2011 stocktake - a mixed but very full bag

It's time again to pause to remember, as the curtains will soon come down on the spectacular show that was 2011. For me this year, the running theme was "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Ps 23:6)

Don't know how I survived this year except by the preserving hand of a faithful God. It was certainly eventful and filled with many new experiences. Time for the flashbacks:

January - Fresh back from the trip to Singapore for 2 weddings and Christmas, and gearing up for wedding dress hunting. Pretty much every weekday night was spent researching, and every Saturday spent going around to extremely faraway places I wouldn't normally go to look for that perfect dress, enabling me to explore this great city in a little bit more detail. My journey took me down to Ebbsfleet in Kent, and to Finsbury Park in a Jewish neighbourhood, somewhere else up north, to the expensive Bond Street in Central London, and finally to Wimbledon, where I finally settled, and ended up going quite a few more times. A pity this was mostly done alone. At work, I experienced my first round of retrenchments, and lost my line manager.

February - Night classes for CFA started in earnest. Counting on myself to study on my own accord was a non-starter; going for classes twice a week was tough enough, save for the fact that I could leave work at 5.55pm to make the sprint across Canary Wharf to the tallest building in London where I was cooped up for the next 3 hours. Finally got down to buying the wedding dress.

March - David got a surprise last minute Assessment Centre invitation, and subsequently got some interviews and finally a job! Looked like God wanted us to be in London for a while.

April - SUPER busy month. I had too many holiday from 2010 (can you believe it) so I took a week off and we went to Porto for 4 days. It was a very nice and quiet town with perfect weather. The next day we went to this cool restaurant with opera-trained waiters for dinner. Unbeknownst to me, ah gong was fighting for his life in hospital. Someone (I think it was Sheryl's facebook actually) finally prompted me that something wasn't right early the next week. Spoke to mum about going home, but she said it wasn't necessary. Early the next morning I got woken up by a call to say my final words and for the 1st time ever, I went to the office at 7.30am and booked a flight for that afternoon. I promptly missed the flight and had to re-book another to fly that night instead. While getting from Gatwick airport (where I missed my flight) to Heathrow airport (where the next flight was to be), Ah Gong breathed his last. By the time I arrived home the next day, I only saw brave but tired dry eyes all around until the day of the funeral, but was glad to be back home anyway. It so happened I spent Good Friday and Easter in Singapore but have hardly any recollection of it - church life in singapore is a mess for my family. Upon getting back to London, I went to up to Warwick the following weekend - the weekend Wills married Kate. CFA studies was in shambles - missed too many classes so I actually had to spend some time on my own catching up.

May - Bank holidays wasted on studying for the CFA. Got reminded that trying to sit at the table for the whole day to study is too ambitious as it was never my forte. Got a week of study leave, which I promptly filled with a wedding dress fitting and other various appointments. The sun was out and the weather was gorgeous, but I did spend the rest of the time indoors studying for the exam that I really regretted signing up for. On the brighter side, we received news that we got a HDB flat!

June - The exam happened on the 1st Sat. I have been in large exam halls, but not one with 2000 people, it was overwhelming, but thankfully the exam went well. I even lent the guy beside me my spare calculator and trusted my 6 year old one to do its job. Took a trip to Birmingham to see Sabrina, went down to Lewes for a combined fellowship meeting and stayed the night - really loved it. Took a day off to do our pre-wedding photoshoot. The whole time David was very stressed about his dissertation. I also became a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster this month at the constitution of our congregation in London. One of my closest colleagues resigned and left - she taught me almost everything I knew at work.

July - David's mum comes over for 2 weeks and stays with me. It was a weird but sufficiently pleasant experience. We went up to Cambridge for one of the poshest weddings I've ever been to; was also my first English wedding. Our mummies helped us choose our HDB flat back in Singapore; the next week, David's mum chose us a flat in London. Just like that, we had 2 flats in 2 weeks. What blessedness. I think I got my CFA results as well.

August - Frantic house-packing, household goods purchases, and wedding planning all in one. Professionally, I experienced a second round of retrenchment, I lost another colleague on my team - more frantic times at work. Just as I was trying to focus on my various night jobs, the day job ate into more hours of the evening than it ever had; I got very little sleep that month. Still, at the end of August, I went up to Warwick for the 3rd and final time to help David move down to London. We went to Warwick Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon on the way back. We moved all of David's stuff from Warwick and some of my stuff from my old flat in a Fiat 500 (the smallest car you have ever seen). There is no furniture in the new place but David moved in anyway and sleeps in the floor. He also started work (training) at RBS.

