Thursday, December 31, 2009

And the best? (2009 in retrospect, part 2)

2009 was a relatively good year in so many ways.  I’m really thankful for all the blessings that I received this year.  While in my earlier blog post I cited my mom’s January 2009 scare as the worst episode of the year, we also feel very blessed that she made it and that we can still look forward to more years with her.

I’m grateful that none of the people I know were adversely affected by the calamities. Some of them may have lost or damaged homes but material things can be recovered. Nothing is as tragic as losing a loved one.

At work, I’ve been rewarded in a way that I didn’t expect: a promotion earlier in the year and a trip to the US in addition to official business trips.  Perhaps I can say that I’m in a better place compared to some… or it could be that I appreciate where I am more now that I’m probably over the quarter-life crisis period (because I’m over 25!!!) and have stopped looking for the specific purpose of my existence (haha).  I’m fortunate to be working with a really cool bunch of people that I’ve come to love.

As with the years before this, I continue to be thankful for being blessed with wonderful friends who share all my joys, pains, and everything in between. I love hanging out with people who give me sound or unsound advice, who listen to my issues and make me look at different perspectives, laugh at my jokes, tolerate my bullying, call out my mispronounciations... over breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, beer or nothing at all.  You are my family, classmates, colleagues... like I said, friends.

In comparison to the previous years, 2009 wasn’t bad at all.

2007 was rewarding in terms of achievement in a sense that we got a lot of recognition for the work that we’ve done. It’s also memorable because that’s the year when our grandmother passed on and Kimi Raikkonen won the driver’s championship (hurrah). 2008 is especially memorable for the summer: I got to see Maroon 5 and Incubus Live, went on a trip either with friends, family or officemates from March – June with just a week or two in between (Subic, Batangas, Baguio, Singapore, Nueva Ecija, Macau, Hong Kong, etc.).

THAT harrowing experience aside, I’ll probably  remember 2009 for the trips I made and the experiences that accompanied those. I’ve been alone in some of the trips but never lonely.  I’ll also remember 2009 as the year when Kimi Raikkonen retired from F1, Ateneo became back-to-back champions, and for the breakout of social networking sites.  Like the how the saying goes: Dance like the photo's not tagged, love like you've never been unfriended, tweet like nobody's followin'.