Revisiting 40 Before 40

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*