2016, you've been good to me

sent our annual newsletter to friends before christmas and one dear friend responded,  "...really enjoy reading your yearly updates, pity they come only once a year though" to which i replied, "our imaginary quarterly update wouldn't make for good reading - too many low lights and frustrating moments." the year end report is a blythe summary of the good things that happened, but so much more goes on behind the scenes.

it's been a busy year culminating in 3 X graduations and 2 X demanding jobs in brand new industries a world apart from our original legal skill set. we'd wanted to take it easy in 2017 but looks like surprise baby boy had other plans. 

found out i was pregnant 3 days before my first medsch final exam and sat the month-long finals in the ever-worsening throes of first trimester. abandoned a 3h written paper 2h in and went straight to A&E where I spent a miserable afternoon, convinced i'd both failed finals and lost the baby. 

passing finals was nothing short of Miraculous. my medical school has a "no exemptions" policy - sitting finals meant I'd deemed myself fit and there'd be no extenuating circumstances taken into consideration if I didn't meet the pass mark. 

starting work as a first year doctor on an acute ward in second trimester has been simultaneously the hardest thing I've ever done and also the most gratifying. immensely thankful for this kicking little life who picked what seemed like the worst possible time humanly, only to show me that God's timing is always perfect.

been blessed with a smooth pregnancy and was doing 10km hikes in switzerland at week 36 before reluctantly returning to london as late as BA would fly me, only to then road trip to dover for more coastal walking. drafting this in week 37 and hoping baby stays put till at least the new year because my prof is on holiday and only gets back 2 jan ;) hence i'm under strict instructions to be on my best behaviour and to stop 'dancing on tabletops'. everyone's warned about how life is going to change completely and i'm a more than a little apprehensive. during the boxing day sales, bought a wine fridge and whiskey cabinet but still don't have a car seat (need it to get home from hospital!), cot nor pram. totally unprepared because i don't think one can ever be prepared, i attended one antenatal class and was so put off i missed the other three, and am generally in denial about actually needing to have the baby in a matter of days to weeks. i wish i was more like those smug maternal sorts who are totally on top of things but i'm not and might never be. instead i've refused to modify my lifestyle and made it a point to escape london most weekends, if not every opportunity. was just counting the number of escapades baby has been on in utero which is essentially my travels june to december, linked if i've previously posted and you'd like to see.

week 8 highlands road trip (isle of mull, skye)

week 9 singapore

week 12 ibiza

week 13 berkshire

week 14 paris

week 16 wengen

week 18 edinburgh

week 22 copenhagen, faroe islands

week 23 oxfordshire

week 26 amsterdam

week 28 the cotswolds

week 32 paris

week 35 zurich, zermatt

week 36 wengen

week 37 dover, ascot

earlier in the year, there was 

48h NYC in february

singapore, KL and the philippines in march / april

lake district in may

and the small issue of medsch finals in may - june which have been sufficiently dramatised above.

a friend asked recently what i'd been getting up to after finishing medsch. hate to disappoint but far from anything exciting or off piste, i've been a doctor, rather predictably, and plan to remain one as long as i can. although there is eight months of maternity leave to dread / look forward to, depending on whether you're the glass empty / half full sort. again, people have told me i'll change my mind once the baby comes and i probably will. feel everything i think / say now is only valid till he arrives, then it's anyone's guess. like to think i'll take to motherhood with the same determination i approach most other commitments, but the permanence of such a transition scares me. easier to care for in than out, another well-meaning friend said when i broached the subject of induction to have some control over when baby lands on my lap. i mean, for planning purposes, having a 5 week window (weeks 37-42) when baby could potentially materialise isn't really convenient... so much to learn, so much to do. 

another bugbear, one that this isn't the most appropriate of forums for, is how much unsolicited advice i've gotten. glad not to be in singers because it's probably worse in situ but the number of nagging aunties really gets my goat. why are people so negative??? like if you've nothing encouraging to say then don't say it. stop telling me to enjoy myself / make the most of pre-baby freedom because i do and will continue to do so because i'm inherently impulsive and hedonistic without need for prompting. or people who tell me how hard / exhausting being a new mother is. how is that constructive / productive at all? if it's hard, then i'll have to deal. and worrying about it now / being anxious is a waste of time because i can't change anything. but there's no point calling out annoying types, so breathe in, breathe out and ignore :) 

looking forward to seeing the new year in on primrose hill, and bracing ourselves for our biggest adventure yet come 2017. thanks for coming by, and for reading. wishing you and yours every good thing in 2017. also, more holiday posts to follow in the next few days.

previous yearly round ups here.

