I wish I had gold bars for the holidays. As it is I’ve been spending money like water ever since I came home for Christmas! This has more to do with me realizing how cheaper restaurant prices are in my hometown compared to the big city! Thus, I keep eating out. Overall I have been spending so merrily I think in just one week I’ve burnt through my 13th month pay already!!!
Anyway. It’s Christmas! Wow, how the year flew! Nothing much has changed in my life, but a lot certainly has in Gim’s, and somehow I mark the changes this year by the events in his life.
In February of this year, he took the medical boards in Cebu and passed. The week before his exams, he pre-celebrated with me in Manila, and after his exams came back to me and spent a few weeks just bumming around.
He went back to Zamboanga and started working as an on-call GP across the major hospitals, for about a month or so. By April, he had enough time and money to come visit me in Manila. Spent a fun week with me, and went back home. After one day of being back in Zamboanga, he missed me SO much that he decided to be with me for good and so he went back to Manila. Haha. 🙂 Best decision he ever made this year!
Around this time, I changed teams at work and started working nights to support Europe, North/Latin America and Asian regions due to the global nature of my job. It was tough at first but I got used to it after a few weeks. The one thing I like about it is being able to go shopping early afternoon during weekdays, when there aren’t that many people in the malls. 🙂
End of May, Gim landed a job at UP PGH as a researcher. Not his dream job but he craved the idea of belonging to such a prestigious institution. After a few months, he was bummed out because the job was more menial than he thought, he was doing jobs that a PR person might do, and decided that he needed to find a more suitable job (for his degree).
I urged him to enter residency, because I had never liked him joining UP PGH, and did my best to dissuade him from entering corporate medicine. He applied to a wide range of jobs. By September, he was accepted as an ear-nose-throat surgery resident at Ospital ng Maynila, and I was THRILLED for him. He was beyond ecstatic. 🙂
Oh, and by this time, another new thing was that we had moved from our shared condo with two college friends, since the lease was up. We decided to get our own place, and rented an old apartment in the residential part of Makati. It was equal parts near his work and mine. Good thing too I got a raise since it was pretty expensive furnishing everything in our two-storey house! 🙂
And that’s how my 2011 went. See what I meant by the time being mostly marked by Gim? 🙂 I didn’t travel much this year, but Gim and I did spend a lot more time together than the past six years. I foresee lesser and lesser travels as Gim’s job keeps him really busy. But it also means I am more available to friends, and I am hoping to be able to make travel plans with my friends, by myself, and not as a buy-one-take-one half of a couple.
A friend of mine once asked on Twitter why some people suddenly become a “we” and seem to lose their individuality once they become a couple. I think that I am one of these people. 😛 But I don’t want to be. And maybe in 2012 I can get some of that Flisha-ness back.
Wish me luck. 🙂
Ahh here it is, the one Chu brought up last night. Btw that “we” thing came from How I Met Your Mother and I just realized that it was true. 😀