Mood: Suspiciously Lonely

It is a dark day out. According to weather.com we will be having a not so cheery New Year weather this weekend. Today cloudy and rainy. Tomorrow wintry mix to snow. Jan 1st, few snow showers.
A cloudy wet weather calls for a delicious hot cup of coffee and a moment of silent reflection.
I've been dreading this cheesy moment all week, but I suppose it is time to ponder on the year before I bid my goodbyes to 2010.
2010, no doubt was it a trivial year! I had no expectation whatsoever for this year and the year presented me with bountiful gifts in return. Here's my month to month summary:

January: Singing with MinOp, auditioning, constantly being rejected/ losing competitions, quit teaching through Along Came Music, worrying about the year 2010 and beyond, the singer in me was beginning to burn out.

February: Beginning to worry more about grad school

March: Worried ALOT about grad school. Unable to admit that I enjoy anything that had to do with singing.

April: Was glad to sing my final performance with MinOp, La Boheme. Became good friends with a wonderful soprano, Janalyn Bump. Wasted hundreds of dollars on applications for grad schools I was never interested in. At this point, I was sure I had to fly back to Malaysia temporarily.

May: Glad to be done with all of my singing gigs, competitions, auditions, and that stupid Along Came Music teaching company. Alec and I had our annual camping trip. This year, we headed towards the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan, where he surprised me with an engagement ring disguised as a granola bar that never did exist. I said yes...and from that moment on, my life has never been the same. Yes, I'll admit, this is cheesy. But I myself never knew that marriage could be so fun, fresh, adventurous, scandalous, passionate...everything but boring and safe. You see, growing up I had a misconception of what marriage should and shouldn't be. At some point in my teenage years, I was so opposed to marriage that I vowed to never be married for the rest of my life. And boy was I wrong about that.

Anyhow back to the month of May: As soon as I said yes, we began planning for our wedding.

June: More wedding planning and found out that Pa and Ma couldn't make it to our Civil Ceremony. Audrey's Summer 2010 Opera Workshop started, and it was the best I've ever felt about singing in the last couple years.

July: We had our civil ceremony on July 2nd, which made us the first couple to be married among our friends. It was an intimate, sweet and preciously small outdoor ceremony.

August: Began working on my green card applications.

September: We sent our applications and waited for the results. It was the longest 3 weeks ever.

October: Got my Work permit and began looking for a "real world" job. My instinct was to get a job at a coffee shop. I figured it would be easy since I've had so much experience as a barista. But I was wrong. With no word from any coffee shops I've applied to, I began searching for restaurants. I randomly walked in and asked for a job at a Thai restaurant a couple blocks away from our apartment. They weren't positive if they had any job openings, but they asked me to fill up an application anyways. A week later, I got a call back from them.

November: It was a good month. I became a hostess at Roat Osha, the “random” Thai restaurant and learned another handful of life lessons there. The number of students in my studio doubled it's size and I was finally able to pay for more voice lessons. I sang at the Met competition and grew from that experience as well. Also, did I mention about the green card approval?

December: Steady month. Keeping the inertia and enjoying the freedom of being in my 20s. Christmas came and spent a lot of time with my sister Catherine. Finally brought myself to T4C this past week. Healing the wounds that I've done to myself over the last couple years.

Oh great, the power's out in our apartment! I reckoned today's going to be a day of solitude. How suspiciously perfect...