2008 In A Nutshell
It's that time of the year again, isn't it? We all look back, round up all the events that occurred in 2008, sift through the many positive and negative elements, and look forward to another year (hopefully better!). Here's mine in a nutshell...
1) The company I'm employed with moved to its spanking new office in Bdr Utama, PJ. More space for everyone :) Some old faces left the company, but some new faces were also welcomed.
2) Played my role as a Malaysian citizen during the 8th General Election, March 2008. Got myself registered as a voter a few months back, and placed my vote in the ballot box. The election saw the coalition shrinking (padan!), and the Opposition having a much stronger voice in Parliament. I think most people voted for the Opposition not because they were rooting for the Opposition. More like, the rakyat wanted to give a tight slap to the ruling coalition, for the many years of arrogance and detrimental selfishness. And yet, they haven't seem to learn much from the shocking episode. Perhaps us rakyat have to make a clean sweep, and simply sapu all the useless politicians out of Parliament. Tak guna.
3) Witnessed many births of babies amongst my friends. New mummies and daddies in the Year of the Rat (squeek!). Little rodents... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
4) Flew to KK for a short getaway with hubby. A very good trip, and I hope we'll make our way back there again soon. This time I hope we can stay in one of the mountain lodges, hehe!
5) Went through 2 miscarriages this year, and yes it's been pretty rough on our end, particularly for me. Quite a test on the mental and emotional side, something I hope my friends do not have to go through. The cause has been determined, and I went through the treatment already. We're taking a break from all this baby making hoohaa, not worth the pain. Some things happen for a reason lah. Probably nature's way of telling us, this ain't a good time for the little one to come. Gives us an opportunity to shift our plans elsewhere.
6) The economic downturn is everywhere, and I believe every sector is affected one way or another. We're not so badly affected, as we've always been quite prudent with our spending. We're still able to afford the little luxuries in life (i.e: eating out once a while). As for the company I'm attached with, some cost cutting measures were announced (no bonuses, no increments lor).
7) One of our biggest loan agreement is fully paid up, which makes life even easier for us now that we will have extra savings on our end. Comes in a good time too, considering the instability in the economy these days. With the extra income, 2009 will be a year for us to do some research and possibly, find ways to increase our passive income.
8) My Sr Art Director has been making the entire creative team do assignments related to our work, our role and responsibility. To some people, it might be a drag, but if you see it in a positive light, the said assignments actually push us to further improve our skills and knowledge. He is the first person in my entire working life, to do such a thing to help the team go further. The encouragement is of course, good for all of us.
9) We sold our 6-year old Kelisa, and got ourselves a Myvi 1.3 in Mocha Silver. Our Kelisa went to my mum, for her 12-year old Wira got stolen from the Kelana Jaya LRT car park last Christmas. We could've gotten a bigger car (i.e: Honda City, Toyota Vios etc), but after much calculations, we figured we'll get the Myvi first lah.
10) Oh, Malaysia also saw an explosion of blogs in the blogsphere. Ever since the General Election, a lot of the monkeys who were voted in to sit in the big building are setting up their own blogs. I guess the blog can also work as another channel for them to call each other monkeys. Tak guna.
11) Deadly landslides with claimed innocent lives. Fingers are constantly pointing to one another. But that's not going to bring the lives back. Politicians can go on and on, but we all know Malaysian politicians won't grow up. Tak guna.
12) Our fuel prices went soaring up to 41% in June 2008. A mad rush of traffic in just about every petrol station available in the country! And you know when petrol prices go up, raw materials, transportation cost etc will all go sky rocketing too. Since then, petrol prices have been decreasing rapidly, but raw materials and consumer goods remain high.
Here's to a good year ahead of us. Happy 2009 :)
It's that time of the year again, isn't it? We all look back, round up all the events that occurred in 2008, sift through the many positive and negative elements, and look forward to another year (hopefully better!). Here's mine in a nutshell...
1) The company I'm employed with moved to its spanking new office in Bdr Utama, PJ. More space for everyone :) Some old faces left the company, but some new faces were also welcomed.
2) Played my role as a Malaysian citizen during the 8th General Election, March 2008. Got myself registered as a voter a few months back, and placed my vote in the ballot box. The election saw the coalition shrinking (padan!), and the Opposition having a much stronger voice in Parliament. I think most people voted for the Opposition not because they were rooting for the Opposition. More like, the rakyat wanted to give a tight slap to the ruling coalition, for the many years of arrogance and detrimental selfishness. And yet, they haven't seem to learn much from the shocking episode. Perhaps us rakyat have to make a clean sweep, and simply sapu all the useless politicians out of Parliament. Tak guna.
3) Witnessed many births of babies amongst my friends. New mummies and daddies in the Year of the Rat (squeek!). Little rodents... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
4) Flew to KK for a short getaway with hubby. A very good trip, and I hope we'll make our way back there again soon. This time I hope we can stay in one of the mountain lodges, hehe!
5) Went through 2 miscarriages this year, and yes it's been pretty rough on our end, particularly for me. Quite a test on the mental and emotional side, something I hope my friends do not have to go through. The cause has been determined, and I went through the treatment already. We're taking a break from all this baby making hoohaa, not worth the pain. Some things happen for a reason lah. Probably nature's way of telling us, this ain't a good time for the little one to come. Gives us an opportunity to shift our plans elsewhere.
6) The economic downturn is everywhere, and I believe every sector is affected one way or another. We're not so badly affected, as we've always been quite prudent with our spending. We're still able to afford the little luxuries in life (i.e: eating out once a while). As for the company I'm attached with, some cost cutting measures were announced (no bonuses, no increments lor).
7) One of our biggest loan agreement is fully paid up, which makes life even easier for us now that we will have extra savings on our end. Comes in a good time too, considering the instability in the economy these days. With the extra income, 2009 will be a year for us to do some research and possibly, find ways to increase our passive income.
8) My Sr Art Director has been making the entire creative team do assignments related to our work, our role and responsibility. To some people, it might be a drag, but if you see it in a positive light, the said assignments actually push us to further improve our skills and knowledge. He is the first person in my entire working life, to do such a thing to help the team go further. The encouragement is of course, good for all of us.
9) We sold our 6-year old Kelisa, and got ourselves a Myvi 1.3 in Mocha Silver. Our Kelisa went to my mum, for her 12-year old Wira got stolen from the Kelana Jaya LRT car park last Christmas. We could've gotten a bigger car (i.e: Honda City, Toyota Vios etc), but after much calculations, we figured we'll get the Myvi first lah.
10) Oh, Malaysia also saw an explosion of blogs in the blogsphere. Ever since the General Election, a lot of the monkeys who were voted in to sit in the big building are setting up their own blogs. I guess the blog can also work as another channel for them to call each other monkeys. Tak guna.
11) Deadly landslides with claimed innocent lives. Fingers are constantly pointing to one another. But that's not going to bring the lives back. Politicians can go on and on, but we all know Malaysian politicians won't grow up. Tak guna.
12) Our fuel prices went soaring up to 41% in June 2008. A mad rush of traffic in just about every petrol station available in the country! And you know when petrol prices go up, raw materials, transportation cost etc will all go sky rocketing too. Since then, petrol prices have been decreasing rapidly, but raw materials and consumer goods remain high.
Here's to a good year ahead of us. Happy 2009 :)
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