Girl and City

Last year, I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions. However, I’d like to think that if I had, getting a job or getting into law school would’ve been at the top of that list. Having done both, I can safely say that I passed the New Year’s Resolution Test.

For 2010, I resolve to:

1. Solidify my friendships in North America.
2. Leave my parents on a good note.
3. Complete at least two (2) traveling items on my Life List (hopefully of the European variety).
4. Visit my grandmother in China.
5. Find/establish good roommates in Singapore.
6. Drink less. Or figure out how to avoid my ridiculous hangovers.
7. Strive for a healthier lifestyle. Balance healthy foods with indulging foods, frugal spending with shopping sprees, and couch potato-ness with regular work-outs.

As the final days of 2009 approach, I feel the need to evaluate the last 365 days before I bid it farewell.

Starting with the best, and worst, memories of 2009:

• Discovering the complicated and competitive world of summer and full-time job recruiting, particularly during a recession.
• Learning to rely on friends to get through the tough times. Shout-outs to ALS, FF, and BI.
• Drinking too much of everything.
• Ambiguous boys: one, two, and three.
• Working for a terrible boss at Law Office but learning so much: mostly, what I am capable of when I put my mind to it.
• Deciding to love MFL, then deciding to let him go.
• Family drama, but also making us stronger as a result. My most important realization this year is that: family will always be there for you. And that’s something to cherish.
• Dealing with WAF‘s drama (one and two), resolving never to leave her side.
• Finally, finally, getting my dream job.
• Completing six items on my Life List.

If I were to score myself on each aspect of my life, how did I do?

Love Life
Wasting too much time chasing ambiguous boys that were never really available: -1
Letting go of MFL: +1

Family
Lying to my parents and running away: -1
Realizing that family is (or should have been) the rock in my life: +1

Friends
Allowing myself to rely on my friends (or at least let them in, even if they can’t help): +1
Not giving up on WAF: +1
Finding, and maintaining, friendships that are worthwhile: +1

Career
Believing in myself and landing my dream job: +1
Getting into law school: +1

Overall, I’m in the positive for friends and career, but I definitely still need to work on my family and love life. Although there were a lot of lows this year, I’m happy to say that I’m ending on a high note. A very high note.

What about you? What does your scorecard tell you about 2009?

On my recent road-trip to the U.S., I found out about my engagement to an eligible bachelor in Hong Kong, and saw my cousin, someone who is responsible for memories that I have tried to suppress for the last nine years. He is five years older than me and recently married. He came to the U.S. this year for a PhD. Although he used to be my favourite cousin, I am now very uncomfortable around him, because being around him reminds me of a traumatic event that happened nearly a decade ago.

When we were kids, we used to hang out together all the time at my grandma’s, and because of China’s one-child policy, we were treated by our family, and treated each other, like brother and sister. After my family moved to Canada, we fell out of contact, but I returned to China by myself when I was 12 (going on 13) to spend the summer with my grandparents. After a month of living with my grandparents, who never left their apartment and rarely let me leave, I grew restless and bored. So my cousin and their family invited me to stay with them for the rest of the summer. I had a great time with them, and my cousin and I became very close very quickly. He was easy to get along with, and he treated me extremely well. We went on a trip to China’s coast for two weeks with their family friends, and he looked after me and shielded me the whole time (my Chinese was very poor at that time because I had almost completely stopped speaking Chinese in Canada, so many of his friends would make fun of the way I spoke, and I found it hard to join in to their conversations). However, his brotherly affection turned into something else. In hindsight, there were subtle clues along the way, but I was too naive to realize it. I embraced the idea that I had finally found someone resembling a brother – I had always wanted an older brother.

A few days after we returned from the trip, he came into my room one morning and we lay on the bed, just talking about what we were going to do that day. I didn’t make a big deal out of our lying in bed together because I thought of our closeness as if we were siblings, it didn’t occur to me that I needed to be weary of my personal space around him. I had my eyes closed as I lay there, and suddenly, he leaned over and kissed me. I was stunned. I didn’t know how to react, so I didn’t. I lay there, with my eyes closed, still as stone. My lack of reaction confused him, so he kissed me again.

