The Most Productive Month Of My Life

I can't believe how productive I was in December:

• I build the Unofficial CORS API, a programmer's interface to get data from NUS's course catalog. [4 days]
• I built Treehouse - a project dashboard and community news site, again for NUS Hackers. [6 days]
• I redesigned the NUS Hackers site, and got speakers from Google and RIM to sponsor and speak at our events. [7 hours]
• I wrote a 4000 word essay for an O'Reilly book on publishing, due to be published in the middle of 2012. [4 days]
• I wrote an article for NUS's The Ridge, on NUS Hackers. [2 hours]
• Finished reading 5 books, including the entire Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series. [God knows how long - but I loved every second of it.]

Part of the reason for this productivity, I think, was because most of my friends were either busy or away from Kuching. Ida and Sam were in London; Paul was preparing for his internship in Intel Penang, Garrick was too busy working on his Sugar Bun restaurant.

I spent most days at home, programming and thinking and reading and writing, and I will admit that I felt a little lonely when my sisters went out more than I did.

But: I'm amazed at all the work I've done, and I wonder if a little loneliness is good for all of us.

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday. In celebration, I opened a bottle of wine by myself for the first time. I took the bottle out to the garden, and — having sufficiently restrained the dog — proceeded to google 'how to use corkscrew'.

Google told me to insert the worm into the centre of the cork. I did so. As I did so, I entertained vivid images of the wine bottle exploding underneath the neck, sending flying glass shrapnel into my nether-regions, shredding my balls, rendering me impotent for the rest of my life.

I kept screwing the worm into the cork. It was dark and my sister was feeding the dog. She has carefully kept a pillar between herself and me, in the off chance the bottle explodes.

Opening a bottle was scary.

I have never opened a bottle of wine on my own because my friends have had more experience that I have, and they have always been around to open bottles for me. My sister and I are suitably impressed by all who are brave enough to open wine bottles. When I was little, my dad opened a wine bottle at my grandfather's house. The cork shot out of the bottle and hit a fluorescent light bulb directly above my grandfather, which exploded and showered glass over the dinner table. My grandfather had to be taken to the hospital, where he had to have stitches in his head.

I was little then, and down with a fever, so I wasn't in the dining room with the rest of the family. All I remember was a sound like a gunshot and a crash of glass. And shouting. Lots of shouting. It left quite an impression.

I finished screwing the worm in, and started to pull the cork out. I entertained vivid images of the cork shooting out of the bottle, ricocheting off the car porch, and killing my dog.

The cork came out after more reverse screwing. I breathed a sigh of relief. My sister laughed at me (she was at a safe distance, holding a flashlight) and I noticed for the first time that I was sweating.

I took the wine into the kitchen and proceeded to drink a lot of it.

I am now 22. I must admit that I feel suitably accomplished.

Next year, I hope to open two bottles of wine. Hurrah!