It’s not a well-known fact, but I’ve always had a feeling I am not going to live past age 30. I can’t explain it, it’s just a weird feeling.

I don’t even know if it’s going to be a reality so I go about my daily life normally, but it is always at the back of my mind. Then once in awhile, a huge thought will land on me asking me, “What if all you have are your 20′s? Have you accomplished enough? Have you done all you wanted to do?”

To which my answer would be NO. I haven’t accomplished anything really, and I am certainly not doing the things I want to do and love to do. Not all anyway. Sometimes when this fear creeps up on me, I’d be so scared that I’ll just vanish one day, leaving nothing behind. Not a memory, not a legacy and no trail of thought.

Which is why I force myself to blog, as a means of documenting my life. In a way, this is killing two birds with one stone. I love blogging and writing, and I haven’t had much time for it, especially in the past 2 and a half years – what with my crazy workload. But I’m going to start now.

My challenge for August would be to blog every single day. No matter how short or silly the post is, I will post up something.

And to answer the question posed in the title for this blog post, here are the things I’d like to do / have been meaning to do / have missed doing:

1) Observe & Learn

I’d like to sit down somewhere and just people watch. Not just normal people watching but analyze relationships between families, couples and write down my observations. I’ve done this before but without the writing part. Damn what am i carrying a notebook and pen in my bag all the time then?

It’s really interesting sometimes what comes out from observing people. It’s like analyzing a literature novel live. It’s like taking a step back and just seeing the world from a detached point of view.

2) Reading

I’d like to read everything that I can get hold of. I’ve picked up my reading speed again this past few months. It just feels good getting lost in the world of books, in this age of technology and fluff.

I’ve noticed that as I grow older, my choice of books have evolved as well. My taste in books have grown more mature. I tend to read modern classics now, with the occasional chick-lit novels. I’m not being pretentious here, but it’s just an observation, since I’ve been reading all my life.

There are some things I’d like to re-read and that includes Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, the entire Harry Potter series as well as the.. Twilight Series. And oh, if I could just finish reading Emma by Jane Austen and Alice in Wonderland for just once in this lifetime!

3) Travelling

I’d like to travel the world, visit exotic places, have new experiences across the oceans. It’s sad to say I haven’t travelled all that much at my age, when I’m such a huge lover of culture, food and heritage. There’s so much to explore in this world. FP and I have planned to set aside time to travel. We’d probably take one trip at year end, or early next year – and then a short trip quarterly. And I’ll blog about the trips and possibly make travel scrapbooks! What’s not to love?

Some places that I’d like to visit:

- Japan: to have REAL sushi, lol and to see the cherry blossoms!
- China: life long dream, to see the great wall of china and the terracotta soldiers
- Australia: just because.
- Europe: So many places in Europe itself!
- New Zealand: New spot for the honeymoon (move over, Rome!)
- Disneyland again
- Some parts of USA
- Certain Indonesian spots such as: Bali, Bintan, Bandung, Puncak
- Some parts of Malaysia: I’d love to travel to Malaysia by train again!

4) Crafts

Doing crafts, just for fun or selling them. I really miss this. It is a good feeling to create something completely by hand and having someone pay for it. I wonder what would it have been if I carried on with my ribbon roses business. I had huge plans for it when I was younger, but I knew that I had to get proper work experience first before I can build up the craft business. Perhaps the time is now?

If you’ve noticed, I love trying out new crafts on my own. Never going for proper classes but just meddling and self learning. Such as making felt food, then felt dolls. Even the art of making ribbon roses was self-attained.

My latest interest would have to be clay miniatures, which I haven’t tried yet but already know where to stock up on the books and materials

Perhaps, I should just go ahead and take up classes to enhance my unpolished knowledge and then do something with it.

5) Writing

I really love to write, and it is such a shame that I haven’t even written a short story up till now, even though that’s all I’ve been wanting to do since I was a teenager. I’ve even stopped writing poems. The only writing I do these days is the occassional blog post (which is going to be a daily blog post) and that doesn’t really sum up as writing.

I think it would be a dream to be a columnist somewhere, but where I always lose out when it comes to writing jobs is that I do not have any writing samples! Blog posts are never a reference that employers would want to refer to so, I’m practically screwed because I’ve wasted the past 10 years not writing anything that can be useful right now.

So, I’m going to build the momentum up, starting with blogging daily, and slowly but surely I’ll go back to writing stories (haven’t done this since I was a child) and perhaps composing poems.

6) Baking & Cooking

Baking was something I took great interest in sometime last year and I haven’t touched it since. Not because I am not interested in in anymore, but I simply do not have the time. But baking is certainly something I’d like to go back to. I have not perfected making cupcakes and decorating them!

So I should go and take up proper baking classes!

And cooking is something I’ve been wanting to try out but haven’t done anything about it. But I really should.

7) Keeping Fit & Taking Care of Myself

I’ve not been really happy with my body for the past year. Yes to the naked eye, I’m still thin, small and weightless. But I know myself and I know that my figure now is not what it used to be, and I really don’t like it.

I need to lose all this weight and get back to what I used to be. And to do that, I’d have to keep fit and start running and exercising. Eating right is no problem, I have great self control. It’s just the exercise part I’m worried about, I’m not exactly sport spice you know? Just waiting for FP to get all better so we can start our exercise regime together!

Don’t get me started on the taking care of myself part. I say this to myself every year; and every year I find myself not being taken care of! Tsk.

*****

As you can see, I’m a simple girl with simple wishes for this life time. I don’t wish for wealth or LV bags. If I manage to fulfill some of these and I don’t get to live past 30, I’d be happy already. What would you do if you had 3 years more to live?