Time: if you leave it for too long, it too, shall melt.
Last weekend when A was back from Penang, we started discussing how long it would realistically take us to finally close the purchase of Mushaboom, renovate it, and eventually move in.
I was busy fantasizing about my fuck-off fantasy kitchen stocked with Le Creuset cookware and smooth concrete counters, where I would churn out gourmet meal after meal after having magically developed Cordon Bleu mad skills overnight (and get over my phobia of knives, naturally). A thought about his fuck-off fantasy study with wall to wall bookshelves filled with his boy-books and equipped with every product Apple ever launched, and probably, a door with a lock.
I guess your private fantasies evolve as you grow older. Ask me what I wanted most out of life 5 years ago and I would have directed you to the closest Prada store.
Anyway, A casually mentioned that ideally, he would like to move into Mushaboom before he turned 30 so we could throw a fuck-off farewell to his twenties party at our new pad. So, after working out how long we had, we discovered that we had less than a year to sort Mushaboom out if we stuck to that deadline…..which also meant that I had less than 2 years until I TURNED 30, of which, the realization, hit me like a ton of bricks. (Yes, it's always about me, folks.)
I know, I know, it’s not the end of the world, I realize. I have plenty of 30-plus friends, and they’ve all still got it going on…I mean, most of them still have their full set of teeth and have full control of their bladders. I’M KIDDING. I'll stop now before you accuse me of being an age-ist and leave nasty comments. I love thirty ++ year olds, really.
But I guess it made me think of how fleeting time is, and how priorities change as you get older. I’m totally an advocate of being young at heart and never allowing something silly like age or propriety to get in one’s way of fulfilling one’s heart’s desires. But who knows what will happen in the future. Sometimes your situation will change, whether its your health, or your career, or your family (or the conception of one) that may hinder you from fulfilling all those little, seemingly insignificant goals that you had naively set out for yourself when you were younger.
So, I’ve decided that now it’s time for less talk and more action. I’ve got 21 months and counting to carry out all those silly harebrained aspirations I came up with in my twenties, but have yet to get around to doing, and, I’m going to write them down here for the record.
So.
I, khaylis, of sound mind and body, will attempt to fulfill the following 30 challenges before the eve of my 30th birthday, falling on the 10th of December in the year 2011:
1. Bake an edible cake (hey, I didn’t say they were all going to be earth-shattering ambitions, ok).
2. Perform a stand-up comedy routine at Time Out’s comedy night at Zouk (still in the drafting stage).
3. After years of promising to visit, finally go and see my high school buddies Bhags, Fish and Jols in Oz, alone (sans A, since he’s made it quite clear He’s Just Not That Into Australia).
4. Run a 10km race AND/OR climb Mt. Kinabalu
5. Find my platonic ideal of a hairstyle (and hopefully my platonic ideal of a hairdresser, I know he/she is somewhere out there, waiting for me to walk into his/her salon. Sigh).
6. Write a short story or at least get a draft of a novel going (keeping the Bohemian Dream alive). Okay, at minimum, a really interesting haiku.
7. Compile all of my mom’s favorite recipes for posterity.
8. Get a promotion at work or alternatively, find a better job.
9. Go bungee jumping
10. Go to a nice restaurant and have fancy dinner by myself, and later, take myself out to the movies. (I might go do that this weekend; dinner for 1 ate Sage, followed by Alice in Wonderland at GSC Signatures?)
11. Master mimicking at least 1 foreign accent (not necessarily sober).
12. Organize my entire iPod library so all songs are accurately named by album with album art (I feel this may be the most impossible feat by far).
13. Do a full body detox flush for at least 2 weeks (with no cheating!!!).
14. Take up yoga.
17. Write a hand written letter to a friend and mail it.
18. Learn to play 1 song on the guitar.
19. Make a new good friend (much harder than you might think).
20. Watch all the James Bond films again.
21. Pick a stock, study and track it, and make a small but significant long term investment (despite being in a line of work that involves making large institutional investments for large sums of money, little old me is still risk averse when it comes to making any personal investments in equities).
22. Read an English translation of the Qur'an.
23. Buy a green Le Creuset pot (and not just admire how pretty it is, but actually use it to cook).
24. Find a worthwhile cause or charity and genuinely contribute towards it, if not money, at least my time.
25. Quit that filthy habit.
26. Master the art of the perfect French braid, a’la Lauren Conrad.
28. Learn how to make Laksa (Lemak, Assam or Sarawak).
29. Watch Coldplay in concert again (god, I hope they’re still touring in the next two years).
30. Move into Mushaboom and throw the most fuck-off 30th birthday party for A and I (separate parties though, of which mine will be much much cooler, of course).
Whew, that’s quite a list, now that I’ve written it down, I’m feeling a bit nervous. I will try to provide status updates, as and when a challenge is completed. Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment