[thoughts] Happy New Year!

I did not want to get swept by the undercurrent of the sea of hype surrounding the new island called 2009.

But here I am.  I cannot believe that it is 2-O-O-9 already!  It's actually January 1, 2009.  Something hasn't changed though.  I'm still past 30 years old already. :-D

Anyway.  It has been a record blogging year for RONJIE.COM.

There were 224 blog posts in 2008.  4 times more than in 2007, and nearly 3 times more than in the previous record blogging year of 2005, the year when RONJIE.COM, the web address, was born (and the RONJ-BLOG was re-born), while I was in a two-month research fellowship stint in Japan.  Of course, it was then when I had at least 60 posts in my "Japan-Blog", one for each day of the two months I was there.  Happy times...

From back then in 2005 until now, I told myself and perhaps a couple of other friends that my most memorable experience was that two month stint in Japan.  It is still a most memorable experience.  But I guess blogging is a mirror of memories.  2008 is now my most memorable year thus far.  It is a year not like 2005, but it is better.  And, global economic downturn aside, I look forward to 2009 as a continuation of this wonderful gift that I have been receiving on a daily basis since December 2, 2007.  I have one word (or two words, depending on how you look at it) to describe this gift: McDonald's.  I'm lovin' it.  Love ko 'to.  Pap-parap-papa... :-)