Don't Look Back in Anger

Hey everyone, since it is a tradition for me to post a holiday entry (for the past couple years I have been calling them "Holidaze" entries) I shall do so on this early early Christmas morning. I will be hitting the hay pretty soon. I am not too sleepy since I took a nap earlier today and the neighbors are being assholes as in they are having a loud party on Christmas Eve with little regard to other people. Almost exactly one year ago, I was doing exactly the same thing as I am doing now, blogging. Sometimes I look at my entries for the saem time in past years just to see how things have changed or have not changed. More often than not, I say, "Boy, you don't have any clue about what is going to happen." Which reminds me about how things change but a few things stay constant. For example, I was down in the south bay for the past few days. I went to coffee society in cupertino, which I have been doing to for about the last 10 years. Inevitably, there are a few college and/or high school kids sitting outside of it (not in the outdoor chairs or tables), just sitting on the side, talking to each other. Typically, they wear black in abundance, the guys will usually wear ill-fitting long coats and have ugly goat-tees, and at least one will be wearing the shirt of some under the radar indie band as a statement of uber cool, non-mainstream taste. Now, there have been some variation. Back in the mid 90's, they would play hackey sack, and a few years ago some of them had those thick-rim black chic chich glasses that typlifed nerd-chic cool emobodied by Tina Fey or the lead singer of Weezer. Anyway, the point is that these kids (not the same the kids) but the same archtype of kids are always there. Year after year, they are there. Which is sorta nostaglic that some things remain as they have always been despite the many changes that occur.

Quite frankly, 2005 was a year of big changes for me, both personally and professionally. My sister Jinah got married. Grad school challenged me more than I ever imagined. On a side note, I actually did very well grade-wise this past semester even by my own admission I didn't manage my time as well. I did my internship at KPMG and found out that it wasn't something I wanted to do. There were just too many events, activites, and things to recount and say something meaningful about. Which is just goes to show you how "full" (yes I know how much Noor hates the scare quotes) 2005 was. Undoubtly 2006 will be present even more changes that I no doubt deal with by griping on this blog. But to bookend 2005, I should say what I have been up to. The day after I got back from Ann Arbor, I went wine tasting with Vishnu, Phill, and Bray. We had a lunch at a really good bistro (or by-stro according to Vishnu) in Napa and went wine-tasting at a few wineries. And no, it wasn't like that movie Sideways. I spent two days back down in the south bay catching up with folks like Cheng, Cari, Carl, Walter, Ida, Rie, Phill, Vishnu, and Percy. I spent today back in San Pablo doing some last minute shopping and watching the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. A very fun thing I did was decorate the Christmas Tree. Jinah got the hold of some the old ornaments from way back when we were kids. It was sorta surreal hanging these ornaments and remembering the past Christmases when did the same thing. It also shows much time has passed. There was this steam engine ornament that said 1985 on it and I remember hanging it way back then. Just another reminder, that despite all the changes in my life, there are a few constants such as steam engine Christmas ornaments and poser kids hanging outside Coffee Society.

So I guess that is my final look back at 2005, a very eventful year that any amount of description on my part will not do it justice. I'll talk more about 2006 in my next entry. But this will be it for the Da Choi for 2005. I will be blogging again in 2006. So until then, happy holidays and peace on earth.