Happy New Year 2008

The Year 2008 began with a bang...

Welcome 2008!

I know the phrase sounds rather cliched, but time really does fly. It feels like it wasn't that long ago that we were celebrating the coming of 2007, and now lo and behold, 2007 has already left us. I realise that the older we get, the faster time seems to pass.

I read somewhere in a science magazine that explains why time seems to go by faster with age. It's got something to do with learning and what the human memory has experienced and. The longer you have lived, you are more likely to have developed routines and habits that you do everyday, hence every day feels about the same to you, giving you a sense that time never really passed. However, remember how a day took forever to pass when you were a kid? That's because a kid didn't have any sets of routines to follow, and every day is discovery for him. A kid has no set of responsibilities and obligations to follow, hence 24 hours could feel like forever. I still remember how I used to feel depress when night falls as a kid, as I felt it would take forever for the next day to come for me to go out and play again.

So perhaps the theme of my new year's resolution should be about making new discoveries, or exploring something new. Well, sometimes new discoveries does not necessarily have to be conquering the Everest or swimming across the English Channel. It could be as close as rebuilding oneself's character, and vowing to make changes in how we carry out our daily lives.

For what they are worth, here are my resolutions for 2008:

1. To become a better muslim
- To perform my daily 5 times prayer on time and promptly.
- To rekindle the habit of reading the Quran and do it more regularly than I am now. As a start, I am setting to at least cover half of the Quran by end of this year.

2. To be a better son, husband, and father
There's so much to learn and improve here. I hope to be more patient, more tolerant, and capable to contribute to my parents as a good son, and be a good example to my wife and daughter as a husband and father respectively. Although I've been married for over 3 years now, and a father in 2 of that years, it's surprising how I'm still dumb and slow when it comes to leading the family by example. And for this, I thank my wife for her patience.

3. To be more organised
Organisation and me have never been good associates. I realise that I do not seem to have the patience to sit down and plan my actions, and once I get things done, I'm never too fond of filing the documents properly. As a result, I have claims receivable outstanding over RM10k spanning over 5 years now. I know it sounds crazy. Which is why I hope to be more organised this year.

4. To lose weight
This has become a more serious issue as the years pass by. The year 2007 has witnessed the darkest moment in the history of my weight issue as I have ballooned to a waist line of 38(!) and exceeded the ceiling weight of 80kg. As a result, I've had 2 changes of trousers in a year from an initial waist line of 34, later to 36, and now 38! I need to pull out the stops at 38, and am currently working towards going back down to my original line. And to show how serious I am, I will be dedicating the progress of my weight loss programme in a weekly posting in my blog labeled 'Weight Loss Challenge'.

5. To pass all my remaining ACCA papers in one sitting
I've had enough of resits, and wasting money as a result. I intend to make it first time passes from June 08 onwards, en route to achieving professional qualification by June 2009. For the record, I have 5 papers to go, after having sat 7 so far.

6. To learn and excel at my new working place
I've only been at my current department for 6 months, and I still have so much to learn. I hope to be as good as most of my colleagues, through their guidance and my own hardwork by end of this year.

7. To have more regular postings in this blog
My mother in law, who now has her own blog remarked that I should make attempts to update it at least once a week. It is good to make the mind active, and detracts me from the mentally draining effects of my office work, which also has the effects of making my mind monotonous. We shall see...

8. To develop a new hobby
I hope to have a hobby which I can undertake weekly, and I intend to take up cycling. It can help me to achieve my weight loss programme at the same time. I have an old bike from the times of my studying days which requires change of tyres and chains. I hope to do this once a week.

9. To inculcate a habit of reading
- I am not much of a reader. I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to remind me like a broken radio that I need to pick up the habit of reading if I ever wanted to improve my English. My proficiency in the English language back then was awful of course, and i used to get nervous whenever I encountered into scenarios when speaking the language is required. I remember an incident when I was in a plane and sitting next to this gentleman which I later found out was an English working for Shell. He initiated a conversation, and I was struggling to find vocabularies to keep up with him. Sensing my struggle, he then chose to converse in good malay instead! Well, I am digressing quite a bit here...

- I hope to broaden my mind and horizon a little bit by picking up the habit of reading, aside from the sports pages of the newspapers and Soccernet.com. I've realised how I lag a little bit with my colleagues and certain friends of mine when it comes to reading interests and general knowledge. I hope to at least read 2 books of fiction and 2 of non-fiction this year, which I hope to be able to make reviews of them here.

Wish me luck.

To anyone out there reading, once again, here's wishing you a happy new year!