silver stands in my pensieve

a bit belated but...

happy new year!!

goodbye to a great year and looking forward to a much-better one! for most people, 2004 was a really bad time: politically, economically and everything in between. but for me, 2004 was the year of big decisions. i changed jobs, forced myself to start grad school, worked double (triple?) time on my japanese education...heck, i even broke up with my boyfriend! that last one, it surprised so many people. they thought we'd end up at the altar, or something like that. good thing that didn't happen! or i'd get stuck with a wuss all my life! anyway, i figured i'm much too young to get married and i'm too busy chasing my dreams to allow myself to be tied up by a relationship that wasn't going anywhere. i can just go out with anyone i want, do anything i want with whomever i want. no "where have you been" or "who are you going with? i'll go with you" crap. free like dobby, i am!!! ^_^v

i've already adjusted to my job and i love it here very much. not only did i find great friends, i also found myself working for some of the best bosses and colleagues. jerome the guru (and as i found out today, the asian films freak), jeric the big brother, kawaii joey (formerly hogwards student, now gringotts employee, hehe), jax master kulit, carlo doggie, arlene, jenny, josie, everyone!... they're all very nice! i'm even starting to really like carla! before, i was scared of her and didn't want to answer the phone if i knew it was her. though this kind of work isn't really related with my chosen field, i think i'll be sticking around for a while. leaving all these wonderful people would really suck.

i belong here, i really do think so. during my 6th month evaluation meeting last month with jerome, he told me i was one of the brightest among this batch of hires and that the other office wanted to absorb me because of their japanese projects. he really liked how i work and he couldn't ask for anything more...except one thing: try to "expand" relationships with the other office. we both knew he meant "carla", of course. but as i said, i'm really beginning to like carla. i'm not so scared of her anymore, haha! i really liked the fact that i'm appreciated here and what i do actually matters to others. ^_^

school was ok, until i got bored with it. and of course, work was becoming more demanding too. eventually, i had to stop but i did finish one class and there wasn't any reason for me to fail. i know i did good on my final paper!! maybe development studies isn't really for me. or maybe i just felt i wasn't on the same wavelength as the older people in one of my class. at first, i thought i could learn from all their experiences. instead, they bore me. some people in class have the tendency to take over the discussions that even the professor couldn't get in a word edgewise. they also have the very annoying habit of talking about topics totally irrelevant to the subject!! maybe, when i'm halfway through german, i can already enter the international studies program at the university.

what took most of my time last year was my japanese class. last december, i took the intermediate class while attending the advanced class at the same time. studying wasn't really a problem for me; i can always read inside the train, while at work, inside the bathroom, etc. but my wallet suffered so badly!! the "honorable" school board decided (i'm guessing, decided without consulting the faculty) to increase fees by more than 100%. paying for one class was bad enough; paying for two was hell. i had to make a lot of sacrifices: no more weekly trips to megamall after class, no ordering from cdjapan, jpqueen, yesasia...it was so hard! but i did it anyway and made it till the end! the climax of that, i think, was the jlpt (and not the graduation, hehe).

the jlpt was a nightmare!! i think i did alright with the first part, moji - goi (characters and vocabulary) though i missed some questions. i must've skipped some characters and words when i was reviewing. at least i got higeki (tragedy) right!! surprisingly, the listening exam was easy and i managed to sit through the whole exam without lapsing into a daydream, as i almost always do during listening exams at school. there were a lot of tricky questions, and many unnecessary sentences to further confuse the already bewildered examinee. the most difficult part was the reading - grammar exam. for a little over an hour, you had to answer pages of grammar questions as well as several long paragraphs of selections. as sensei had advised, i went straight to the grammar portion first and answered as quickly as i could. i missed quite a few and ended up using a magic number to fill the blanks in my answer sheet. then i started reading the shortest selections before answering the longer ones. the longest selection had 6 questions and the rest had 3 or less. when our proctor (incidentally, it was violy-sensei, my teacher from elementary 3-4) announced that we had only 5 minutes to finalize our answers, i had to use my
magic number again for my blanks. in the end, i was just relieved it was all over. and even if i don't pass, i wouldn't be too disappointed. i've studied hard for this exam since this year started and i gave everything i could. i learned after the exam that there were quite a number of examinees who were on their second take (or more) for 2kyuu and i didn't feel so bad anymore! it was my first time and if ever i pass, it will be a super big achievement for me.

so really, 2004 was my year. i'm a monkey after all, and 2004 was a monkey year.

what the japanese zodiac says:

Monkey (saru) --- Born 1992, 1980, 1968, 1956, 1944, 1932, 1920, 1908
People born in the year of the Monkey are the erratic geniuses of the Zodiac cycle. They are clever and skilful in grand-scale operations and are smart when making financial deals. They are inventive, original and are able to solve the most difficult problems with ease.

now, i'm looking forward to bigger challenges in the year of the rooster!

i miss my classmates...

john is sick and i think he needs some time off from work. this is precisely the reason why i don't want to be a boss! you can take vacations when you want to!
elvin promised to go to violin class with me next year. i was surprised he remembered that i wanted to buy a violin. but i was more surprised that he didn't know what j-music meant!
homer gave my sis an exam at tasplan, hehe. i hope she passes so she'd have the chance to have a cool colleague like homer. and god knows, she needs a job badly!
grace emailed me 4 times today; i haven't seen her in almost a month and i almost jumped for joy when i saw she has 4 emails for me. then i read them one by one...they were all the same! hay naku...hilo na naman ata ang stage mother ko...
joy is starting to get really busy at school. the new semester's about to start and she's currently bugging everyone to enrol in the intermediate dokkai (reading) class.
elaine is planning to leave her current job; told me she's fed up already.
i wonder what kent is up to now...i miss him...and the fried chicken!
i'll see you all really soon! miss you all, mwah, mwah!

Posted by Unknown at 16:10