2015 in review

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Zora Neale Hurston

and i dare say this year was a bit of both. was recently accused by my nearest and dearest of hiding behind an illusion of a perfect life. uh, my life is far from perfect but the gory bits don't make for very good reading. also, there's enough sadness in the world, why add to the maelstrom? but i do see where they're coming from and value their take on things. so in the interest of honesty, this year was not without its challenges but so glad to be on the other side of things now.

thematically - before this degenerates into a poorly-disguised list of the holidays we've taken (guilty!), it's been a year of getting comfortable with uncertainty. i'm the sort of person who needs advance warning because i take more time to get used to changes. being with the mister has certainly changed that and i can be spontaneous if he gives me enough notice. not having visibility nor knowing where he / i / we will be in 6, 12, 18 etc months never fails to send me into a tizzy. but this year has been fraught with uncertainty and i've slowly grown to let go and let God. it's a deepening trust and strengthening faith, one i sort of let slide the previous years. it's been a time of investing in relationships and i've enjoyed every moment with family and friends. as life gets more busy, it's about making time and not excuses, about prioritising those important and not letting that get lost in the daily blur. i'm constantly grateful for a coterie of girlfriends who are only an anguished text away with tea and sympathy (usually virtual!) at the ready. hope that i, too, have been that to them and given as good as i've gotten. also appreciative that family is in good health, being in healthcare and seeing illness on a daily basis, i'm reminded at every turn that it's not something to take for granted because it's never a given. am cautiously optimistic about the year ahead, it's a phrase we've used much more in recent weeks, and can finally say with certainty that something great is about to happen.

we ended 2014 in the atacama desert overlooking geyser del tatio, the world's highest geyser, then saw new year's in in santiago. through much scheming and many a cunning plan, i managed to line up my fourth year placements in central london. was pleased as punch to be in zone one for the entire year because i don't like commuting. i mean, who does?! also, it's not often the stars align for convenience of medsch travel so i was gonna enjoy it while it lasted. being able to walk to work was a godsend and one i did not take for granted. speaking of God, the mister and i attended a marriage course (okok, we half attended it because we're so bad at consistency haha) but it was good and i'd recommend it to anyone. couples need to be married for more than two years before being able to sign up but they seemed pretty chilled out about it, marriage wasn't a pre-requisite either which struck me as unusual for a 'marriage course' but hey, props for being inclusive. we didn't attend a marriage prep course before tying the knot because he was finishing up in singers and i was a freshie. also the nice icelandic reverend who married us met us the day before the wedding and wasn't about to insist we'd attended a course then. better late than never? we were a bit mean though, sitting at the back and making bets on which couples would cry / storm out during the session. bad teos! but the mister's mean streak is one of the things i find most attractive about him, because being nice is never enough, and i don't want to be saddled with some pushover for life. it was also a bit scary that we signed up to improve our marriage because hey, it's a work in progress. we're far from perfect and strong marriages are intentional. but uhoh it was actually also for couples in trouble??? oops. cue occasional awkward silence. on the plus side, we played the student card and got a highly subsidised rate! be still, my parsimonious heart. the mister called me out for robbing the church. i see it as redistribution. attitude to money - also on the course agenda...

the mister spent a bit of time in NYC for class this year and when he was away i jumped at the chance for some solo travel, hopping over to barcelona for sunshine and tapas, although not in that order. we also went back to singers in march for my cousin's wedding, and he stayed on to represent at our good friends' too. lost a dear family member about the same time and the mister represented at that while i had to go back to school. went walking by the cliffs during the funeral and saw a rainbow, which was a nice touch, then had some sake in remembrance. 

