Less than 10 hours to go!
No other time have I been so excited about the passing of another year. I'm generally quite indifferent when it comes to celebrating the New Year, but considering the year that I've had, I am all for saying good riddance to the sucky year that is/was 2008 and hello to 2009. Y'know, I'm actually pretty optimistic about 2009 (optimism is a strange new feeling for a natural born pessimist like me) even though I can see there will be a lot of challenges during the year ahead.
Anyway, lemme try and recall some of the events that occurred in the latter part of this year...
So, the Devil transaction closed in late July and Mac-lite and its consortium got their grubby little hands on the billions. The partner in charge of the transaction took a sabbatical immediately afterwards, but there was no rest for the rest of us, as post-closing work on the transaction meant that the plebs had to continue with the heavy lifting. As a small reward, we were given a short transaction break, were invited to a couple of free lunches and had drinks with our counterparts (who were advising Mac-lite, but we carried them and did most their work!) though.
In August, a couple of friends, who had been living together as a de facto couple, flew off to New York and got married at City Hall on 8 August (their wedding was even featured in an article in the New York Times), and I began thinking about my own relationship and what it meant to be commited to another person. Friends would comment off-hand about when we would "get married" and I would always dismiss it with some silly statement. Anyway, even though the idea of a civil ceremony (or, more importantly, all the attention such an event would come with) did freak me out, I thought that something symbolic like commitment rings might be a nice idea (especially the really simple Cartier wedding bands). Hmm...
Birthday on 12 August. As per usual, I refused to have any sort of celebration and, considering I was turning a ripe old age of 30, I wanted this birthday to pass by without any fanfare. I tried to keep it quiet but my PA knew and insisted I do as little work as possible that day. I ended up having a long lunch with Jeanie at Moshi Moshi and left early-ish from work with Rachel and went to St John to eat strange animal off-cuts like rabbit kidneys (quite delicious).
My final day in the office was on the third week of August. I wiped my hands of the Devil transaction at noon that day when I had my handover meeting... good riddance! I had my farewell drinks later on that afternoon. At my request, I received my farewell present in the form of book vouchers, which I used to buy a few design books from Foyles. People hung around on the departmental floor for a short while before heading back into their rooms to work. There's always an over-supply of drinks on such ocassions and I nicked a couple of bottles of champagne that weren't opened.
My belated birthday present to myself was a trip to Croatia. It's an incredibly beautiful place and I had a very relaxing time. It was a good way to unwind after finishing off at Anal & Oral. Croatia must be the new trendy destination for Antipodean backpackers as there was no way of avoiding them - they were on the budget flight to Split, on the ferries and boats at every port and generally everywhere you went along the Dalmatian Coast. It was really quite sad to witness all the drunk bogan behaviour and it really freaked me out that I was about to return to the land of the bogans at the end of the year.
I spent the whole month of September in London. I ended up being quite busy though, organising my travel plans, arranging so that my departure from London would run as smooth as possible, learning to drive, and hosting Lee at the end of the month. I really wanted to do all the touristy stuff again and re-visit all the museums, but that didn't eventuate as I ran out of time.
Re learning to drive, I held off for the longest time, but decided that it would be necessary skill if I were to become an architect and was required to travel to different building sites. I looked into the pros and cons of learning to drive in the UK and in NSW (my version of international arbitrage) and decided I just couldn't tolerate logging 150 hours of driving into a driving journal as part of the NSW RTA requirements. I decided to learn in the UK as you can do a 2-week intensive course and get a full licence once you've passed the practical exam. I did my practical exam on the last Wednesday I was in the UK. Luckily I passed!
Q4 2008
October was a month of travelling, mainly in India. We officially broke up pretty much as soon as I arrived in India. I decided to stay on and complete my trip instead of taking the first flight of the country. I wanted answers and I wasn't going to get any if I fled. Anway, that's all I'm prepared to say at this point!
I came back to Sydney in November and re-commenced blogging shortly thereafter... and that's the story of my 2008!