The me today would have reacted violently and reprimanded him immediately. But the 12-slash-13-year-old me didn’t know how wrong it was, and didn’t know how to escape the situation. I was living in his home, and I’d be living there for another few weeks. I didn’t have the courage to reprimand him, even less so the courage to tell his parents. I couldn’t stand the humiliation of letting his family, my grandparents, and eventually my parents, find out about this kind of sibling behaviour. So I let him kiss me.
(more…)

This is a post by the lovely imerika. She is one of the most refreshingly honest bloggers I’ve ever followed, and am thrilled that she agreed to write a blog post for me. Enjoy!

——

My boss told me he is heading toward a divorce.

Where is the hope?

I don’t understand. My boss is AWESOME. Seriously, best boss I’ve ever had. He’s a cool guy. I know I don’t know everything, but what I ask myself is: where is the hope?

Is there anything left to hope for? Another story, another separation, another divorce. It’s not even surprising anymore, but it’s always heartbreaking.

When someone tells you they’re divorcing, your reaction is no longer “how could that possibly be?” but rather “there goes another one….”

Is there even reason for me to hope anymore?

Please, married people, give us single people some hope here. I’m out here in the dating jungle, and I’m trekking through murky waters and turning away perfectly good prospects because I keep hoping that just around the river bend there’ll be some guy that I’ll actually want to marry and not just settle for.

I don’t want to end up in divorce. It’s one of my biggest fears. Which helps explain why I’m so commitment-phobic–what if I make the wrong choice? My parents have been married 25 years, my grandparents 50 years…It’s a lot to live up to. It hasn’t always been easy for them. There were times, I remember, when my mom was thisclose to separating from my dad. But they held on, they struggled through together because isn’t that what marriage is about?

It’s not about being happy all the time. It’s about going through the ups and the downs, sacrificing through those bad times because in the end, the end result is knowing that you’ve stuck through it all together. But at what price?

Why do I value marriage so highly? Why do I believe in till-death-do-us-part? I don’t believe in happily ever afters, it’s ridiculous to believe that you’ll always be happy every day of every month. But I believe in marriage, so very much so. I don’t know why, but I do. I want to believe that there’s something greater out there, that sharing my life with someone, going through all the ups and the downs of life together gives me something to root for.

I want a family, I want a husband, and I want to be a mom and I want to love. Am I fool for still believing in marriage?

Things I love about December, in no particular order:

• Christmas lights on people’s houses and lawn ornaments that turn the entire neighbourhood into an enchanted fairyland.
• Taking advantage of holiday sales to buy presents for others and myself.
• Wearing boots. Every day.
• Gourmet chocolates. Every holiday, I can count on some distant colleagues to give me boxes of gourmet chocolates. By the end of the holidays, I’m sick of them, but after the holidays are over, I find myself looking forward to the next round of gourmet chocolates in gift-wrapped boxes.
• Hot chocolate, Starbucks’ peppermint mocha, and other winter-themed drinks.
• Christmas trees and tree ornaments. Putting the Christmas tree up is an annual event that involves the entire family.
• Wrapping presents. I always spend one night wrapping all my presents and it makes me feel so satisfied to look at the pile of wrapping paper, tissue paper, bows, and ribbons under the tree when I’m done.
• Presents, of course. Although my family hasn’t done a proper “Christmas morning present-opening” ceremony in five consecutive years. I wonder if it will ever make a come-back now that I am moving away from home.
• Ample excuse to drink a different bottle of wine every night, which includes champagne and ice wine.
• Curling beside the fireplace with a good book, a rug on my lap, and my dog sleeping soundly beside me. This sort of picturesque postcard moment only seems to happen in December.

Happy December, everyone!