Heart Space #9 : End of Year 2007

Another year is almost over, and gosh, many of us must be wondering where did all the time gone to? I know for sure, a great deal went to my work, for I never been so busy in this company before.

Here's a short recap of what happened in 2007.

1. Family
Well, my cousin delivered; which makes the total now stands at 4.
i. 2 girls (My Brother's and Louis's)
ii. 2 boys (Mag's and Serena's)
iii. Mine is on the way... hopefully in '08.
I don't think there will be anymore coming in '08, although one cousin is trying. I guess all the other mums are taking a break. I do hope my youngest cousin will get hitched in '08... before she really gets left on the shelf.. (She's really not bad looking ;P. You can check out my Facebook.)

2. Friends
Fulfilled my target of 5 new friends. I have made many new friends during my Euro trip. I guess on this front, friends have been really good this year. From the event in December, I’ve met even more friends, which is really good but I should have got their contact details. A couple of my other friends/(ex) colleagues got married (Ziyi, Chee Kian, Francis, Stephanie, Josephine, Shi Huey), a couple others gave/giving birth soon..so my wishes to all of them...

3. Family
Family has been great as well and about. I guess sometimes we got so bogged down by work, and we forget what is really important to us. My mum really deserves the MUM of the Year Award; She helped nonstop at my place, bought stuff for her granddaughter, joined me in the volunteer event... all these without expecting anything in return.

4. Work
There have been so much upheaval in work. More colleagues have left; Stanley, Grace, Peter, Trupti, Kah Tat, Cynthia, KaiJie, Yuan Leng, Ham Li Lian, Kwee Moi. One of them was forced to leave under dire and unmanaged circumstances that leave us all with a bad aftertaste. I am supposed to take on more roles and responsibilities in 2008, but there are just too many unsettled issues. My RO changed so many times, and for now, I never met up with my RO yet. Someone really needs to take care of my existing projects, and thankfully Stephanie is doing a good job. In addition, the most urgent project is on the verge of rollout (on target!), and thankfully there are still some people who are committed to finishing the project, and not let the negative thoughts prevent them from doing their best. However, in Phase 1A of this project, I could not longer afford my time as BA, PJM or even technical developer for this project. I put on so hats for this project rollout that it hit upon me as if I was still with Accenture. This has to stop, I mean everyone should play their roles well, and not just clock time, and not performing what they are tasked to.
Also, working with my subcontractor had such a drastic impact on my work life. It's so funny, we own a majority stake in the company and yet we absolutely have no say in anything. I am always left in a bad position with nothing much I can do, except to clean up the mess or to be held ransom. Furthermore, I am constantly caught in between of wanting to do the right thing and whether can I do the right thing. I guess the air up there in the management cloud, is something I will never understand for a while, but from the looks of it, I don't think it's that sweet smelling.

Well, the outlook for my work bodes ill, according to this Chinese almanac thing. A lot of office politics and backstabbing will occur next year. I guess this is so much in line, from what I understood from the role and position that I am supposing in. Sigh. Let’s see, for I am not a person liking such politics in office.

5. Money
Didn't save lot of money this year, nor invest any. My boss said if you have not made money this year, you have missed a great year. Well, that's easy for him to say, with money to spare. This is one area I really need to look into.. hmm.

6. Leisure
Hasn't really learn anything new, but have done a weenie bit of vb.net troubleshooting. Decided to learn French formally in 2008, hope the baby will not take up TOO much of my time, but I guess that's not possible. :P

Finally got down to it, and organised an event for the Club Rainbow kids. It was not possible without Felicia who coordinated with Club Rainbow and Made With Love for this event. We have a good number of volunteers (thanks, you guys!), food, fun activity and lots of presents to give away. We had one preparation class to prepare the kits required for the actual event. On the actual day, there was so much excitement and anxiety when the kids arrived. The kids (as well as the volunteers) really had a great time!!! Gotta start thinking of the next one... but next year.. not anytime soon.

7. Thanks and goals.
In this closing, would like to thank the following people for making 2007 bearable and most part of it, enjoyable.
(in no particular order...)
i. My folks and in laws (for the frequent cleaning and stuff they bought for us and the baby)
ii. To my wife, for bearing the weight of my little darling for a good 9 months.
iii. To Kumar, Thin, Huiling for being so committed to meet Maybank's impossible timeline. I guess you guys should really feel proud of yourselves.
iv. For my brother & cousins, Mag and Serena; for the wonderful and beautiful dresses, and hand-down stuff for the baby, which saves a lot for us.
v. For Felicia and the rest of the gang who participated in the Charity event on Dec 15, kudos to you too! Hope we made a small difference that day!
vi. Goals for 2008 is 3 "mores". More Time for my loved ones, More Money, More Knowledge (for work and leisure)

Heart Space #8 : Josephine Wedding

One of my closest female secondary schoolmates got married over the weekend. Theirs was a 13 year courtship, and it definitely had its share of ups and down. She asked me to be one of the "sisters", and well I agreed; in fact I even offered to take additional photographs for her. Besides, I never attended a church wedding yet, so figured it would really cool.

Hope she really loves my photos, though it would be very much better if the groom does look my way a bit more. Here's wishing her all the best and have a blissful marriage and life.

This montage is optimized for web viewing but still, it's a 30MB stream.

Click here to see the John & Josephine Wedding (Full 30MB) with ProShow

p.s. It's not fun to shoot in shirt and pants, with working shoes. :(

Heart Space #7 : Baby Faith

I came across this program that allows me to easily create a slideshow using photos. Had a hard time figuring out why it didn't work on Blogspot. Turns out that the server where I host the files is acting weird. So... if the slideshow doesn't start, load this page in a totally new browser window. Hope you guys like it, and do turn on your speakers. (works best with FlashPlayer 9.0)

It's amazing how much my wife has grown in size. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of ultrascan pictures from the gynae; He probably has a thing for not giving out the pictures. What is so difficult about clicking the print button (besides, we are paying for it)? So instead, I posted pictures of my wife.

Just a month away before we can see her. She's been really active these weeks, wanting to brush her hands, legs, butt, head against our skin. Can't really wait to see her in person, just hope that we got everything prepared for her arrival.