Ushering 2009

A "quantitative" analysis of the articles in my blog showed that 2008 was a mixed bag of happenings.

I've developed a heat chart of the articles in my blog and divided them into four equal quarters in a year. Each quarter is made up of the coloured cells and each cell represents an article in the blog.
Hot colours (red and orange) represent negative events and cold colours (light green and cyan) represent positive events that took place in the year. The white cells represent neutral articles or events that didn't take place, for example, "let's lepak in Israel". They are neither positive nor negative. Just wishful thinking.

Overall the chart showed a cold hue and this means 2008 was quite a positive year for me. But this could also mean that I've only blogged about the happy events and left the sad ones behind.

Q1, Q3 and Q4 were splattered with hot colours. Q1 was quite evident of the agitation that I was going through in the way things were happening especially at home e.g. Malaysian General Election. In balance, were some fantastic happenings. It was the time when I achieved my personal best in the Reading Half Marathon, a great time during Chinese New Year, visit by Noris and my first trip to Rome.

Q3's hot colours indicated a period of frustration with the highly rated move to London. It was the time when the theft incident of my bicycle took place at a time when the economy started to provide a gloomy outlook of what was to come in the years ahead. At home in Malaysia, the political bickering was causing a "flight of Malaysian talents" as frustrated nationals leave the country. In balance with this were some surprises that I received e.g CP's and my cousin's visit to London, the many summer festivals in London, Chris' souvenirs from Seattle, another PB in the Nike 10k race and the Beijing Olympics!

Q4 was the gloomiest of all quarters. This period was the time I wrote off a huge personal financial loss through CFDs. It was also the time when I failed my first driving test and to get the Tier 1 Visa renewed. On the back of all these, the £ was falling and reaching parity to the €. There was also a continuing uncertainty of employment in this country as the economy provided a gloomy outlook of the new year. Also, not too long ago I wrote about the drug raid in my house. In balance with this was the transformation of the bad to good news e.g being accredited by the ICE, passing my driving test and getting my Tier 1 visa. Then I had a good time jointly celebrating my birthday, the Liverpool trip, Hari Raya, appearing in Wolfson College magazine and being accepted into the 2009 London Marathon!

I left Q2 to the last because it was the best period of the year for me. Saving the best for last. This was the time I graduated from Cambridge with my family and friends around. During this time, we traveled to Europe and spent a great time together. It's been a long time since we traveled together in a family. So this was something really special to me. Q2 was also a time for sports. It was the time I participated in several aquathlons and runs. It was also the first time I went to the Wimbledons.


Other highlights of 2008 that deserve mentioning:

1. Made and met new friends through this blog e.g CP and family, Amy et al and Christopher.
2. The story of hope from Barack Obama
3. The opportunity to work in the 2012 project.
4. Opportunity to meet the Mayor of London, the guy behind the London Olympics and the Prime Minister of Czech Republic
5. Watched four musicals and four plays.
6. Played fatherhood and realise that having a baby is not as easy and cheap as I expected.

2008 was a good balance of happiness and sadness; laughter and tears; pleasure and worries. There are mistakes and misjudgments made along the way. Some cannot be undone, some can be corrected. But every mistake is a lesson learnt. The strength that I have acquired I shall build further, and the good that I have built I shall strengthen further.

God bless and Happy New Year!