Monthly Highlight : December 2019

Hello! This is the last Monthly Highlight for 2019. I’m pretty excited to welcome the new decade, new fresh energy, new inspirations. I will continue creating new content to inspire and help more people. I hope this blog will be a source of inspiration for those who need it. May every good energy you have sent out will come back to you too, and awaken the positivity chain to trigger more good things happening in this world. 

2019 is closed by the chill cloudy December here. If some areas are in winter season right now, finally I get blessed by rainy season which is supposed to be starting in October but yeah, universe delayed it until December beautifully. It’s not massive rainy season with huge rain everyday, it does rain -sometimes heavily- but mostly cloudy and chill -my favorite kind of weather. It’s not too hot, but not too wet so my clothes get dried well even though I put it under the roof. It’s a month which has most things to do in my journal. I have tons of ideas to be executed but gladly I am able to prioritize which ones first. I created some stuff too which make me proud of myself, yay.

For the first time in my life I joined Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), the last part was held in December. The main reason I applied for this is to organize my learning schedule, which has been messy and I couldn’t see significant improvements in 3 years. I’ve been learning Japanese on my own, so yeah without goals or target, I loosen my learning and make it too free that there are months I wasn’t learning at all lol. I took N4 level which I had never taken before, even N5 I never did it. So this was my first ever JLPT. The fun thing is I decided to join it on August. So I have less than 4 months to learn everything -even though in the end I couldn’t read all of my study materials, but I’m proud of myself that I can see the improvement in kanji memorization -my vocab hasn’t significantly improved though.

I always love Rhonda Byrne’s books. Hero is the one which resonates with me much for this month. It’s about leading and claiming your own power as a hero of your story. I wrote a bit about hero in my previous post before reading this book which got me surprised later, that some messages she wrote here are connected to my post. There are so many sentences I quoted from this book to save it in my journal. One of them became my inspiration for my 2020 vision board.

The fun thing about her book is always answering my most recent questions. I was asking some questions related to my current job, and Hero answered them. Thank you! 

This month I made a sudden goal for fun to reach 14k overall views by the end of the year. You guys made it! Thank you! It actually surpasses 14k when it’s 3 days remaining for December. The night before I was thinking how it’s possible to reach 300+ more views in only 3 days. But a tiny voice inside my head said that there is nothing called impossible, stop overthinking then let it be as it is. It happened overnight. Big thank you to everyone who has interacted with lailiving, liking, loving, commenting, reading, and sharing. This blog has grown so much. I usually get 1000+ views per month but it’s doubled this month. I’m grateful that this blog could reach more people. The numbers are only numbers for people but for me it has energy. I appreciate any number I get, I’m happy that there are people who are visiting this blog.

I’m proud of myself that I have accomplished my own plans (which used to be left un-executed) which are new year cards and journal. I made new year cards for friends and myself, I’m going to send them after holiday and new year vibe ending (holiday sometimes bring chaotic circumstance in shipping services). Also, I created my own journal for 2020. My green journal for 2019 has reached its end, so I made a journal myself for next year. I will post in the different entry about this journal. Overall, December was my most productive month that I’m able to create many things I’m proud of.

We are humans who were born to learn and grow forever. For me, I always love learning -especially reading books- since my pre-school years. I pretended to be able to read dad’s newspaper and read it like newscaster I used to watch on the television -who I admired so much. By re-calling that enthusiasm and excitement I had during childhood days, I continue to learn in the middle of my roller coaster days lol. It’s only another message that if you find yourself unexcited to learn, please remember the very first reason you decided to learn it, remember your excitement as a child too. I’ve just realized it recently too, so it’s not too late to start learning anything. We might fail, but we learn from mistakes and keep growing time by time. 

Some songs I played during December are all available in Spotify globally -some of my favorite Japanese musicians have their songs region restricted, so it’s not possible to listen it outside Japan. 9inch Space Ship is a new song by Motohiro Hata (you might know him from Himawari no Yakusoku) which was firstly recommended by Spotify Release Radar. I’m falling in love with this song at the first listening. Beside it’s space themed song, the message resonates to me : If you can imagine it, you can make it come true.

9inch Space Ship / Motohiro Hata (Spotify)

Other version of Paprika by Foorin is the English one which came out first on December this year. The English version is performed by Foorin team E which consists of native English speaker kids. Like the original version which in Japanese, I always get moved by kids’ voices which sound so innocent, cheerful and pure. This song is like reminding of my childhood years too where I danced and moved freely without fears and baggage. My most favorite lines of this song are : We can make our dreams come alive. Come and count with me all the happy things, so much joy you always bring.

Paprika / Foorin Team E (Spotify)

Paprika / Foorin Team E (YouTube)

27 is a song by Nishino Kana. A friend recommended this song for me since I told her about my worries about getting 27 next year. This song delivers a message for me that being 27 is not making you change scarily you can’t ever imagine. It’s a natural song for me which the first line told about how her friend one by one getting married and she becomes the oldest in her office. A cheerful song which makes me looping it non stop. I’m pretty sure that getting older doesn’t mean getting less productive and less creative. Getting older is adding one year to our physical age, but it doesn’t change who we are unless we decide to. Ages are not limit.

27 / Nishino Kana (Spotify)

I thought it would be the shortest Monthly Highlight ever because I use English for the first time in this section. But it turns out to be this long unexpectedly. I’m looking forward to 2020. In smaller practical picture, it might seem like other usual days, nothing seems special too. But, as I already feel the good energy 2020 would bring since the beginning of December, I’m willing to embrace any goodness and opportunities that 2020 offers.

So, happy new year! Welcome the victorious year with smiles and positivity. I believe we are getting better and better by time. May all your dreams come into reality. Never stop. Keep moving forward.