2019: Another Busy Year With Some Unfulfilled Goals

Every year at the end of December, I take a trip down memory lane, recalling my journey for the year, penning down what I’ve done, where I’ve been, and planning what and where I would head to the following year. It’s a habit ever since I moved to Singapore in 2014. First, as a short post on Facebook, then subsequently turning into a blog post from 2017 onwards after starting this blog in 2016. It’s a tradition I would love to see myself carrying on.

Since I started this blog, every year around November, I would start recalling what I have been through for the past 11 months and started penning downs what to write in my Year-In-Review. But this year around, I was too busy with work that I could hardly start looking at it until oh well, a couple of days before the year ends. With my lousy memory, let’s recall and see how far I’ve come in 2019!

I penned down the following goals in my Year-In-Review last year, let’s see what exactly happened to them, shall we?

Following my business trip to Germany last year November when I missed out the fun with the snow (saw them but it melted before I could touch them) I made up my mind to have a winter trip possibly by 2019, not knowing that I would be trekking in Nepal during the winter in December!

Finally, a lovely departure from my usual South East Asia trips (summer all year long, it’s so hot) and it surprisingly snowed when I was trekking to Gokyo Lake after my trek to Everest Base Camp. It’s been only a couple of weeks after I return from the trip, so do stay tune for my upcoming blog posts.

I don’t want to limit myself to anything, but a trip to somewhere during autumn or spring would probably be amazing. But, it really depends on airline promotions, my new job schedule and leave availability. Nonetheless, with more annual leave for my new job, hopefully I could go out and see more of the world!

I had a crazy hiking year in 2017 where I was kinda hardcore and I made sure to be easy on myself in 2018, but part of me longed for the mountains. I must say, I missed the challenge, so I made some effort to join some moderately challenging hikes in 2019 to keep the passion burning. Happy to know I’m still up for it and had a lot of fun. 15 hikes in a year, not bad huh?

Having been too stressed out to train for a full marathon in 2018, I become too reluctant to do any running in 2019 despite setting a goal to run weekly as a healthy regime. I would come up with different excuses so not to run and boy, it served me right to gain a couple of kilograms this year. Apart from that one race at the beginning of the year, I hardly go for any run or jog. Guilty as charged!

My new job schedule may not permit myself to run weekly, so let’s not be too over-ambitious and try to stick to running every fortnightly. And sign up for some races throughout the year to keep myself motivated. I don’t mind running half marathon as I find this distance suit me the best. It’s neither too long to exhaust myself nor too short to waste the registration fee. 

Finally after years of procrastination, I finally took swimming lesson somewhere in the middle of the year. Unfortunately my schedule forbid myself from continuing my lesson so I continue practicing on my own and the progress has since been kind of slow. Then I stop swimming when things got too busy when I was switching job.

Learning is a lifelong progress and I don’t expect myself to be a good swimmer in a short time, but I would love to at least swim properly and be able to swim a lap. 

I published 50 blog posts in 2018 and I thought I could write as much if not more in 2019, hence aspiring to finish my backlogs. Unfortunately I only wrote and publish 27 posts in 2019. I can’t believe I still haven’t finish writing my Sri Lanka and Germany posts. I really, really, really hate piling my travel posts up.  

With Nepal now added to the list, I’m sure I’m gonna have a hard time in 2020. I think I need a miracle! But nonetheless, let's just keep writing!


And if you didn't already know, I was included in the list of Top 30 Malaysian Travel Blogger by Feedpost.com. Had to admit I'm honoured. Hopefully, I can write and share more travel stories in 2020!

Happy New Year