yueni

1. What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?
So many things:
- Got my advanced scuba open water certification
- Resigned my job in China and had to reject the rejection of my resignation (I mean seriously now)
- Got a job in tech in Silicon Valley

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I did keep my goals for the year, which were:
- to pay off my largest student loan (completed in February)
- to find a new job in the US (completed in November)
- walk an average of 10,000 steps a day for the whole year (still to be determined)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Steph had baby Avi early this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, the US, South Korea (but only just a layover)

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1. What did you do in 2017 that you'd never done before?
Traveled to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, one of my biggest bucket list items. It was life-changing.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Kind of. At least, I'm still on the road to doing that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but Steph's pregnant and due next month.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, the US

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1. What did you do in 2016 that you'd never done before?
Started working in the video game industry, like, for reals. This was something I thought I'd never be able to do back in the day when I was strongly advised to drop out of computer science. Look where I am now, bitches.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
As always, I don’t make resolutions, but one of my biggest goals of getting out of my dead-end job in Monterey has officially happened. I'm definitely a lot happier in terms of work because of the amount of autonomy I have, and also because of the fact that I am, in fact, one of the more senior people in the company (due to my work experience etc. etc.)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, so many people had so many babies.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Japan for reals this time, not because I missed my plane. It was amazing. I want to go back.
Macau, for the first time. I had a blast.
Hong Kong, multiple times.
USA (well, duh)
China, because there's where I am living now.

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1. What did you do in 2015 that you'd never done before?
Courted a company for a year and a half (starting in summer 2014), and finally signed on a job offer to work in China in a legit, non-English-teaching position. Also, I got open water certified for scuba, and have 6 dives under my belt.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My goal for 2015 was "finding a new job and moving out of Monterey", and I am well on the way to making it come true!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Loads of people are popping out babies. Loads and loads of people.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother passed away in July. She was 95, and we were expecting it. So I'm sad, but also peaceful about it because I know she lived a full life.

5. What countries did you visit?
Indonesia to visit my grandmother and celebrate her 95th birthday in May, and also to Singapore to visit my cousins. I really couldn't afford the trip and emptied out my savings to do it, but I don't regret it at all because my grandmother passed on two months after I visited. Some things are more important than money.

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I'm moving my primary blogging engine to WordPress: http://thesoundofwings.wordpress.com

I will be blogging about stories collected from my travels and my move to China (which I will be for work in January 2016).

LJ will stay friendslocked. I will be keeping this LJ for posterity, with my year in a nutshell posts still something I plan on doing every year to encapsulate my life annually.

1. What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?
Get an accountability partner. Not meet any of my goals.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
As always, I don’t make resolutions.This year however, I do have goals to meet... like finding a new job and moving out of Monterey.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, Stephanie, Kristine, Lisa... etc.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Canada... that's it. I went there to see the Niagara Falls.

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in a random act of insanity, i agreed to take on a freelance interpreting assignment in 2.5 weeks.

...i hadn't read the speaker list properly, or i might have... declined out of fear.

i will be interpreting for an ambassador. and the secretary-general of an international forum. and various governmental and corporate luminaries.

simultaneously.

i am so fucked.

so yes, reason #1254123 why i am not around.

i am pissed at lj because my flist now automatically defaults to 10 entries per page.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. I WANT 30 ENTRIES GDI.

i hate you lj. you and your newfangled stupid changes. give me my 30 entries per friendspage load.

thus far this year, my contributions to my life are:
- teaching MA level students (just finished mid-terms advising)
- still looking for work in China, fml.
- still waiting for a renewed green card to be mailed to me
- still doing pro-bono translation work for a legal project that is gaining much traction in the field
- still working for my shitty company that is making life hell for us (i need a new fucking job)
- still freelancing as a translator even though i haven't had the time to pick up more work
- just got back into manga/anime recently, and have also added light novels to the mix
- just started learning japanese; learned that knowing chinese and english makes learning japanese frighteningly easy and difficult.
- kanji is a piece of cake
- katakana is killing my ass
- also finding much disgruntlement with japanese particles
- have no time to blog or play video games, am not much with the happy
- spent time paying down my student loans like gangbusters now that my credit card debt is fully cleared
- taking a course in financial analysis from tsinghua university on edx.org in chinese

to summarise: 3 jobs; 1 job search; 1 language learning; 1 finance course; 1 loan being speedily paid down; lots of japanese words; lots of anime/manga/light novels

p.s. in awesome news, the interpreter for michelle obama + the daughters + the mother in china this past week was my professor. i am very very proud. she is amazing. the end.

1. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Teach at a graduate school; go to Ireland.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
As always, I don’t make resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, loads of people.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
A good college friend miscarried. That kind of sucked.

5. What countries did you visit?
Switzerland, France, Ireland. I was still in Europe in January.

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