It felt like a really long year, but 2016 is finally coming to an end. At the start of the year, there were lots of really ominous things to be said about the fortunes of people born in the year of the dog, and, to an extent, I agree. It wasn't the best year, but it was important because it was the year where I genuinely started to take charge of the direction my life is going... Except that I'm doing a really bad job at it.

I remember spending much of 2015 being miserable because of NS. I couldn't be one of those people who embrace the difficulty and make lemonades out of lemons, so I kind of stumbled and stumbled further and hit rock bottom and realise that it's not really rock bottom and hit rock bottomer. To my defence, I got into freaking infantry (one of the worst vocations, but of course there are worse ones).

It is said that no one can understand how much it sucks to be a soldier in a non-commanding position. I agree. My NS life only started to get better after I became a third sergeant and I cannot imagine not getting that rank. I guess that is why this year was considerably better than the last despite the outfields and the rubbish levels of administration and management in camp.

Buuuut, guess who won the challenge of patience?

This year was also the year of travelling. I've never travelled so much in one year; I went to Thailand (Krabi) with my NS friends, Brunei with my unit, New freaking Zealand (Queenstown) alone, and Hong Kong with my family. Granted, Brunei wasn't really a leisure trip, but at least it's overseas and we got to go to The Mall and eat some kueh.

Before further education, I decided to take a gap year to gain experience as well as do a huge number of things that I'd wanted to do, such as writing a novel, learning guitar, getting a license, learning parkour, travelling, gaining that muscle mass and working in a relevant job. It's halfway successful, I guess. I like to look at the bright side.

My recent struggle which gets me so mad is in trying to find a job. I wanted to change into the education industry but I couldn't make up my mind so I decided to return to the media industry. There were no jobs I could take, probably because I was under-qualified, have a weak portfolio, and can only work for about half a year by now. So, I'm still unemployed, regrettably. My friend did warn me about the economy.

This post is getting so long. Let me just quickly wrap it up in a concised manner.

Fulfilled resolutions/checklist/wishlist from last year:
1. Kept in touch with friends (most of them, not all).
2. Travelled at least three times.
3. Tried out parkour.
4. Started learning the guitar.
5. Built on my relationship with my parents.
6. Became more attentive towards the outflow of my money... for a while.
7. Developed some nutritional habits. At least I keep track of my calories now and make myself eat fruits and vegetables.

Next year's resolutions:
1. Prioritise a healthy, chill emotional state.
2. Stop needing and wanting and start preferring.
3. Reach 75kg.
4. Learn Arnis (a Filipino martial art).
5. Actually get that class 3 license (or start to).

I like that I'm being a lot less ambitious for the next year.

Labels: future, reflection, things that happened