2008 Year in Review

In one of my favorite Christmas movies, Bing Crosby advises Rosemary Clooney in song: "If you're worried and you can't sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep and you'll fall asleep counting your blessings." Like many song lyrics, it sounds a little less redundant and nonsensical in song. But I like the sentiment. It's not only appropriate just for when you're worried, but for just about any other time, including year end reviews, bad moods, stuck in traffic and tightrope walking while juggling flaming torches (though you may need the advanced class to do that last part).


Things I'm thankful for:
- My health: Probably the easiest to take for granted until it all goes wrong. All it takes is a split second accident or having genetics fail you. My grandmother on my dad's side of the family is still going strong at 95. On the other hand, I have no idea what sort of health issues are on my mother's side of the family - it could be the health roulette for all I know.
- My loved ones, friends and family: It's the gift of their presence in my life that keeps life rich and rewarding. Whether I've known them since I first took breath or only developed a friendship in the last year, it's those relationships I cherish. I don't make friends easily, being the shy type. And no matter what they tell you in the fairy tales and sitcoms, relationships take work to maintain. It could be as simple as keeping in touch or as difficult as going to therapy to work out stuck points in communication, but it's all effort. And the reward is the connection and closeness that makes a world of difference.
- This year I stayed employed: Given the world economy meltdown, this one is worth celebrating.
- We bought a new house: It's bigger than the previous house. We can have family and friends come over to visit. So far we can afford it.
- We have Ka and Zaia: I've already written a few times about this. But having them as part of the family and household has brought chaos and comedy, responsibility and a whole new set of things to pay attention to like which breakable objects in the house could be seen as potential cat toys.
- We traveled to Bali: It was a wonderful trip (which I promise to write about in more depth next year). It took a long time to get there and really felt like we got a glimpse of a different world. At the same time, it reminded me of growing up in the Philippines.

Things I'm proud of:
- I wrote another book: Again, it's only a first draft of a novel, but it's a complete story and may turn into something worth sending around at some point. I'm glad to have some potential projects to work on in the future. For now, I think I'll go back to my first novel from last year and see if I can make something of it.
- I progressed to purple belt in karate: The belt progression from here goes purple, brown, then black. It gets harder from here with a higher chance of my breaking something, I'm sure.
- Winning first prize at DNA Lounge's Halloween costume contest: See my previous post on this.
- Paying attention to and participating (somewhat) to the 2008 presidential election: Never done that before. I learned lots about how our government works (or doesn't).

There are many more things I'm thankful for and probably a shorter list of things I'm proud of, but for the sake of actually submitting this post before the end of the year, I'll decline from enumerating them further. I'm very happy for the blessings I have.