It's been almost a year since I last posted here. The absence wasn't intentional; my personal DELLilah finally exhaled its last breath and I had to save up to get another one.
Only this time it's not a DELLilah but a HP, specifically HP Pavilion X360 Convertible.
Sounds fancy, I know. It's nowhere near that though.
But let me save my review of my new Athenator (lol yeah that's the name of the new device) for another day. Oh and I also recently got a Dell Latitude 3470 for work but I hate the keyboard, amongst other things. But that's also a story for another day.
Anyway, I enjoyed reading my 40 Before 40 post, not because it was well-written, but because I was surprised to find that in almost a year since I penned that post, I actually managed to achieve some of the things I wanted:
Work (5)
1. Get promoted. - nope
2. Get seconded to a foreign country, hopefully in Europe. - nope
3. Get sponsored by the organisation to do my PhD. - nope
4. Get on a helicopter. - nope
5. Cycle to work (not in Malaysia, of course..I don't want to end up as roadkill sheesh). - nope
Skills (8)
1. Learn how to swim (and not drown in the process!). - nope
2. Master Photoshop (I only know Gimpshop hahaha). - nope
3. Learn how to edit videos. - YES! I learned this in July this year during a course in Singapore.
4. Get my PhD. - nope
5. Master a foreign language. - nope
6. Get a diving licence. - nope
7. Study/attend a course overseas. - YES! Did this in July 2016 in Singapore.
8. Learn basic car maintenance and repairs...like how to change the engine oil. - nope
Finance (4)
1. Pay off credit card debt (and stop using the card for shopping!) - nope
2. Sell my house. - nope
3. Pay off car loan. - nope
4. Pay off study loan. - nope
Travel (15)
1. Visit Singapore Zoo. - YES! Did this in July 2016; a lovely coursemate works at the zoo and kindly gave me a staff discount voucher :)
2. Travel to a foreign country alone. - YES! Singapore, July 2016 :)
3. Visit Bali. - nope
4. Write travel pieces. - nope
5. Visit Iceland. - nope
6. Visit Italy. - nope
7. Visit Sweden. - nope
8. Visit the Netherlands. - nope
9. Visit Sri Lanka again. - nope
10. Visit the UK. - nope
11. Experience winter. - nope
12. Experience autumn. - nope
13. Visit Labuan...just for the heck of it. - YES! Did it with the fam in September 2016 :)
14. Travel to space (hahaha so ambitious but hey, why not?). - nope hahahaha
15. Visit Hawaii. - nope
Nest (5)
1. Rent a little apartment. - YES! Moved to an apartment on my birthday this year ;)
2. Have a pet. - YES! Rescued a stray male cat my sister christened "Ayau" and recently got him neutered during SPCA KK's cat neutering campaign.
3. Get a house plant and try not to murder it. - YES! Took a cutting from a plant at work lol. It actually only survives on water. No idea what it's called though. Must try to find out from my colleagues.
4. Have a garden/collection of potted herbs. - nope
5. Have at least one IKEA furniture (currently there are no IKEA stores in East Malaysia wtf and I sold off most of my IKEA stuff when I moved to this wretched place KK). - nope, sadly
Miscellaneous goals (3)
1. Volunteer at SPCA. - nope, but I have become a donor a few times
2. Run 10 mins/km. - nope hahahahaha
3. Get a gym membership and actually use it. - nopitty nope nope hahahaha
So I've achieved 8 out of the 40 goals I listed in less than a year. So looking forward to what the next year holds.
Bring it on, 2017! *curls biceps*
