Hello 2009!

New Year's, I think, is my favorite holiday. It is logically irrelevant and should have been an uneventful day had people of long ago not have thought of dividing days and weeks, months and years, the way we divide them now; but because they had, each year we are given an imaginary excuse to be motivated to turn over a much better leaf, if not entirely new. Or maybe this is a carry-over of my childhood days when New Year's Eve was the most awaited time of the year. It was when different branches of the family would all gather in our house to break bread together, exchange presents, and (horror of horrors!) be entertained by us kids' prepared program of Christmas carols (which, mind you, we would practice for weeks on end--complete with the voice-blending). In contrast, Christmas was virtually a non-event for us. Go figure.

Perhaps it was the long holiday break that welcomed this year that made me feel that it was one of the best New Year "celebrations," if you could even call it that, I'd had in a long time. Because it wasn't really just the celebration, but the collective experience of my holiday break, that made it so good. If we must remember, I was in a very unhappy state just before the break. Maybe at that point there was no way to go but up, eh?

The events were so simple and ordinary that a part of me was debating on whether or not to even blog about it. But then again in the final analysis, it is the simple and ordinary that make up most of our lived experience. So you know which side of the debate finally won.

So after the usual Christmas parties and get-together with different groups of friends (which I always enjoy because everyone is in a festive mood), I spent half of the holiday break at home in Valenzuela. I planned to spend most of my time reading and writing and reviewing Chinese. Of course the evil Internet ruined most of those plans. I am, however, more than pleased with the bit of work I was able to put in for my novel. So happy happy there! Slooowly progressing, yes. We'll get there someday... Soon, I hope.

And I cooked tinola for lunch one day. That was good, too!

And fun times with Baby Iel and Triz, delighting me with their rapidly expanding vocabulary each time I come home. Oh the hilarious things that come out of those mouths!

And I had a hair treatment. If you're as stingy as I am, that is something to feel very good about.

And I got to spend more time with people I care about.

And then just a week after New Year's Day comes my birthday. I'm not exactly sure why (my brain must have blocked out the real reasons) but when I was younger, I used to dread my birthdays. I'm sure the reason for dreading it now at my age is so much simpler to understand but somehow, I actually enjoy my birthdays more as I get older.

Similar to the New Year (and possibly because it is so close to the New Year), my birthday gives me the excuse to reflect on what I've accomplished in a year, and to look forward to future possibilities as I turn hypothetically wiser. And I love possibilities. I think it's the one singular reason why I get out of bed each morning. Okay, maybe just one of the biggest reasons.

Almost every year I would check out my astrological predictions online, just to have a heads-up, you know. Yeah, I know you know. And to be given reassurance that there is, after all, something to look forward to. I'd be very careful to believe only the positive predictions because well, those are what I want to believe. This year I didn't (although my friend did and told me I'll be lucky in love and career this year). This year I am declaring 2009 to be the happy, blessed, and bountiful year that it will be. (And yes, I am also ignoring all those financial analysts saying the worst impact of the economic crisis will be felt in 2009. Hmp, they're no better than those astrologers in my book. Err, ok maybe just a little more believeable. Still!)

So it's been good. 2009 has been good to me so far. And to you, too, I hope. It's going to be a great year! Trust me on this.

And I leave you now with the words of old friend Emily Dickinson:

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors-

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--