2015 K.Hung Quarterly Review
It’s already the middle of May and I’ve just thought to myself “holy SHIZZLE balls - where has the time gone? Where did the first quarter of this year go to? How come I can’t really remember or recall much of it? Is this real life? Where are my chips??” (Because ya know in times of stress my soother is a bag of chips!) I’ve been taking a meditation course recently and one of the things that the class has helped me to do is to be aware and work on the intention to purposefully slow down. So with that in mind, I am taking some time to sit, breathe, and slowly reflect on the highs and lows of the past few months:
My aunt got sick and we went on a huge extravagant trip at the beginning of the year.
At the beginning of this year I took a huge family trip to Turks & Caicos. This trip was amazing, crazy, chaotic and very bittersweet. It was the first time my parents, aunts, uncles and all the cousins went on a family vacation together. Lets just say you put 10 Asian adults, 2 White guys (is White classified as an ethnicity that warrants a capital? Someone let me know!) and 2 toddlers together… and you got yourself a recipe for calamities and hijinks let me tell ya!
The reason we went is bittersweet - my aunt was given some grim health news, so we wanted to capitalize on the time that we had to go on a big huge trip. While the experience was crazy, fun and chaotic, I’m super thankful we were able to go on this trip because the memories we have are PRICELESS (cue Mastercard commercial).
No but seriously, this trip made me have the feels (which I’m often uncomfortable of having) because it truly makes you put time, family, loved ones and health in perspective.
My best friend died almost a month and a half ago.
This is a tough thing to have to recollect but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it. One of my closest friends (and Dan’s as well) had been sick for awhile and unfortunately since the beginning of this year things seemed to have escalated. We were supporting her as she was in and out of the hospital for months and she’s always rallied through so we were really optimistic. But at the end of March, things got bad REAL fast in the span of days.
Lets just say death and subsequently grief changes you. When you help pick out the outfit that your best friend is going to be cremated in - you are NOT THE SAME ever again.
While I’m still grieving and partly living in denial about this - I choose to live my life in a way that I think she would be not just happy about but super proud of as well. This Thursday is her birthday, and I refuse to spend the day crying and being sad. I mean I’ll likely cry a little but I refuse to spend the WHOLE day crying.
I’m going to spend her birthday doing what I know she would want us to be doing - her closest friends all being together, eating an OBSCENE amount of meat (i.e. reservations at Copacabana) and doing round after round of shots. I am confident she would feel that there is no better way to honour her memory!
Wedding Planning
Eff this. Wedding planning is the lamest thing I’ve ever experienced. Other things that are lame for me include: moving and looking for a job. Neither of these things are enjoyable and you can put wedding planning right under that evolving list.
While I’m pumped to spend a day eating amazing food, drinking, dancing, being surrounded by balloons and giving thanks and gratitude to our friends and family that have supported Dan and I in our relationship - the actual act of planning for this event and all the details and decision making that go along with it is LAME.
The irony is that we hired a wedding planner and she’s actually the cause of almost all my stress about the wedding planning process. BALLS! Word of advice for future brides: do your diligence and check credentials. If your wedding planner has really poor yelp reviews alongside really amazing yelp reviews, then it should be a red flag and you should ask yourself why the reviews are so polarizing.
Starting a new job… and leaving behind a great one.
So this week is my last week at AOL Canada. Before you even say or think it, YES we still exist. We own Huffington Post and as of this morning Verizon acquired us, so respect and recognize!
I’ve spent the past 2.5 years here and I can honestly say it’s been the best work experience I’ve had (so far). It truly has felt like family since the moment I walked in the doors here and it’s going to be super emotional at the end of this week to say goodbye to family.
But sometimes you have to push yourself to be uncomfortable in order to learn and grow and that’s why I’m excited and scared… but mostly excited for the new adventure I’ll be embarking on.
I will say this about leaving a job and starting a new one - because this realization comes from the anticipation of turning 30 this year: Nobody knows what they want to do with their life. Seriously - nobody does.
There’s some weird myth that seems to get circulated out there that we’re supposed to know, and I honestly feel like it’s a bogus lie that benefits nobody. It’s like that other silly myth that says “you can have it all”. These are myths out there to make you feel bad about yourself because you think you’re not living up to something.
I’m turning 30 and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life but I’m excited for the prospect of trying something new and different and seeing if it will be great. And if it doesn’t - I’ll still be OK. Because no matter what happens - a bag of chips will still always make me feel better :)