Monthly Archives: December 2010

2010 In Review

★ Posted on at 10:23 pm ★

When I’m home in Malaysia, there is a less hectic schedule as I don’t have to worry about work, or preparing for celebrations like last year’s Christmas party. At least this gives me a little more time to sit down and reflect on the year.

Got our house at the end of last year, and was busy making preparations for that, like preparing documents for the loan. Also signed up for the CPA exam, so that kept me pretty busy as well as I wasn’t sure what I was studying for back then. Trained up for the usual pre easter Run for Kids program, which led on to the half marathon in July. Finished my exam and moved into the new place, all the while doing runs between the apartment I called home for the last 10 years and the new place which still seemed foreign for a while. Did the furniture and equipment runs, and slowly the house started feeling more like home. Winter came along with the World Cup and it took a while to get used to the cold in a bigger environment.

After moving in, had lots of guests lined up to come visit. Signed myself up for another 2 CPA subjects, so it was juggling between the house, visitors and studying. Starcraft 2 arrived and didn’t disappoint. All of that leading up to booking tickets home and having just come back from a holiday in Yunnan province in China. These days I’m just spending time with family and reviewing things I’d like to do or improve when I get back to Australia.

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Work sort of sidetracked for me, as I churned in the work but didn’t really feel like I was contributing what I could have. Other things outside of work kept me occupied, so I didn’t think too much of it, but I don’t feel like I’m made too much progress in the last 12 months. Will see what happens in 2011.

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The stuff I got for 2010 were mainly for the house. Got my home theater system setup and really enjoying it. Only missing a sub woofer for more dramatic effect when watching movies, so other than that not missing much.

The kitchen is currently very well equipped, and as my ex-boss mentioned when he was over for dinner, he asked me how long I’d stayed at my current place as it was more well stocked than his kitchen.

Finally got an iPhone 3 years after its release. When you have the full wifi/3G experience, the phone is very handy to have and pretty useful.

* * *

2010 was uncertain, but you could mark the indicators through the months with stuff that happened. Having come back to Malaysia has made me cherish family even more, so while I have no plans scheduled for 2011, I intend to make the most of it.

Taking A Deep Breath

★ Posted on at 09:58 pm ★

_1020278

Take the GF1 almost everywhere these days and took a casual picture of the food we eat when dining out. This was with a bunch of friends at a roadside shop selling Bak Kut Teh and various flavours of fish head. Gave the picture a black and white treatment as I don’t like the default colours that the GF1 provides (or it could be the RAW conversion of Picasa not getting the colour profile right).

* * *

Sitting in the corner leaning against a wall with my Eee PC hooked into the LAN cable connected to the modem. Bought a wifi router when I first got back to Malaysia but it barely saw much use before the lightning killed it. Heh, it’s a common occurrence here due to the frequent thunderstorms and other than turning the equipment off at the plug points and pulling out the telephone cable, there’s very little else you can do to protect it.

* * *

It’s a strange end of year this time round, and there’s not much I want to describe about it, but I just needed to write something to take my mind off things. Sometimes I deal with things better when it is familiar, so I know what to expect.

Have always thought that tomorrow is a great unknown, but it’s always good to be positive about it, regardless of the current situation. I have always managed to find something to be hopeful for.

Holiday Break

★ Posted on at 11:35 pm ★

chopsticks

There was a stall in the local markets in Kun Ming city selling chopsticks at 1 yuan for a pair. Pretty cheap and the designs of some of the chopsticks stood out.

The photo was captured with the GF1. This camera has been fantastic over the past few days and it’s small size makes it easy to take those street shots that I would otherwise miss with my big and bulky D300. It has its quirks (which I’ve found out about over the past few days) but I’ve got used to the handling and can grab shots with it pretty quickly now.

* * *

Typing this post on my Eee PC now and editing photos using basic adjustments in Picasa. The Atom processor is slow as molasses but at least I can still do a little bit of work on it. Heh, at this point in time, the keyboard and LAN cable port trump an iPad as a portable computing device (no wifi at the hotels I’ve stayed in). Not to mention the 3 USB ports to plug in an external HDD, and to transfer the image files from my D300 (forgot my CF card reader this time around). The trip so far has yielded nearly 2,000 photos that I will be sieving through in January when I’m back in Melbourne.

* * *

Just chilling at the hotel now. It’s been a hectic few days of travelling and we took the plane from Li Jiang back to Kun Ming early this afternoon. Had to brave near zero degree temperatures up on the Jade Dragon mountain but was pretty much okay (due to having experienced NYC) other than my freezing fingers fiddling with camera controls.

I have enjoyed the trip so far and it’s a different experience from travelling on your own. You see a little less of the local spots but you don’t have to worry about the logistics of it all. The good side is you meet new people on the trip and some of us have already swapped email addresses so it’s easy to keep in contact after we all go back to our regular lives. Heh, this is very different from the last trips to China I took over 15 years ago.

* * *

I’m glad mom plonked me in a Chinese school and even though I’m not very good at it, I can understand most conversations and read most passages put in front of me without too much trouble. It gives me a better understanding of the culture and history I grew up with, and also an appreciation for why we are the way we are.

* * *

Heh, just want to be able to sort through all the images now and document the trip. I have a better process this time compared to the Taiwan trip a year ago but a year is a long time to progress in methodology for post processing photos.