My Reflection

Picture taken at the Museum of Transport and Technology, Auckland, NZ. 

When I started this blog back in May, I had a stack full of JPEGs from Australia and New Zealand that I sincerely promised to post on a near-daily basis. As good as my intentions were, however, most of those plans came to nought when I got swamped with other things - in particular, work, fiction-writing, and constant updates for Domesticity. 


Then graduate school happened.




I don't know if I could really say what happened there, but by the time December rolled around I certainly wasn't a happy person. This isn't the first time I've been overwhelmed by the work that goes into grad school; the only difference here is that not only did I feel like I was all alone, but that everything was my fault and that I should just stop crying and keep quiet if I knew what was good for me.

It wasn't until SisMei and her family came to visit that I realized how much I've been wallowing for too long.



Really: Whatever happened to the girl who wandered the streets of Kings Cross in search of cookies? Wasn't this the same person who looked up to the snowcapped glaciers in Milford Sound and thought, I don't care how crappy my life is, I'm going to carry this with me for as long as I live? 


That was the moment when I put my foot down and said, "I'm done. Bring on the happy."

There's no guarantee that the doubts will go away. Grad school will still be stressful for me. Adjusting will still be difficult. Commuting within the National Capital Region will still be a bitch. (Especially while this is happening... and by the way, that really was us in El Nido, not Puerto Galera.) But I still have my pictures and memories of all those "happy places" I got to visit in the last few years, and I still want to share them with you.

Here's to a brighter, sunnier future ahead.