Looking Ahead: Mapping Out Our Strategic Plan

Andrew and I had a fantastic week in New Brunswick with his family (thanks Jenny for watching the house/cats). One thing we did to amuse ourselves during the long drive - aside from listening to Madonna and Kylie - was to discuss our goals for the coming years. All this, while on the lookout for moose or deer.

In the past few months, I'd been outlining - for fun and focus - a strategic plan for our life. A strat plan is a bible a company creates to guide itself. It is usually drafted every three or four years and outlines high-level objectives and the tactics in which to achieve them. It's a good way to keep a company focused on what they deem important and to inspire and energize their stakeholders.

I recently participated in such a process for the non-profit board that I serve on. So I thought it'd be fun to create such a plan - more informally - for Andrew and myself.

So for the next three years (2011 to 2013), five areas of focus are:

1. Start a family - Andrew's been harrassing me about this for ages and I'm now mentally and emotionally ready. It's going to be a life changer and an uphill struggle, but we both want it. So to my 5 readers, stay tuned!

2. Build a dream home - We're aiming to move to a house in Summer 2011. Andrew wants a fixer upper, so we can mould it to our vision. Some things we dream about: a zen garden (summer 2012) and a cool home office (2013).

3. Evolve professionally - Find new challenges and achieve new things - be it professional, volunteer, or creatively. Yes, writing is in there.

4. Travel and see the world - We want to see as much of the world before the stork visits and, ideally, after too.

5. Live to the fullest - Andrew and I feel very blessed, so this is reinforcing the need to acknowledge that blessing by continuing to enjoy every moment and to share them with others too.

So, our "plan" is not earth-shattering, but it presents more clarity than we've both ever had. It's also to ensure we enter our 30s with focus. And of course, family and friends will energize us along the way (and vice versa); while budgetting, flexibility and spontaneity will be necessary.

We celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary this week and Andrew got me a card - and of course, I didn't even think of getting him anything. Isn't he such a jerk for making me look bad?

The card had a quote that really nicely sums up the point I want to make. At the risk of being corny, I'm sharing it: "Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction."

And I think by having articulated, informally, what it is we want to achieve together, it was nice to discover that we both have similar goals. And now, just gotta watch out for the moose and deer along the way.

2010 Keywords

My new year's resolutions can be summed up with five keywords:

Cherish

Nourish

Experience

Leap

Balance

Wishing y'all the best this year!

I'm thankful

As we observe Thanksgiving in Canada, I feel thankful for:

My family

My husband

My friends

My health

My job

My dreams

And I'm ever hopeful for a better tomorrow and exciting new adventures.

When You Look Back At It All

A colleague had her retirement party today. I will miss her, because she was a great pillar of support, wisdom and someone who genuinely welcomed me when I started three years ago. She continued a wave of retirement I've participated in during the past year - the biggest of which was my mom's shortly before my dad passed away last September.

I thoroughly enjoyed the speeches each person made, as they remembered the faces, the first encounters that made lasting impressions, and the proud achievements.

When my dad passed away and my mom retired, it made me step back and think about how I would want to look back at my life when that big day comes. I still do think that the fun is in not knowing and discovering things along the way. But if I can sum it up, this is how I'd want to look back at it all:

I satisfied my curiousities. I tried my best and never gave up. I enjoyed the peaks and grew from the valleys. I played fiercely but fairly. My life was enriched by fantastic friendships. I enriched someone's life and made a difference. I had fun.

Spring cleaning

Spring is my favourite time of the year. Days get longer. Weather is nicer. A season of re-birth and emerging from hibernation. It's also a time of decluttering - in every sense of the word.

Andrew and I spent last weekend doing a massive spring cleaning - including cleaning under our beds in the main and guest rooms - for the first time since we moved in Summer 2006. Vacuuming the ocean of dust was one of the most disgusting and therapeutic things I've done all year. By the end of the two-day marathon, we threw out and recycled a lot of shit.

Being a minimalist and someone who strives to live very simply, exorcising my space from its physical clutter is immensely satisfying. Even Oprah's in on the action - by regularly featuring expert Peter Walsh to help viewers declutter. Check out these great tips posted on her site.

Having just turned 28 - and feeling time fly by so quickly - I'm also finding a lot of time clutter. By that, I mean my schedule is continuously populating with activities - but not necessarily things that bring me satisfaction - whether it's wasting too much time Twittering about scratching my crotch or taking on volunteer tasks. The latter is actually very hard not to do, as I do find these jobs fun and meaningful - but I also feel like I sometimes fill up my schedule, just to avoid focusing on the bigger picture.

I think I need to pause, declutter and focus on stuff that will truly bring me long-term satisfaction and closer to fulfilling my long-term goals. For those who know me - you know what I'm talking about! And believe me, I'm a work in progress!

So in the spirit of Spring, I wish you the best and hope you'll find a moment to just stop, examine and declutter. Large or small scale, this exercise in exorcising is worth the trouble.

Re-Discovering Mandarin: The Engrish Barrier

We've met three types of English-speaking people in Beijing so far:

Those who can't speak it

Those who can speak a little bit

Those who enunciate better than I do

We quickly learned that just because you throw a fake Chinese accent on an English word - like hotel, menu, Coke, or... Forbidden City - it doesn't make it Mandarin. Me asking for help from foreigners proved futile as well, because 99% of them would not stop, because they thought I was hawking souvenirs.

And while most above-street and subway signage are in Chinese and English and the hotel has at least one English-speaking staff member on duty at all time - getting around the city with just English alone was challenging - although quite amusing.

Thankfully again, I know a little of Mandarin - but at most times, trying to speak broken Mandarin with a fluent person is hilariously frustrating. When I try to order pop at a restaurant - which, I say in Mandarin (literally translated as "gas water") - the waiter looks at me like I'm insane. So I make a gesture with my hand and mouth - that, looking back, could've been misconstrued as a blowjob. The waiter looks at me again: "Chicken?"

Our ride on the public transit to our hotel back from Summer Palace was also tense. We could've been taking the bus to Russia for all we knew - but we took faith in my foggy understanding of the directions from the locals. Thankfully, I understood correctly.

What these experiences have really reinforced is my desire to learn Mandarin again. Back at the Philippines, we were schooled in both English (morning classes) and Mandarin (afternoon classes) - and not to mention, we had a Tagalog course. I was fluent in Mandarin and could speak, read and write in the language. My parents even got me reciting classic Chinese poetry from memory as a kid.

All that faded away when I immigrated to Canada in 1989. My dad would privately tutor me, but I lost interest around Grade 6 and we stopped our one-to-one lessons. During the last few years, my dad had a strong desire for me to re-learn the language and even offered to start the one-to-one classes again. I regret not taking him up on the offer. But it's never too late to go back, right?

With all this said and done, a little language barrier should not deter you from coming out to Beijing. But my advice is to simply plan and map out your day really well with your English-speaking staff member at your hotel before you depart each day. Go on guided tours, if it makes it easier. If you go it on your own, don't be shy about approaching the locals, until you find the one person that does speak English. And most importantly, just have a good humour about it all. It makes for fun stories after the fact.