It’s Blog Action Day tomorrow and while that’s about all bloggers around the world posting on a topic they want to generate action on, I figured it’s a good excuse as any for me to create some action on my blog again! Last post January 09? Hopefully I don’t leave it for that long again!

There is so much I could write about, so much I’ve had the privilege of learning this year, and so many people who have been a part of it. But the biggest thing that has happened to me this year is meeting the beautiful Lillian Yau from Melbourne – and we’ve now decided that I’ll be moving to Melbourne soon so that we can be a little bit closer to each other!

This will mean leaving my job at 1WAY FM and searching for new work – hopefully within media or Christian ministry – in Melbourne. There’s a lot I can share about this so I will be doing so through this blog, Facebook, Twitter, and on air at 1WAY FM over the next month or so.

I look forward to conversing with you and sharing with you some of what I’ve learnt this year.

Tim

What better way is there to break a long silence (one which I feel I need to break by updating what I’ve been up to) than to recap the events of the year… thanks to these questions I nicked off Nathanael’s blog.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Prayed much more specifically than I ever have before, and had those prayers answered.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t recall making any for 2008. I’ve never really been into NYR’s, but there are certainly things I would like to do for 09, such as read more, eat healthier, exercise more, pray more, give-up on things less, and pay more attention to friendships/relationships. Rather than making these resolutions though, I need to make a resolution to plan to achieve these wishes…Rodney Olsen explains well!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries/states did you visit?
Thailand. In Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. And Western Australia!

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Wow. Um. Less laziness. The ability to get more things done, or to at least use my time wisely. More time with friends.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don’t recall anything big happening this year – just a number of smaller things. I imagine the dates and period of the year will fade over time.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Nothing that I feel was big – but there were many smaller achievements in getting over hurdles at work in order to realise our vision.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Allowing insecurities to get the best of me in too many circumstances.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My iPhone

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
A few close friends.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Won’t mention it in this public space.
Although for people in public life, Robert Mugabe will easily take that cake.

14. Where did most of your money go?
That’s a good question… probably into rent, actually . Aside from that, I donated a lot to various causes.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Really, really, really excited about? I honestly don’t know… I don’t think I get that excited…

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
I haven’t been that into music lately, and probably all that will remind me of the year is a song that came out this year. So it’d have to be something recent…. perhaps Gabriella Cilmi’s multi-Aria award winning Sweet About Me.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:?
a) happier or sadder: about the same, maybe? And that’s because I think I’ve gone both ways. I know more now than I did last year, and some of it makes me expectantly happy, and some of it makes me sad at the state of some people.
b) thinner or fatter: probably a little fatter. Just a little.
c) richer or poorer: the same! but I need to save more.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I touched on this in question 6. I wish I’d spent more time with friends and got to know people better. I also wish I’d done a few other things (such as cook a few more meals and read more). All in all, I wish I hadn’t wasted so much of my time being lazy!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasted so much of my time being lazy!

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With family . In Samut Prakan, Thailand. Last Christmas together as an immediate family – in fact our last time together as an immediate family. Karis gets married in August 2009 and will have her own family as her husband-to-be brings in his foster son, and I likely won’t see Karis again until a week or so before the wedding!

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No.

22. How many one-night stands?
Hang on, just gotta count…. kidding. Zero!

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Gossip Girl probably takes it… others would be reruns on Comedy Channel such as The Wedge, The Late Shift, Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister, and Are You Being Served?.

24. Did you make a friend with anyone that you didn’t know this time last year?
Yes, quite a few.

25. What was the best book you read?
Arhm….. probably the latest Neue Resources book (which I haven’t finished yet) from the guys at neueministry.com. There are many more lining my bookshelf which I’m sure would have been great if I did read them.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Haha, didn’t make many discoveries I’m afraid.

27. What did you want and get?
Stop asking me questions!

28. What did you want and not get?
Many things. 10 million dollars, a house, a car…. ok, fine. Just getting sick of questions that I don’t know how to answer right away.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Australia was pretty good. But I also didn’t see many films.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 20 in January this year, and I went out to a quiet dinner with 4 friends.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If you’ve read this far, you will be able to answer this from my previous answers.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Hahaha hopefully it improved a bit. I’m trying to look modern and sophisticated. There’s a few more things I need to do… such as get new glasses.

33. What kept you sane?
Laughing during our crazy conversations at home.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Paris Hilton? No, kidding. Really, probably no-one.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I’m not going to be able to boil this down to one, so: Robert Mugabe’s continuing control over Zimbabwe, the blocking of foreign aid after Burma’s Cyclone Nargis, and the crazy back-and-forth of pro and anti government protesters in Thailand.

