Thank you 2009, Welcome 2010

My believe is that every year we have to look back and see what progress we have made, do a minor tweak or adjustment and see where we are headed to next. In all reality, 2009 has not been an easy year, as do most years anyway. It will be a waste not to look back and take away learning points. The reality is that the world seems to have gone on a twisted economic cycle. Just to recap some of it the financial meltdown in US, the laying off of workforce all over the world, cutting back of spending from consumer to corporate, the almost always worsening weather and its getting really hot here, political disappointment (the usual picking and biting of each other but as a nation, no real progress), H1N1 another name for another strain of something as common as flu (but it has name because it kills us easily) and inflation on daily items.

So it does look crappy 2009, isn't it? well there was a feel scare but we all survived. And well, for all the stuff mentioned above, it is really beyond my control anyway. What I could do was what I can influence both from my personal action and personal thinking. In spite of all above, it was quite a fruitful year to complement a sad list above :) It is a year that I achieve my PMP, got an award in Software Testing for the organization I service, made a few friends, felt closer to God (yes, we pray more during the tough times), attended Wealth Mastery and preparation for fatherhood. Not that bad at all, I think.

So, come 2010, first of all is making real progress in planning and execution, as well as getting excited and fill my enthusiasm for life itself. I have to be more detailed now, and more precise in execution as this is one of the area I feel lacking the concentration. You know, we can be so distracted sometimes over things we have to do. I am really thinking of a year plan and then breaking them into quarterly plans so that the tracking is much better. From past experience, yearly plans are seldom looked at. Though with quarterly targets, I must live everyday by itself that is, everyday I must make progress and live it to the fullest, in passion, enthusiasm, love and joyfulness. We know we have today, but we do not know whether we really have tomorrow. And all of the daily activity jumbled up really packs it up and well hopefully still giving myself 7 or at least 6 hours of good sleep, plenty of water and pack in a couple of hours of good exercise and sun light every week.

A lot of cutbacks as well for 2010, I must reduce wastage time. Plenty of it, I suppose I should start with less TV, less games (yes, I still do games), less unhealthy food, less negativism, less pessimism and definitely less anger. I find that we live in a world full of pressure and pain. As yet technology has provided us with ample amount of convenience, I do find that with so much convenience, sometimes we do not appreciate life enough as it is. One thing I remembered that Keith Cunningham taught me, is that we have to set aside time to THINK. Have you really sit down and think today? Have we sit down and appreciate each and every present that God has give me and thank God and thank the people around me? Nope, have not done much of that. Come 2010, I definitely will.

One theme I want to make 2010 for me personally, is that 'To make this world a better place, with compelling future and exciting tomorrows for people around me, more so my family, so that the energy and enthusiasm around me will bring me to greater heights with God and understanding him better. To utilize my time so fully that I translate all my plans into outcomes that I wanted through perfect execution, as well as being generous with time for family and friends.

Yes Yes Yes, I can't wait for 2010!!

A Long Break

After about a couple of decade not writing blog, or at least that was how it felt like, I decide to write something today. But have no specified topic to write about, so lets just say I'll comment on something and everything that I can remember or know that is happening around me.

1. Economic Crisis OR Financial Crisis: Friends and family around me has been talking about the crisis and our stock market hitting rock bottom. That is then when we buy our house and invest a few 100k into blue chip stocks. Apparently over a period of 5 years, it will double your income. Well if that is true, lets us dig into our pocket and see how much we have :) 2nd problem, when do we exactly hit rock bottom :) And lastly, will you have that much to invest, just in case you have emergency. Well have to do a risk analysis already

2. Politics: Nothing like what I have read in the Sejarah textbooks. It is amazing how politic play a role today. It even seems to overshadow everything else like the police, the judiciary, the MACC and it is like all this pillars of the country is under political party. Well how sad that we can only make a decision every 4 to 5 years (that is, every general election). So, it is like we pay a movie ticket and watch it for 5 years. In between, you could do nothing about it. But one thing I do wish, can everyone involved in it just think of the country first, and everything else second. Look at the shape of the economy in our country. Companies are doing all the cost cutting for survival and we still can see a lot of 'advertisement' of political leaders, of that our country is in a good shape, of everything is good and fair. Nope I don't buy that. We have come into the working world and we only know one thing, only RESULT is justifiable. I don't see any activity that can justify result from 8/3/08 until now. So, zero result thus far, and not to mention the poor return of my EPF :( I thought the country did pretty well last year. Enough talk I suppose, I could go on forever.

3. Global Climate Change: I have said this many times, look at the kind of weather we have. It is really bad. It gets really hot and we have rain almost every evening. The climate is definitely changing, but how would it affect things globally. No one knows, hopefully our kids still gets to see what we see today.

4. PMP: I am doing this course and it is just so hard to answer some of the questions. I am really trying to work hard, after a long day of work, going back and do revision. It is not easy especially after a long day at work place. I suppose I need a lot of motivation and a lot of coffee. And hopefully with a lot of trial exam question and a lot of reading and memorizing, I can make it through.

