Ok, time for a recap: at the end of last year I went back to Holland for a nice and relaxing holiday. I spent some days at my parents' place before Christmas and arrived back just in time for a family party in the honor of my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. (and those pictures still need to be uploaded..) Just before Christmas my family and I picked up NN from Germany and she spent the Christmas holidays with us. After that I was supposed to go with to Paris for sightseeing and a mini AK reunion of former interns of my company, but my grandmother passed away, so I sent NN on her way and spent some more days at home. I changed our flight tickets so we could stay a couple of days longer in Holland, and so I could attend my grandmother's cremation ceremony. NN arrived back on the 31st of December, two hours after my grandmother was cremated, just in time to do some ice-skating on the lake, which had frozen over while she was in Paris. And thusly we celebrated the new year at my parents' place instead of in an airplane going back to Japan. We left on January 2nd and arrived back in Japan, ready to resume our daily lives, facing an uncertain future and some difficult choices ahead.
Well, that was quick. A recap of one month in only a couple of lines of text. It doesn't do the real experience justice, I can say that for sure. One of the most common questions I heard while in Holland: "Are you still in Japan or are you finally coming back to Holland?". What should I answer to that? My contract expires in March, and I have given this topic a lot of thought. I haven't completely decided whether I'll stay with my current company or if I'll try to find something better, but after going to Holland I know one thing for sure: I don't want to go back to Holland (yet). I'm a lazy person, and life in Japan is just so much more convenient, I cannot let it go yet.
One of my goals this year is to be more dependent. The response I get to that is 'what does that mean?'. For me, it means that I want to be more selfish in every possible way. Generally speaking I don't refuse if people want to hang out with me, and as a result I don't have enough time for myself left (yes, I need a lot of time for myself :D). Another part of being independent for me is trusting my own opinion more. I always get a lot of advice from people that only ends up backfiring on me because they didn't know my situation well enough or because they didn't think it through as much as I did. I finally reached a point where I can confidently say "No, I don't accept your advice. You don't know me, and I can decide for myself what's best for me". This is kind of something that I rediscovered for myself. Nobody can tell me what to do, and I choose my own life. The weight of other people's advice should be way lower than my own judgment. I don't want to be influenced by other people so much.
There's my new year's resolutions. I want to be more independent. I want to be more strong (mentally). And finally, I want to be more optimistic. I tend to complain a lot, which I think is because of my negative attitude to life. (Mind you, whenever I talk to people in Holland they always seem to complain at least twice as much as me!) People around me here complain a lot less. I should be able to do that.
I don't want to feel guilty for living the way I live.
Have a happy 2009!