though I really wasn’t a big fan of him. Oh yes, Girls Generation was in Hong Kong for their first ever concert here and I was able to watch the girls in person!

February 2012

Silver Shield Final. Losing the second final in a row on penalties was hard to take. And of course, another Valentine’s Day spent alone. This year’s Valentine’s Day seemed to be colder than usual as far as temperature went, but I wasn’t concerned. I spent the day at work and at home playing Winning Eleven!

March 2012

I spent the first two months of the year planning for my department’s work retreat in Foshan, and to be able to pull everything off in March and had everyone happy was something that really pleased me. Of course there would have been improvements here and there, but I was just grateful to be given the chance to do it.

April 2012

The highlight of the month had to be fulfilling my childhood dream of visiting Manchester and watching a game at Old Trafford, as well as at Gigg Lane watching FC United of Manchester. That few days in Mancbhester was a bit surreal even if I were to think about it now. Having been a United fan for the past 20-odd years, to finally be inside Old Trafford watching the Reds in action was just brilliant. At the end of the month, I took on a 24-hour train ride to Beijing to watch Mayday in the Bird’s Nest Stadium. 100,000 people can’t be wrong – the concert was massive!

May 2012

May was probably one of my most exciting month as far as work is concered. I was involved in two fairly big non-local staff development programmes, one to Guangzhou (May) and one to Beijing (June). The Guangzhou one was probably the easier one as I only had to take care of about 10 other colleagues, and also it was only 3 days long. But once I was back from Guangzhou, I had to be on maximum load to organize the Beijing one. Thank God I had many people helping me, so while it was tough, it wasn’t impossible. And of course, catching the Mayday concert in Hong Kong was fairly memorable too. On a down side, my two favourite teams – South China and Manchester United – both finished trophyless for the season. The way United lost the title was particularly cruel, but well, this is football. I just wasn’t happy about City winning it, that’s all.

June 2012

The big staff development trip to Beijing. Everything went perfectly smooth and I thank God for that. It was quite nerve-wrecking at times becase one of the Deputy Directors was among the travelling party which included other high-ranked people. I was glad that everything turned out fine and everyone had a good trip. The subsequent following up was also manageable, which I was really relieved about.

July 2012

Compared to the earlier months, July was actually fairly quiet for me. There wasn’t any football going on, and I had a couple of those Mainland teachers training programmes to handle. Though one happy thing was that my whole family had a dinner together celebrating my sister’s birthday.

August 2012

August was the month of my birthday, and I received about 80 birthday wishes on Facebook, and many others over WhatsApp, SMS, Weibo… though the one I treasured the most actually came late – it arrived at 7:30 am, 1o August. (You guess right, it’s from someone that I’ve liked for a while, though I also know things won’t work out between the two of us because I seem to develop a habit of irritating her way too often).

September 2012

It was a great month for me again, as I went to Korea with my Mum for a holiday. It was Mum’s first ever trip to a country which she doesn’t speak the language, and I think she enjoyed herself very much. The trip was really memorable, not just because me and my Mum appeared on Korean national television (we saw the filming of Running Man at Kwangjang Market), but also during that few days when we were in Busan – you don’t go to Korea to expect a typhoon heading heads on, do you? It was also the month that I finally conjured up enough determination to learn Korean again. As for football, the local league was underway and it was great that South China started the season with a bang, and what better to beat Kitchee (scum) 1-0 in the 7th minute of injury time, and have the goalscorer jumping into the crowd, hugging me in celebration? That moment was priceless.

October 2012

After a massive September, October was slighly quieter. Everything was pretty much as usual… maybe except when Hong Kong lost to Malaysia in a football friendly match and things boiled over at the stands. Some of those people, whom I already wasn’t very close to anyway, are no longer on talking terms with me. Not my loss though.

November 2012

The biggest highlight probably had to be the MNet Asian Music Awards in Hong Kong. To be able to see all those Korean stars was just wonderful. Oh, winning a prize on Arirang Radio’s K-Poppin was great too! It still gives me goosebumps now to hear that I won a prize! For work, I was thankful that I got a good score on my annual appraisal. From getting my probation extended to getting this good score, I have to thank everyone around me who has been really encouraging.

December 2012

The past couple of weeks were rather uneventful for a supposedly eventful month. I guess the highlight had to be the trip to Kaohsiung for the Mayday concert last week. Well, maybe if you have to count it, winning a prize again on K-Poppin was also great! And yes, winning my first ever award at work was something to smile about too!

Looking onto 2013…

As I am 32 going on 33 this year, I had a lot of people coming to me – elders, friends, even juniors – asking me when am I going to really find a girlfriend and settle down. Well, first of all, thank you all for your concern, and I am still trying hard. I am hopeful, and I shall continue to try. Realistically, I hope to be able to find someone whom I can see everyday, hear her voice everyday, and endure my irritating nonsense everyday. That means she probably would have to be from Hong Kong. Or maybe she could be a Korean living in Hong Kong. Or maybe a Korean who would be willing to move to Hong Kong for me. Hmm…

But at things stand, I think I am enjoying myself a lot without a woman next to me. I have the love of my family and my friends, and I think I can do with that for the time being. I just hope that in the next year, I would be able to continue having a happy life, be able to wake up every morning, breathe well, eat well, work well, sleep well. If South China and Manchester United could win the leagues again, I’ll be chuffed to pieces.

Have a happy 2013, everyone!