September - Possibly the shortest month of the year. My 1st 10 days was spent sorting out my house-move (the admin, moving bills, setting up new internet and the actual moving). Man have I accumulated a whole load of stuff in just 2 years. I remember my life here started with just 46kg, and realise what a big fat hoarder I am. I move into the new flat for 4 mad days (by this time there are beds in both bedrooms) where the nights after work were spent wedding planning, unpacking slightly (and trying to remember where I had packed things away in my previous scurry), packing for the trip to Singapore, and more wedding stuff. It was a very very rough time at work and I really wanted to quit there and then. The last Sunday before I left the church gave me a big surprise "send-off" even though I was actually only gone for 3 weeks. In their eyes I was going to return a different person, and I guess they knew more about marriage than I did. I also got a surprise hen party from some of my colleagues, I was so touched. I got back to Singapore 2 weeks before the wedding and it was nothing short of ultimate insanity. There was no time for any meet-ups like I planned. Heck, there was still no time for sleep. There was though, time for a Bridal shower which again prompted me to count my blessings in the wonderful friends who've remained friends after many many years.

October - Got married, with all the pomp that came with it. 1 October was the shortest but longest day of my life. I still remember all the details (which I should really pen down soon before they start fizzling away). All the (mostly last minute) preparations came together in the end, not always in the most ideal way, but by that time I just took whatever I could get and lived with it. Pictures and videos survive to tell the tale (if and when I ever get my hands on them). Overall a joyous day though there were some minor disappointments which I had to consciously choose to brush aside. Finally had a break and a holiday (after Porto oh so long ago). Koh Samui left a deep, positive impression on me, so much so that I actually said to David, more than once, that I would love to go back again. Perhaps it is because I will now always associate it with the relief and rest I found there after all those crazy months. The 4 days was what we had to contend with for our honeymoon and it was soon back to London and to work. Things had gotten worse at work, and I spent a few miserable weeks catching up on what had piled up. Back home, I had to get used to the idea that my room is not really mine to call my own anymore. Didn't help that we still had no furniture apart from the beds which means no unpacking can be done and there was stuff and boxes everywhere. We received our 1st visitors 1 day and 2 weeks after coming home, respectively. I finally stopped playing the organ every single Sunday because we finally got sort of a roster going, while I was away. Hello singing! Visited the London Zoo and finally saw the Giraffe David adopted for my 2010 birthday. David turned 26 and I had a cake all ready, except that he didn't come home from work till 11.30pm.

November - The clocks moved back and it starts to get dark earlier in the afternoon. The only bright spark at work was a session with Boris Becker, which I guess made up for the fact that we didn't buy tickets to the ATP finals this year. I turned a quarter of a century, to no fanfare. It was a Sunday so we had our usual 4 hour commute to and from church, and that was pretty much the whole day. But I got a birthday present and a slice of cake from the husband! Both of us were pretty much swamped with work and had little time to spend together apart from sleep time, which we're only reminded of by the occasional jolt or head crash. Still need to get used to this sleeping arrangement. Had to spend some obligatory time with a visiting friend, so went to Canterbury for 1 Saturday and some nights out, which was nice but added to the fatigue. Also attended a 2nd wedding one weekend and took a trip down to New Haven for a surprise birthday party another weekend. Spoke very little to the family back home in Singapore because of the sheer impossibility.

December - The long-awaited Christmas holidays finally came around, but not before a very hectic work schedule, made worse by a plethora of pre-Christmas dinners / meet-ups / parties. Don't get me wrong, they were all nice in their own right, but one a night for 2 weeks can get quite tiring, especially if work wasn't slowing down like it was meant to! But I had my first department Christmas Party, at what we thought was a swanky place in town but turned out not to be. I left at 9pm before the real seedy stuff started happening. Went to 2 excellent museums - the National Gallery as well and the Imperial War Museum. Christmas itself was rather quiet, and finally allowed for some alone time. We cooked a pre-prepared Turkey Breast for our Christmas dinner, and I also had my first Christmas pudding. The weekend at home also reminded me that I had quite enough of sitting and eating on the floor. We had put off buying furniture in anticipation of the post-Christmas sales, but they have been disappointing thus far. We need to bite the bullet now and just get some stuff or I will go crazy. The work year has finally ended - another blow for the team as my boss resigned and left; but for me personally on a positive note after a depressing year as I got a positive appraisal for the year, thank God.

So, much has transpired in the span of a single year. 2011 has been extremely colourful; if ever I look back at my life at some point in the future, I hope never to use the word 'boring' to describe it. Whilst many of the experiences described above was me "going solo", I don't really remember feeling that alone, because I always rested in the blessed knowledge that "along the road of life I have a Friend divine, who walks with me and always leads the way..."

As I flip the page on the calendar, I feel ever so thankful and glad. Each of these events have been a blessing in its own peculiar way - the happy ones are self-explanatory, the sad ones I at least got to share with loved ones, and the difficult ones hopefully made me stronger (since they didn't kill). Truly it was goodness and mercy that led me through, and not my own as I have none. The Source of all goodness and mercy is Jehovah, and he continually provides. Jehovah Jireh.

2012 - what will you bring? I guess I needn't hold my breath for much longer, though life always unfolds in a way you least expect.

I'm so excited!