Happy New Year

New year fireworks in Sydney

 

(I borrowed this photo from The Guardian cuz it’s much prettier than anything I can take.)

It was the best of years, it was the worst of years.

As I sit under the shade of a beautiful tree in Hyde Park, Sydney on January 1, 2013, a few hours before the new year even hits the US, I thought I would get a head start on reflecting over the past year.

I don’t quite recall how exactly 2012 started. I had thought it was with a song at the Jay Chou concert in San Jose, but it turns out I was a full 365 days off. So my memory starts with a work trip to NYC, one of many taken for my new favorite client, Google. In fact, many of my fondest memories are associated with Google, as many new friends and goals were made as a result of my time there. What I will miss the most is the lunch time laughs with my three favorite Googlers (you know who you are :P), which sometimes would turn into philosophical discussions over religion vs. spirituality or deep thoughts on the use of the word “meow”. Then there was my team, brilliant and awesome, that never made me feel like an outsider, and encouraged me to speak louder, act bolder, and always strive for more. OK, fine, last but not least, I do miss the free lunches too 😛

My biggest failure of the year was not getting promoted. I call it a failure because it was a goal I had intended to achieve, and didn’t work quite so hard at it. I will fail at many goals in life, but I hope very few of them will come from not trying enough. It ended well, because it led me to a new unplanned path. Over the course of the year I got to really be a part of a growing company (yes Google is still a growing company), instead of just the outside consultant looking in. That was quite eye opening, and I realized how much I yearned to watch a company grow, to not only make strategic plans and maybe assist in the execution, to following through from planning to execution and seeing the fruit of my labor.

I applied to INSEAD in April, a school known for its diverse class and international focus. The essays really stumped me a bit, as I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to get out of the experience. I already had 3 degrees and 2 of them were in business, and I had no definitive plans for a career change in the future. Even the alum interviewers were quite blunt in telling me that while I were a good candidate, is INSEAD really something that could propel my career to the next level? They let me in anyway, but I already started having second thoughts.

Having second thoughts didn’t stop me from quitting my job. I had already started planning a three month vacation after I quit, so I was going to take that trip even if I ended up not going to school. So we started packing our stuff into storage and I bid teary farewell to my roomies at the House of Glee.

Oh, we. 2012 was the year where my turbulent love affair finally settled into a somewhat smooth flight (I’m still keeping the seatbelt on though). It was pretty weird for me, actually, and took a lot of adjusting to. And it didn’t quite hit me that we are really planning for a future together until I’m asking whose pots and pans we should keep since there’s not enough room in the storage unit. More on that later.

The most difficult thing about leaving San Francisco is leaving my beloved House of Glee. It’s a little old flat on 17th Street where the electric circuit jumps if we turn on more than 1 space heater, and 4 girls are sharing the same bathroom, and it’s where I found three of the coolest roommates a girl could ever have. I’m craving Jane’s popovers, Elaine’s egg drop soup, and Jeannie’s rosemary chicken as we speak.

Then there are the other awesome San Francisco people that I’ve left behind. I’m still amazed at how many friends I’ve made in my brief two years there, and love the city even more for its open arms culture for newcomers. There were photo walks, ski trips, concerts in Dolores Park and bonfire at Ocean Beach. There were second chance proms, murder mystery dinners, and playing games on the street with random strangers. There were photo booths, karaoke, and pillow fight on Valentine’s Day. Living in San Francisco gave me a chance to do all the things I’ve always wanted to try but never had the opportunity, and a whole bunch of things I never knew existed but am now missing. So thank you dear San Francisco and all your lovely peoples, for making it such an awesome home and a place to come back to.

Speaking of homes, I have been without one since October of last year. My stuff is spread between a storage unit in Millbrae, my parents’ attic in Dallas, and the BF’s apartment in Shanghai. It’s not the first time for me to live out of a suitcase (being a consultant for 6 years makes me a veteran), but the past three months has been such an amazing adventure. I revisited some places (Japan, China, Taiwan) and added a bunch more to my list of countries traveled (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia). I’ve met awesome people and weird people, and have plenty of stories to share with all. I dove into the ocean and jumped out of an airplane, white rafted down a 7m rapid and jumped off a 10m bridge. I saw glow worms in a cave and posed with tigers in a cage. I went to a Hindu temple, Muslim mosque, and Buddhist temple all in the same day. The more places I go, the more places I want to go. The more people I meet, the more I value the relationships I have in life.

And that brought me to Sydney, where I planned to ring in the new year with my favorite person in the world (sorry Annie, you are a close second :P). It didn’t go exactly as planned, and I ended watching fireworks over the opera house alone in a crowd of thousands. It was quite a dramatic ending to an action filled year, actually, but not what I had in mind.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned in 2012, it’s the unpredictability of life, and what great adventures you can have if you just go with the flow and don’t look back. So 2013, give me your best shot 🙂


Comments

5 responses to “Happy New Year”

  1. Eddie W Avatar
    Eddie W

    Live well!

    1. You too!!

  2. Great post! I feel somewhat updated on your life despite not seeing you for the last 3 months!

    1. Yay! That’s why I’m blogging 😀

  3. glad to be able to share lots of these awesome 2012 memories with ya jz 😀

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