we were meant to go to cinque terre over easter but work drama threw a spanner in our plans. thank goodness for insurance, got back every penny, and ended up across the channel instead. yay for a car and cheap eurotunnel. while i'm partial to the south of france having spent many happy summers with J and her fam in aix, the north has its charm and is growing on me. spent the spring bank holiday long weekend back singers with the mister's classmates who were en route to shanghai for an elective. any excuse to be home, really, and thoroughly enjoyed playing tour guide. also spent a weekend in stockholm in may, my home away from home and where i lived as an undergrad.

on the family front, our dear friends asked us to be godparents to their precious little bundle. this sent me into another tizzy because if i didn't want children of my own (for now) why would i shoulder extra responsibility??? but the mister was mature and sensible, suggesting a skype four-way (he was in NYC, i was in london, father-to-be in JKT and mother-to-be in sg!) for us to talk things over. our primary concern was/is our friendship so i didn't want to be an abysmal godparent, drop the ball and buang that relationship... hey, one never knows how these things can go! having drafted terms&conditions and sussed out expectations (they'd none, we'd plenty) we decided it was something we wanted to commit to because it's a lifelong responsibility. there was also a hairy moment when D&N and the mister were on holiday in croatia together and i tried to shove morbid thoughts outta my mind because if anything happened to the trio, i'd literally be left carrying the baby. paranoia, be gone!

summer was a whirlwind! desperately wanted to go somewhere exotic for elective but felt best to be grown up and do it half in london and half in singers. to make up for the lack of excitement (actually, protein crystallography was plenty exciting and i loved my time at the lab!), did a speedy west coast tour in between elective periods for london and singers. flew to frisco then meandered down the coast (big sur, monterey, yosemite) to beverly hills for a wedding at greystone mansion before returning to singers via tokyo. did my elective in singers but skipped town on weekends, to KL for P's wedding and to visit J&A, then phuket over the national day long weekend then hosted J&A in singers. completed the last leg of globe circumvention (SIN-LHR) had some down time in london with a quick trip to paris (yay eurostar!) before hunkering down for final year, which has been fast and furious. if all goes well, final years in may and will be a doctor by june. here's hoping!

tell a lie, one week into final year and i was climbing the walls so the mister assuaged with a spontaneous trip to copenhagen with friends. in the midst of the three week mini nightmares that are our senior rotations (obgyn, general practice, paeds, psych), we also escaped to majorca for the weekend just because. before that, he ran his first marathon (NYC!) then spent some time in boston to see the fall colours before coming back to london. the junior doctors threatened to go on strike, which meant i'd the day off even though they didn't, and we snuck away to the lakes. when the mister was in NYC for his final eMBA class, my folks were in munich and i managed to wrangle a stolen weekend with them. bummed we spent christmas apart (them in singers, us in the dolomites) but a bonus 48h together was just what i needed.

so the hard stuff i was talking about earlier? the mister's got a new job! it's been some time coming and hm being the big nerds we are, we talked about life after lawsch on our first date. he wanted to be a consultant with X, and i wanted to be a doctor. then we both laughed at how ridiculous we were. more than eight years later and in an extraordinary turn of events, he's been offered a position at X. wish i could take credit and say that it was all planned and everything he's done since lawsch has led him there, but it wasn't. in fact, he'd forgotten all about it until the recruitment opportunity arose when X started visiting bschool. so in a way, he had to go there to get here, and through it all we see God's goodness and grace. if someone had told me at the beginning of the year that the mister would be an X consultant by october, i'd have thought they were out of their mind. because X is literally the hardest company to get into in the world. well, X and goldman. thank you, God.

2016 is going to be exciting! the mister's done really well and will graduate twice (once in NYC, one in london) while i hopefully pass finals and also graduate. the mister, overperforming and overshadowing me since 2007.

thank you for coming by, and for making your way through this self-indulgent post. i do love recounting the year and counting blessings big and small. wishing you good endings and better beginnings, merry christmas and a happy new year X

(reviews from 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 if you'd like to see)

2014 round up

we started 2014 with no expectations, anticipating a quiet year free from major life changes. little did we know that in april, the mister would serendipitously find himself in business school. but let us back up a little! saw the new year in from the maldives, a place we finally got the chance to visit together. from the maldives it was back to singapore for a few days before hitting the ground running with work (him) and uni (me) in the +44.

