6 posts from December 2007

It is at last 2008 and I hope this one will be a blessed and good year for me and my family - hopefully a great improvement from 2007.  As most people do, I have some goals for 2008 which can be summed up in the cliche "healthy, wealthy, and wise".

• Healthy-take better care of myself both physically and mentally -eat better, exercise, go to the doctor, cook more etc.
• Wealthy - be in control and improve my finances
• Wise- continuing learning and growing intellectually and artistically

My more urgent goals are:

• sell or rent my house (please, please, please)
• organize/clean my stuff.

And now a goal for my enjoyment is to travel more.

Good luck with your goals and have a wonderful 2008!

Movies I've seen this year thanks to my online rental history (not including the ones I exchanged in the store).

What was the best movie you saw this year?

This movie isn't from 2007, but is probably the one of the best movies I saw this year. The last movie I saw in the theater was Blades of Glory, so most of my movie watching this year came courtesy of my Blockbuster open access subscription. This was one of the movies that kept me thinking after it ended and definitely has a little bit of everything in it.

Show us a TV show you never miss.

What's the best book you read this year?

Considering it is the only book I read this year not related to school/textbook, it would have to be The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn. I bought it for a friend who is interested in going to the Cordon Bleu in Paris, but felt she was getting a little too old to be messing around with culinary school.  It's a nice, quick, and light read for anyone who has had the expatriate living in Paris fantasy.  The best part is the recipes at the end of each chapter which I have yet to try.

 

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooki

Kathleen Flinn

I've decided to make my vox blog my personal blog for the new year.  I do have a blog that focuses more on more on the professional/student aspect of my life, but I'm still working on it (to be unveiled later) and a lot of the posts there were more personal instead of aligning with the purpose of the blog.  My hope is that this upcoming year will be a happy, healthy, and peaceful one since 2007 has probably been the worst year I have experienced. There have been some good moments, but they were too few and the negative and tears kept on coming. So before the new year starts I'm going to unload all that was 2007 and promise/hope this will be my last whining and complaining post for a long, long, long time.

• mother had severe mental breakdown/thought I was an actress/impostor/dead for about 2 months
• mother lost insurance and has be an ongoing battle to get her the help she needs with no finances
• had to move back home due to aforementioned mental breakdown
• left great job/my house/friends/life
• not as great new job/salary
• first car accident/auto insurance debacle (11,000 to REPAIR the car)
• first car break in
• parking tickets/traffic tickets!!!! ( I've been driving for 12 years and I've never gotten a ticket - this year I got 6)
• my house almost going into foreclosure
• audited by the IRS (and I had to pay)
• losing credit (due to almost going into foreclosure)
• had a better job offer reneged because of some woman I barely remember having sour grapes from 5 years ago.
• break in at my house
• still no renter/buyer for my house/mortgage increase
• still haven't unpacked my stuff
• mail forwarding fiasco
• put on academic probation
• after a year, mom still isn't back to her old self

OK, that's the gist of it.  I promise I'm really not a miserable person and 99% of the time I'm pleasant and calm, but this year really put me through it (and none of the "obstacles" were even life or death barring the car accident). Just really couldn't catch a break and it was just one thing after the other. So good riddance to 2007 and let this be the end of it. Wishing a year of sweet surprises and success to all.