Can you believe it is the second half of 2025 next week?

As the title goes.. time flies. This statement had been a common one among me and my friends, colleagues, ex-colleagues and the couple of groups of people I met over the past week or so. It’s crazy how ‘time’ is something so finite yet depending on your emotions and circumstances, it can feel as slow as an eternity or as quickly as a ‘blink of an eye’.

The past month had been rather hectic for me as I had to struggle somewhat with a whirlwind of emotions with several highs and lows. It’s painful to talk about it, but it is an important part of my core memory that I would want to hold on to the grief for a little longer. About a month ago, I lost someone to the deadly ‘cancer’, and from discovery to death, it was just two months. I don’t know if it was a good or bad thing, but most of us were kept in the dark until she was gone, and this had been a deliberate decision she had made and wanted her loved ones to honour. I spent a lot of time thinking if she would have made different decisions if she knew she wasn’t gonna make it, but I guess at that point in time, she concluded that having a wider group of people worrying and getting emotional wouldn’t be helpful in any way. Till the very end, she was kind and thoughtful and did not want to let the negative news of her failing body affect the wider group of people. Of course, the shock was greater and we do have many regrets of not being able to say a proper goodbye (but is there even such a thing), but it also allowed the majority of us to lead a ‘normalized’ 2 months of life. During the ‘missing’ 2 months, we did worry about her condition a lot, but we had to respect her decision that she didn’t want to update us on anything. As a result, I did go for my holidays as per usual and I did make detours to temples and churches to pray, but beyond that, I was still feeling kind of alright for most days. Well, the news of her passing came to me on the last day of my Korea trip. It was so crazy because I was in between stations for my facial treatment and I read the message right before my laser treatment and I couldn’t have any time to react as after the laser, I had to do the mask and stuff and at that moment, my mind was just blank, eyes are closed (due to the treatment) and I controlled my emotions because I don’t want to look awkward in public. From the initial messages, we were still not aware of the cause of her death (prior to this, we only knew was ill and unable to come back to work) and my mind started going crazy with all the what-ifs and could have been. I told my travel partner that I wanted to be alone, and we went on our separate ways to the airport. I opted for the long bus ride, which gave me the space and time to process my thoughts. I didn’t cry then, cause I didn’t want to look weird and having to explain myself if concerns came from strangers. My whole emotions were wrecked andthe  next day, it was back to work (thankfully from home) and I cried in the afternoon after someone told me she did have some ‘last words of appreciation’ for me. To be honest, in my younger days, I used to hold back tears because I thought crying was a sign of weakness, but now that I am older, I have learnt that crying is sometimes necessary for you to move on to the next stage of grief. I don’t know why I am writing this down but I guess it is a reminder to my future self that it is okay to cry. Took me a really long time to come to terms with this ‘act of weakness’. It has been almost a month and I think I figured out how to hold on to the happy memories instead. I still pin her name to my teams chat and I’m gonna leave it there as long as possible. I still remember this quote someone once said, that it is meaningful to be able to remain in someone’s memory. Sorry for the emotional start. It was something I just had to let it out in order to ‘move on’.

On to the happier things, I was glad to visit korea again for the fourth consecutive year since covid restrictions were relaxed. Somehow, I have lost interest in adventurous and exploratory travel and these recent years, I find myself going back to asia countries multiple times. It feels like I found my comfort zone and I have come to terms that ‘exploring the world’ is no longer on my bucket list. In my younger years, I would love to explore different countries and cultures but the me today, I’m like worried and paranoid about many things. I’m starting to dislike long flights and my fear for turbulence is all time high. Furthermore, with the war and natural disasters happening everywhere, travelling seems to be quite a risky activity now. My trip to Korea was a rather peaceful and fuss-free one. I had the opportunity to hang out with a friend’s kid, sit at a cafe and talk about ‘life’, had random conversations with people I meet once in a while and also got to enjoy many of my favourite food. I even ventured out to this island (called Jebudo) which had been on my list since 2012 and it took me so long to find friends that were not afraid of heights, and were willing to spend a day out of Seoul doing ‘nature things’. It’s kind of funny because me and my travel partner have very different travelling styles. About 3 days before my plan to Jebudo (which she didn’t join), she was asking me like.. how are you planning to go there? and my answer was I don’t know, haven’t done any research yet since it was still 3 days away. Then she ask, so what is there to do there? And my answer was like oh, we take a cable car to the island and there’s the lighthouse I want to see and that’s about it, we walk around I guess? And then the next question was, what time are you going to be there and how long will you spend there? And of course, I had no answer. These days, I don’t exactly plan anything and I just ‘go with the flow’. That being said, I’m perfectly alright if the other person decides to plan and I become a follower. I just hate to be in situations where I need to make decisions (for my personal life). Oops. Somehow or another, I think I’m pretty decisive when it comes to work stuff, and for other people..

Apart from my travels, I also got very busy with crocheting. I have no idea what happened but I just ‘dived’ into this obsession and now I have about 2 boxes of strings. Every night during my screen time (Netflix, YouTube, F1), I will multi-task with crochet. I have moved on from making toys to making bags and there’s always a new design I want to try so I just keep making.. just keep making.. It’s getting a little intense lately but at least it is a decent hobby and I enjoy it for now. I don’t even need to go out on weekends anymore as I feel entertained at home by just crocheting.. My friends are starting to call me the Crochet granny ><

On a side note, I was really upset two weeks ago cause a low cost carrier (Jetstar) decided to shut operations for good after 31 July. I did have a vacation planned for end October which ain’t happening cause there’s no more direct flights to that island. It was my only planned vacation for the second half, and now I’m left with no upcoming trips but then again, I know something will come along.. It’s just a matter of when, where and with who.

Also, it’s unfortunate that booking dot com has decided to end its affiliate partnership with me (and many others who are deemed too small for them). To be honest, I’m not sure how long I will keep this website going as this website is slowly becoming a depreciating asset. As a result of me blogging lesser and writing less clickbait articles (and totally given up on my filming locations angle), I am not generating enough ad revenue to sustain the fees that I am paying for the website. It is not a lot of money but it is still sad when it can’t pay itself. With booking dot com out of the picture, it is one less revenue stream and I don’t know if it is still worthwhile to maintain a website when it eventually becomes loss-making. I mean, there are still ways to hustle and earn money but yea I’m just getting lazy. at least I’m willing to admit it now.

That said. the second half of 2025 could be really exciting for me if I get to achieve the one thing that I wanted to do since 5 to 10 years ago. I am not hopeful but I’ll try to reach my goal but I’m so fussy that it might not happen. Let’s see if I get to share this happy news (if it happens) before the year ends.

I guess I have nothing more to update on my life right now so I guess it’s goodbye!