A Befitting End, A Spectacular Start, and a Target

I really need to find a more varied way of blogging abroad. As has become the norm when I'm away, I generally begin with a banal statement about where I currently am (Saigon) and then a remark about my surrounds (a hotel room) and get started. It's a lazy writing device, and something I'll have to step up my game with if I'm to get the book published, but more on that soon.

For a channel that didn't exist in most people's lives ten years ago, social media has been something that's almost become a compulsory tune-in. My feeds are inundated with self-reflection, well wishes, and varied takes on 2011 and the year that was. This entry, will be no different, so if you had high hopes I hate to be the bearer of ill news.

It's not like I have an aversion to this form of contemplation anyway. My own writing, tweets, status updates, and emails to my friends are full of this kind of stuff. And I enjoy articulating my thoughts, sense-checking them, and recording, in order to keep myself honest, accountable, and most importantly, have something to look back on and remember.

As I look back on 2011, I find it quite befitting that I'm sitting in a hotel room in Asia bashing away at a computer. I'm here with a friend I hadn't met before this year, in a place I hadn't been to before this year, and feeling a strong sense of satisfaction that I hadn't had before this year.

Not since 2001, have I felt as satisfied with a year's efforts. I had a couple of beers this afternoon before my disco nap, but let me assure you, I will be downing some more to commemorate the year's that's been.

2012 is also looking like it will be quite the start. I wake up tomorrow morning with a hangover in a country other than Australia, I set off for another working visit to Tokyo, and then get to go back to Melbourne to see one of my best friends get married to his beautiful fiancee. All in the space of January, all in a sense of awe.

I intentionally made reference to the book at the start of this entry, and the sharper-eyed among you might see a declaration on the right of this page with a few words about me. I will have my book published this year. The deadline I've set is April 2012. It's ambitious, but a deadline is what I need. I've got a few leads I'm following up on, and have had a few doors shut in my face, but I'm gunning for this to happen and will see it through.

There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make this happen, so keep watching this space to hear more.

And that's really it. Tonight we've got drinks at a sky bar, dinner at a restaurant and then a table at a bar. I've been laying low the last few hours but as I understand it Saigon really converges on its CBD on New Year's Eve and I look forward to seeing it. Judging by the sound outside my hotel window it's going to be loud, confronting, and in my face.

Bring on 2012.