5. Scandals: Is it me or what but there seems to be a lot of scandals lately. How come Dr Chua's issue re-surface? Scandal is subset of politics I suppose.

6. Meetings: I propose we held some meeting under the tree rather than air-con rooms. It is better for the environment and heck, important meeting of the state can also be held there, why not a small company's meeting, right.

7. Health: I seem to have problem with cough, it haunts me so often and it takes so long to get well :( Also it takes so long for me to recover after a game of basketball. My muscle ache is really a nuisance. Otherwise, pretty cool. Not to mention my mental stress increased when Man Utd went down to Liverpool at Old Trafford. But let me tell you what champion is made of, they will come back stronger AND so am I.

Well 7 points, represents 7 days in a week, 7 deadly sins, 7 heavenly virtue and of course the 7 dwarves :) I better get on with what I am doing and more updates down the road...

In the photo today: Indiana Choo and the Landmine Museum of Cambodia. Wow, boy do I look like .......

Blessed weekend ahead :)

Global Catastrophy

I have been living in Malaysia all my life. Though I have traveled here and there, most of the time, I have spent it here. I can't help but to notice a few things from where I live here.

- It is getting hotter and hotter all the time. I can either get dehydrated immediately when I am in the open air. It feels that the sun is burning directly into my skin as well. Can't sleep with my air-con ON. I don't think it is about me getting older, but I believe, it is really getting hotter and hotter, day by day.

- There are times when Malaysia entirely is in 'haze' due to forest burning in our neighboring country, Indonesia. The haze affects us by difficulty of breathing, blurred vision and asthma patience have it the worst. The cause of forest burning is of course open burning, which further complicate our environment.

- Sudden rain, and certainly qualify for the word thunderstorm. It was all hot and dry for the first half of the morning and suddenly the 2nd half of the day, it suddenly rained so heavily that trees start to fall the other day. But this are just not isolated incidents, I have seen this happened many times, at times off guard (forgot to carry my umbrella).

And in other countries, you can see the following news

- Tsunami (happen because of earthquake), but I suspect it is part of the effect of Global Warming. I am just guessing, and I am no scientist.

- Heavy snow fall in UK (not the usual but extreme type, happened recently). Climatic changes, attributed to global warming as well.

- Australia, bush fire due to extreme heat, another global warming effect. People actually die of dehydration in Australia and the county recorded the highest temperature somewhere in this year.

- Melting of ice caps. No one really bothered but I have read this many times over in newspaper and watched in TV documentary

Some what can we sum up to all this news and many others which I couldn't recall right now. Is our industrialization and free market capitalism promoting global warming? And how does company re-acts to it? There was call for Green IT during the WCIT forum that I went last year. It may work and it may not, as some claims that at this stage, it is already too late to reverse anything that we have done over the many years to our delicately balanced nature.

Well some people may not know what is the effect of global warming. What I understand, the melting of ice caps due to increasing temperature will cause a rise in water level, which significantly reduce land area. Not only that, the rise in temperature will kill a lot of species.

- Killing of plankton as food for fishes will cause a chain re-action in reducing the number and diversity of fish. This will reduce protein source for us, which is important component for human growth.

- Plantations will not produce enough food, due to the extreme weather and temperature. Not enough food will be a major problem for countries all over the world. Already now, people are dying of starvation in desert rich countries such as Africa. The rice of temperature will eventually turn almost all major land into desert.

- Not enough fresh water for consumption. Yes, with the growing population in the world, the water is decreasing with global warming. You can imagine when our kids grow up, their problem is that they do not have enough water to drink.

Well, what do you think? I don't know about you, but I myself should use less plastic, drive less and car pool more, support Green IT, support environmental groups, do less myself in contributing pollution, use less water, share this with others etc. But will what I do really help to reduce Global Warming. I don't know, but at least, I don't want to contribute further to global warming as much as I could. God knows, but I think I better pray about it, hopefully God can give us a hand to fix this Global Warming problem that we, human started.

A Long Holiday (not enough though)

We had a pretty long holiday. A 2 day holiday for Hari Raya and then comes a working Friday and then off again for the weekend. It was a good break to relax and spend some time at home with family. After that it was the Christmas and New Year in the month of December and come January it is Chinese New Year. Well the flow of holiday seems good while the financial crisis and recession continue to hinder any mood of joyous and festivity. Coupled with the problem with Satyam, the overall outlook of the new year seems to be able to do much better. And of course not to forget our fellow human beings in Gaza, some of whom have died while Hamas and Israel continues to engage each other in a war that is punctuated by cease fire calls on and off, but they actually have been fighting all this while.

I like to spend a long holiday to really sit down and reflect on all this things. I may not be able to change anything at all, but, it is time for me, at least, to sit back and look at everything I understand from a perspective which I myself can accept. Whatever it is, things will get worst, according to the bible in the book of revelation. Probably that is a place to start to find peace in my heart amidst chaos in the world.

Haha.... that is all my ranting today :)

This is where I want to be.... ahhh....