Hello!  It’s been a while.  I have a good excuse.  I’ve spent my last 2 months on exchange filling every moment up as much as I can by sleeping at 4 and waking at 9 and living life to the MAX.  Is that a good enough excuse?  I thought not.  I’m sorry. I am back home now and digesting what has been happening and I am still waiting for all of it to make sense. 2011 was a year of growing for me in many ways of which I will slowly elaborate.

On January 3rd,2011 I received a very pretty agenda.  Knowing my past experiences with trying to keep Journals, the decently sized daily boxes gave me hope that perhaps I can finally consistently keep a journal since all I would have to do is fill a little box every once in a while.  I filled those boxes with tiny writing, sometimes overflowing. Sometimes with huge writing. Sometimes with drawings. In colour, in black.  I did this for about half a year.  And then for the first time in my life I was dumped.  My home life was more out of control than it had ever been. And so I stopped. And that was regrettable because on Dec 31 as I look back at it there are many fun things to read in there. Even when the entries are only 5 words long. I am not a literary genius, but 5 words that meant a lot to my past self makes me feel good that something actually meant enough to me to write it down.

Some Monday in February: “If there is something you want to say, you better say it or write it down, because those words will never mean as much as they do outside that moment.”

And so during the 2nd lowest period of my life, I went on exchange.

Last night at a party of about 25 friends from high school + some strangers, someone asked me “How was exchange?” I said it was amazing and life changing. He asked “how?” I didn’t have any answers. No, I  did have some, but they were just too personal to say out loud.  As for other changes, I felt like they are there but I can’t put my finger on them just yet.  The dust is still settling around the solid formation of what I have learned and who I have grown to be.

I’ve learned a lot about the person that I can be. Without being fake, without trying too hard, without feeling uncomfortable.  There was a me in Hong Kong that I was, that was very much me.  However, at the same time, very much a me I had not been.  It’s hard to explain. I wasn’t putting on an act, I was just being myself, it just wasn’t the same self that I am here usually. If anything I felt I was more true.  The environment and the conditions were completely different. You know the limited time you have with those people, you know your chances of seeing them again are small, so for me, I was everything that I am without hiding away behind social masks because of time limitations to develop relationships. I suppose.

Exchange was the best decision of my life. It was a grand adventure. The adventure continues now in a different way as all the things I’ve subconsciously learned, and all the ways I’ve changed, are trickling into my current reality.

Like how when I was at my brother’s wedding a week ago and spending family time, I had a sudden recollection of a conversation with someone I met in HK about family.  My family situation isn’t rare but it’s different and I always thought that my reaction to it is something extremely shameful. I admitted something to that guy that I have never been brave enough to admit to anyone before only to find that my rotten thoughts were so impeccably shared. At the wedding it came back and this feeling of “it’s ok” hit me.  Something that I had been struggling with so long is on it’s way to being set free.

Like how last night when my ex-boyfriend said “I want you to be happy” in a tone that seemed to assume that I wasn’t, my heart secretly gleamed with happiness and I couldn’t understand why.  I thought then that maybe it was because I was happy that person actually still cared about my happiness. When I thought about it this morning again I understood.  It was because, and I am not exaggerating at all, I was happy every single day in Hong Kong. Almost.  Not just happy, ecstatic. I was actually enjoying my life almost every single day. I don’t know about you but that doesn’t come easy for me.

2 days were exceptions. 2 days where I cried myself to sleep because I was depressed (good thing my room mate didn’t move in yet.) Other than those 2 days, every day was a wonderful adventure. Even when I lost my cell phone in Korea and spent my last day running around Seoul looking for it.  Even when I lost my camera in Hong Kong and photos of the past 2 months, including everything of Korea. (I took a trip to Korea while on exchange, it’s pretty common to travel around while on exchange.) I have never ever experienced such an extended period of happiness in my life.  I am incredibly thankful to have received this.  I am also thankful to now know that everyday can be a good day.  Since I was young I believe that bad days are what make the good days good.  No, good days are good days.  Bad days will still happen, live with it. But my life isn’t in this zone of accepting things as they are.  I don’t have to wake up or go to sleep thinking “…it’s another day already.”  I don’t have to accept that “shit happens.” This world is huge but it can feel like something so tiny when you realize it is all in your reach after all.

Actually, maybe one of the reasons why I felt like I was not the same me in Hong Kong was because I was so happy and smiley. What friends I met in Hong Kong describe me as is not the same as what my friends here describe me as.

I am still passive and indecisive, but I’ve become more in control of my life.

Maybe it is because Hong Kong is an bustling sunny city where I don’t have to have days sitting at home being unwilling to go out because of the rain or sit at 11 pm thinking there is no where to go because everything is closed. (You are still #1 in my heart Vancouver!)  There world is still there. A previous me would say that the world is not waiting, things are ever changing and if you’re not running fast, you’ll be run over.  I used to just let myself get run over once in a while just because it felt too futile to try, and I needed to accept failure sometimes. (Going back to Me Inc. in 1st year: “Failure is not final!”) I still believe the world won’t wait, at least not forever because the world IS waiting, it’s a sitting duck and all I have to do is go get it.  It is that simple. Just don’t miss your opportunity.

2012, I will try my journal keeping again. Maybe a different approach this time. No lines please.

Happy new year everyone!

I think I have a tendency to think that a new year is a new start, I’ll try to tell myself that it is a new second and that is a new start too.

I hope to share more of the things I did on exchange and what it was like in a later post (rather than just talk about my personal growth), so if you have any questions please ask away!

I also made some vlogs while I was on exchange…

ENJOY!