Happy New Year

Hello, empty space out there...

2006 is here, and I wish you all a Happy New Year. May all your wishes come true.
Strangely, I have been feeling rather empty recently... I'm not sure whether it's the end of a short vacation, the lousy foggy weather, or the impending big birthday that's making me feeling a bit lonely and dismotivated from everything. I just don't feel excited about anything, opting to stay home and just isolate myself from the others. The thing is, I've felt this way before. And the last time this happened was around March last year, I think. I commented that this sort of feeling is a seasonal thing, but clearly the seasons are not colliding with the 365-day calendar. Maybe I run on another schedule? I shall fully document this phenomenon and invent a "Mak Calendar" to finally leave a useful mark on Earth for myself.

I must've sent out more than 30 Christmas greetings this year, and the most looked forward to reply wasn't received. Did I make it unpleasant for them to reply? Was I too harsh? All I said was that I am longing for my old days, had gotten used to being spoiled, and knowing that he's doing so without me. Sounds awful?

Whatever.

Baby boy is back home now, and I have yet to feel very attached to him. Maybe it's because I haven't spent much time with him yet. But I honestly wish him all the best and will treat him as my little treasure too. I love kids and wish I could have my own.

I need to start committing myself. I just lack that completely, and in the long-run it'd be a problem, I know it.

Later.
M.

My Christmas break

I went somewhere completely new this year... a country which has always been exotic, with colorful landscapes, vastly different people, the very poor, and the super rich; a country with rich history, and many current social problems, and at the verge of economic breakthrough.

Though the trip was only 5 days long, I got to see parts of India that showed me all of the above, and then some.

It was an overdue break, and a good outing with friends... despite getting sick at the end, the trip was well worth the hassle (and believe me, traveling 8 hours by flight and then 3 hours by car is a lot of hassle).

M.

Christmas Cards

On a recent trip to SF, I bought 2 boxes full of Christmas cards, thinking that I would finally hand write some of them to mail to my best buddies and family members. We have 5 days left before Christmas, and I realized that I will never make it for mailing them out on time. And the biggest problem is... it turns out I don't have the mailing addresses of most of my friends. In this information age, our physical location seems rather irrelevant in terms of our actual distance. I mean, sometimes I communicate more with my mother in Los Angeles than my brother who works within a mile from me. Have the hotmails, gmails, yahoos replaced zip codes and street names that defined our physical location? Will there be a time when some of these email addresses take on the prestigious addresses like "The Peak" or "Barker Road" etc.?
Back to where I was going... so, instead of spending money and time mailing out dozens of cards, I resorted to the good old email, and sent out e-cards: they're cheaper, faster, sometimes more reliable, and more environmentally friendly. Yes yes yes, hand-writing makes it more "special," but with my illegible hand-writing, this is probably for the better.
Getting ready for a short trip to a far-off place, and also preparing for the arrival of my parents... quite a hectic week.
BTW, nobody reads this stuff, because I haven't advertised it to my friends yet.

Taken at my former workplace with an old schoolmate of mine, David 

Taken recently in San Francisco 

Preparing for 2006

This blog thing has been around for a while, but I haven't explored what I could do with it. So, since I have always wanted to have my own journal (too lazy or non-commital about actually doing it), I thought this would be a good way to finally put it into reality.

Let's see how long I'll keep this thing updated.

M.