It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, and a number of years since I’ve actually officially posted a “year in review” at the right time (although I have quite a few draft “year in reviews” in my notes, which I think will just retroactively post one of these days).

Anyway, even though 2018’s “year in review” is also a bit rough – the Boy and I kind of discussed it and I took notes on my phone, and it feels a bit underwhelming because we really haven’t done all that much… nonetheless I think I’ll just post it up for the sake of keeping a record, which is a big part of what my blogging / online journalling is about.

2018 was a transition year, and a pretty strange years in many ways. It was my “本命年” (Chinese zodiac animal year of birth), generally expected to be a unlucky year, but some people have good fortune instead. For me, it was a year in two halves: a bad first half, with the bad luck starting exactly on the first day of the Chinese New Year, and a much better second half.

THE BAD, THE UGLY (lowlights, mostly in the first half of the year):

• Had a really bad case at work, with a boss I completed didn’t get along with.
  In fact, in the first 6 weeks of this case, I did more all-nighters than I had done in my 8 years of investment banking… and I’m obviously a lot older now, and with a family and kids. And after all that, my boss gave me a crappy review because we really didn’t see eye to eye on many things, including priorities, team management etc. Over several weeks, I had periodic chest pains, probably from all the stress.
• Had a month drought (in the bedroom department). Only did it once in the entire month period. The Boy was quite miserable and kept banging on and on about the fact. Obviously I was never in the mood because I was tired, stressed out, and miserable. But this was a wake-up call, because I thought this was completely unacceptable. I mean… being a wife is between 1/4 to 1/3 of my identity and role / responsibility, and if I was failing at that role, something had to change. In this case, I just had to quit my job, because it just wasn’t working for me.
• Did not add a new country. This has been one of the few years since 2000 that I haven’t added a new country and continue to make progress on my life goal of “visiting every country in the world before I die”, the other years being 2004, 2012, 2014.
• No real holiday. Because of work and financial constraints (I was trying to get promoted and didn’t want to take holidays in the first half of the year, and we were trying to buy a new home), we didn’t go on any real holiday during the year. Yes, we went to Malaysia and France to visit family, but we weren’t visiting new places. And yes we did a couple of long weekends, but not a proper break. And the non-family “holiday” I took was a week where I accompanied the Boy on his work trip across Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam and babysat the bubs during the day. I ended the week more exhausted than at the start!

THE GOOD (highlights):

• Moved house. We bought a new home and moved in. Our new flat is a three bedroom flat with double the space of our old flat, with a much larger garden. The bubs now each have their own room, and we have been able to sleep train Baby-F
• Quit job. Transitioned out of my old job, and took 3 months gardening leave to find a new role.
• Started new instrument (violin!). On my “list of things to do before I die” that I created when I was 10 – which I fully acknowledge is unrealistic, and I’m not going to achieve most of it – I had said I wanted to learn one instrument in each of the orchestral categories (primarily strings, woodwind, brass, less so percussion, although I’m interested in the harp and am SUPER KEEN on drums). So with this, I’ve started the first step of my musical world domination plan 😉
• Won the annual country competition. The Boy has launched a new “annual country visit competition” within his family to complement the overall country competition. And in 2018, I visited 14 individual countries, which is my best performance since 2010 (which was my record at 18 country visit). Most of the visits were driven by my work, doing country workshop visits across Europe, and a quick New York trip.
• Record streak – 5 days in a row! :-O I hope we don’t get another bun in the oven, since we always seem to pay when we play…
• 10 year anniversary. 2018 was our 10 year anniversary of being together. We got together back in 2008 after our crazy Karakoram Highway trip. We celebrated by going to Switzerland for the weekend, for a friend’s wedding.
• 5 year wedding anniversary. We married in Vegas 5 years ago, in a “shotgun” wedding when I was 6 months pregnant with Baby-O. We celebrated our wedding anniversary with long weekend in Antwerp, where we ate at the 2 ** Jane restaurant.
• France won the World Cup. It’s the first time one of my (four!) teams has won the World Cup while I was supporting. Of course Italy won when I was born, and France won in 1998, but I wasn’t supporting them then…
• Visited a few nice restaurants this year, although a lot fewer than in our pre-children hey-day: Frenchie (March); Jane ** (early May) ; Pollen Street Social * (May) ; Fera * (June) ; La Dame de Pic * (July) ; Hakkasan * (Aug) ; Anglo (December) ; Ikoyi * (December) ; La Butte * (December)