having finished foundations of clinical practice before christmas, it was straight to junior rotations on the wards with eight weeks of chronic ill health and disability, followed by four weeks of women's health, child's health, mental health and infectious diseases each. this actually brought me nicely to july, with no study break before exams. after two years 'pre-clinical' with lectures and seminars, it was such a relief to be having hands on experience on the wards and i enjoyed finally feeling like a baby doctor. things started making sense (oh phew!) and i didn't mind the long hours because being in school was a breeze compared to work. lucked out with a four week "junior assistantship'' (part of longer 8 week chronic ill health rotation) on a clinical oncology ward (thank god i wasn't assigned neuro-rehab or something similar...) and was all the more psyched to be with cancer patients dawn to dusk.

travel-wise, we were lucky to sneak some time out to be master and mistress of ceremony at our dear friends' wedding in singapore in feb, and sort of spend my birthday back home the same weekend. visited the amalfi coast over easter, and it was there that we learnt the mister had been accepted to do the executive*MBA*global (americas*and*europe) with columbia&london*business*schools. 

it's a 20*month dual*degree program so fingers crossed he'll graduate with 2xMBAs (one from columbia*, one from*LBS). the beauty of the e*MBA is that everyone on the program is also working full-time. we're grateful his employers have sponsored his time (without docking his salary - so important!) because he takes a week off work every month to attend class in either london or NYC. which also means he's in NYC for a week every other month. the classes are intense with 8am to 10pm days being common, after all they're squeezing the contact hours for 2xfull-time MBAs into 20 weeks. this trans-atlantic commute hasn't been without its perks, like my tagging along in july to soak in the sights and sounds of the big apple while he was hard at work. it's a great group of people (69 students, 37 different nationalities) with illustrious classmates who're nothing short of inspiring. the average age of the class is 35 with an average of 10 years post-graduate work experience. the mister's fortunate to have snuck in at 29*years old having worked for 4 years. all this from a cold call (and cold email) to the admissions team. within two weeks of first contact, he studied for and aced the G*MAT, interviewed and was accepted. our conspiracy theory is they were desperately looking for diversity and he fit the bill ;) 

as if to celebrate his acceptance to bschool and do some "defensive traveling" in anticipation of crazy months with no down time, we made use of the early summer bank holiday for a whistle stop tour of moscow. incidentally when crimean tensions were on the rise and he gave me a heart attack when we were on a free city walking tour he said the fighter jet fly by (!!!) was an invasion and not the national day rehearsal i thought it was. 

twas a good summer! we celebrated our second wedding anniversary in june at whitstable, kent. inlaws came to london to celebrate his 30th birthday in july, i stayed with J and her family in aix-en-provence, and then in august it was a cruise with my family before the mister and i continued to lisbon. had about a week back in london after, before going to singapore for more holiday / family time (me) and reservist (him). [8th cycle, missed the last 2, doesn't want to be posted out of unit and eventually be the 40 year old loner doing reservist with a random unit, plus it's a short reservist that counted as a high-key so it made sense to TAKE LEAVE TO DO RESERVIST]. national pride rant aside, in the second half of 2014 we've also had the chance to travel with his classmates. the mister co-captained a sailboat around sardinia, we spent some time port making and tasting in porto, combined a work trip to dubai with the F1 in abu dhabi, as well as visiting classmates in washington DC and then sao paolo en route to chile. miraculously amidst all that hedonism, he also scored a perfect GPA and quite literally topped the dean's list o.O having no personal academic achievement to brag about, looks like i'll continue to live vicariously through him haha.
 

i started fourth year in september and it was a brief throw-back to pre-clinicals with some intense pharmacology modules. was done with end of fourth year exams a week ago and then it's "get out of jail" / student selected components and electives all the way till summer break 2015. thrilled the stars have aligned and have lined everything up for central london (zone 1, no less!). the prospect of staying put for nine solid months and not having to commute is nothing short of bliss. 

it's gonna be a low-key christmas and shaping up for a busy new year with dear friends in town as our tiny flat once again becomes a revolving door B&B :)

wishing you and yours happy holidays and the very best in the year to come. as always, thanks for stopping by.

lots of love,

j

(and if you'd like to see, round ups from 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013...)