No other time have I been so excited about the passing of another year. I'm generally quite indifferent when it comes to celebrating the New Year, but considering the year that I've had, I am all for saying good riddance to the sucky year that is/was 2008 and hello to 2009. Y'know, I'm actually pretty optimistic about 2009 (optimism is a strange new feeling for a natural born pessimist like me) even though I can see there will be a lot of challenges during the year ahead.
Anyway, lemme try and recall some of the events that occurred in the latter part of this year...
So, the Devil transaction closed in late July and Mac-lite and its consortium got their grubby little hands on the billions. The partner in charge of the transaction took a sabbatical immediately afterwards, but there was no rest for the rest of us, as post-closing work on the transaction meant that the plebs had to continue with the heavy lifting. As a small reward, we were given a short transaction break, were invited to a couple of free lunches and had drinks with our counterparts (who were advising Mac-lite, but we carried them and did most their work!) though.
In August, a couple of friends, who had been living together as a de facto couple, flew off to New York and got married at City Hall on 8 August (their wedding was even featured in an article in the New York Times), and I began thinking about my own relationship and what it meant to be commited to another person. Friends would comment off-hand about when we would "get married" and I would always dismiss it with some silly statement. Anyway, even though the idea of a civil ceremony (or, more importantly, all the attention such an event would come with) did freak me out, I thought that something symbolic like commitment rings might be a nice idea (especially the really simple Cartier wedding bands). Hmm...
Birthday on 12 August. As per usual, I refused to have any sort of celebration and, considering I was turning a ripe old age of 30, I wanted this birthday to pass by without any fanfare. I tried to keep it quiet but my PA knew and insisted I do as little work as possible that day. I ended up having a long lunch with Jeanie at Moshi Moshi and left early-ish from work with Rachel and went to St John to eat strange animal off-cuts like rabbit kidneys (quite delicious).
My final day in the office was on the third week of August. I wiped my hands of the Devil transaction at noon that day when I had my handover meeting... good riddance! I had my farewell drinks later on that afternoon. At my request, I received my farewell present in the form of book vouchers, which I used to buy a few design books from Foyles. People hung around on the departmental floor for a short while before heading back into their rooms to work. There's always an over-supply of drinks on such ocassions and I nicked a couple of bottles of champagne that weren't opened.
My belated birthday present to myself was a trip to Croatia. It's an incredibly beautiful place and I had a very relaxing time. It was a good way to unwind after finishing off at Anal & Oral. Croatia must be the new trendy destination for Antipodean backpackers as there was no way of avoiding them - they were on the budget flight to Split, on the ferries and boats at every port and generally everywhere you went along the Dalmatian Coast. It was really quite sad to witness all the drunk bogan behaviour and it really freaked me out that I was about to return to the land of the bogans at the end of the year.
I spent the whole month of September in London. I ended up being quite busy though, organising my travel plans, arranging so that my departure from London would run as smooth as possible, learning to drive, and hosting Lee at the end of the month. I really wanted to do all the touristy stuff again and re-visit all the museums, but that didn't eventuate as I ran out of time.
Re learning to drive, I held off for the longest time, but decided that it would be necessary skill if I were to become an architect and was required to travel to different building sites. I looked into the pros and cons of learning to drive in the UK and in NSW (my version of international arbitrage) and decided I just couldn't tolerate logging 150 hours of driving into a driving journal as part of the NSW RTA requirements. I decided to learn in the UK as you can do a 2-week intensive course and get a full licence once you've passed the practical exam. I did my practical exam on the last Wednesday I was in the UK. Luckily I passed!
Q4 2008
October was a month of travelling, mainly in India. We officially broke up pretty much as soon as I arrived in India. I decided to stay on and complete my trip instead of taking the first flight of the country. I wanted answers and I wasn't going to get any if I fled. Anway, that's all I'm prepared to say at this point!
I came back to Sydney in November and re-commenced blogging shortly thereafter... and that's the story of my 2008!
4 comments:
Well happy new year!
Sometimes I think chinese horoscopes are eerily prescient. Horses were supposed to have a bad year last year. The good thing is that Horses will have a brilliant year this year!
Bring that on! Neigggggh!
Chinese new year starts early this year :)
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