36. Who did you miss?
My family in Thailand…

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Wow… it would have to be someone I met through my job, hard again to bring it down to one person but it would be Nathaniel Garvin.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
That sometimes, other people really are completely f**ked up and you really don’t have to comply with their demands as soon as you’ve figured that out!

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Skipping this one because I’ll have to go off and find a song just to answer the question.

And that’s it… I’m really not a fan of these hot seat questions, but in a way it’s nice because it makes me analyze further what I have learned this year. To sum things up, I’ve become more secure in who I am and what I believe in, I’ve gotten to know myself a bit better, and I’ve learned to be more discerning of other people. I still have further to go though!

We’re going out tonight to Central World Bangkok for New Year’s Eve celebrations… and are trusting that the red shirt anti-government protesters (the more peaceful ones) don’t find reason to bomb the celebrations like it was rumored they did after the coup two years ago.

See you in 2009!

(posted 6:16pm Thailand time)

That’s the box I had to tick when logging in to my blog tonight. Yes, that’s right. I haven’t been here for so long that even my blog had forgotten who I was, requiring me to login.

Even though I tend to go missing here sometimes, I know a break of just over four months probably isn’t characteristic of me. But the last four months have probably been the busiest of my work-life up until now. And as you’ll know – if you’ve read any other post on here – I’m a bit of a workaholic.

Suffice to say the busyness isn’t going to be over yet, and it’ll probably be the end of the year before I can settle down, take a look back and review the year gone, and actually process what I’ve learnt and put it into place for next year. I have notes and notes and notes of things I’ve learnt from conferences, discussions with mentors, books I’ve read, and magazines and websites I’ve explored… and I’ve been rushing through at such a fast pace that lots of it hasn’t even been put into practice yet. At least not consciously anyway.

I don’t actually have much to write. No actually, that’s a lie. I could write for ages. But I haven’t been able to sufficiently process everything to know that I want it to be out in cyberspace for ever. I’ve developed a few opinions this year which are probably quite controversial – at least amongst the circles I’ve grown up in. I need to be sure of myself before publicly talking about them.

I did an ego search tonight, and found this blog post. It’s super to know that what I’ve written here has been read and taken in by people. But it still scares me, how much people know about me when I realise they’ve been reading my blog! In that post I’ve linked to, the writer has printed out a copy of my testimony as used to appear on this site. I took it down some time ago now as I wanted to rewrite it to fit in the way I would now express myself – the previous ‘version’ was written several years ago (possibly 2004). It’s nice to know, in a weird sort of way and not through any of my own doing, that what I wrote has still survived online – but it reminds me that I might need to be careful of what I say.

In other news, an ACT election is being held this Saturday. I pre-poll voted so I could volunteer for a party on the day. If you want to know who I voted for, the foundations of my politics haven’t changed all that much since the federal election last year, so look back on my previous posts and you will find out. Given the frequency of my writing this year, they’ll probably be on page two.

I would imagine after four months not many people are regularly checking this site at the moment. But as I always say, I will be back…. soon! One day, in the not too distant future.

…to be writing on here more often.

Truth is, there are so many things I’d love to do, and so little time to do them in.

I’m enjoying what I’m spending my time on at the moment, and that’s what matters. I’ll be back here at some stage – I just don’t know when!

I got a suggestion last weekend. Korske, who runs his own daily photo blog, suggested I start doing a photo of the week. Because he’s not much into politics or the media he doesn’t pay much attention to my blog anymore, but a photo each week would bring him back for a weekly visit. I’m sure it will many other people as well.

I once tried the photo a day thing, but I gave up when I realised it was too much work to find and edit a good photo every day. Doing it once a week leaves more time to find a truly good photo, and hey, I then only need to do it 52 times a year rather than 365.

When possible, the photo of the week will be a photo that I have taken that week. When not possible (if I’d had a rather normal week), it’ll be a photo chosen from my library (which dates back to my first digital camera in November 2003). The new photo of the week will be released around this time every Monday morning.

This week’s photo was actually taken last weekend (on 6th Jan) at Pebbly Beach on the New South Wales south coast – between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay – and, uh, it’s of a bird. I’m not sure what kind of bird, but it was quite pretty! It’s on the right – click it to enlarge. The original is here.

Oh, by the way, I’m no longer a teenager as of today!