2007 in Review

Although procrastination has always been my favourite vice, it abuses me - forcing me to make a meaningful assessment of the past year and to outline my objectives for the next, in just one hour... But I have always worked best under pressure, expending the least efforts necessary to achieve desired results. I am after all an economist by training and a business school graduate by accident; yet born into a creed that observes relaxation, personal space and balance.

In the spirit of lean operations for best results, I will reduce my world in 2007 to the five key events that would shape my future. In chronological order, they are:

1. I got a new job.

By far the most significant turning point in my life since leaving business school. Suddenly I was motivated to wake up for work every morning and for the first time, considered it possible to survive six years of legal bondage to the government. The new job came with far more responsibilities and much heavier workload; but in return I get real opportunities to influence consequential decisions, and respect for my efforts and my principles (including an increasingly leftist political approach). Oh yeah and I got to go to Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, London and Paris.

2. I kicked the D habit.

Well, really, the habit kicked me. Like a country imploding under the pressures of impasse en route to a change of leadership, I needed a violent upheaval to purge myself of a destructive past and to introduce a brighter future.

3. I got a cat and boob job!

I accepted the responsibility of another creature's life and irreversibly changed my own. Now I can do ANYTHING!

4. I went to Goa.

And everything material has seemed immaterial to me ever since.

5. I finished reading War and Peace.

The words "A Life Changing Novel" ensconced in a very authoritative red circle scream out from the book cover. I dare not challenge it. I also read: Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, the Queen of Spades and other Stories, My Name is Red, Industrial Society and its Future, Hegemony or Survival, and a history of Africa's independence since 1950. So those are probably the reasons why I may have seemed overbearingly broody in 2007.


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I'll work on my expectations for 2008 tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've decided to get a prowling cougar tattooed on my right thigh. I've been trawling the internet for appropriate designs, and it keeps telling me that cougars are signs of courage, loyalty and leadership. And here I was thinking it was a sign that I want to get naked with the Hot Young Intern from the 19th floor!

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!!!

Guffing in Cars.

You've probably been through this before. You go out for lunch with colleagues, have a good meal and make convivial conversation. Before long, it's time to get back to the office and the bunch of you pile into one car. There's small talk - there's always a pressing need for some sort of conversation to take place when a group of people get in the same vehicle, even if there's really nothing to be said. Usually someone makes a reference to that universal post-lunch stupor, jokes about shutting the office door to kip for a bit. We're all secretly thankful for this as it gives everyone in the car an excuse for not participating in the conversation thereafter.

And then it happens. At first you think it's just a figment of your imagination. You look out the car windows, maybe you've driven past a dump or swamp or really large outdoor toilet. But then it becomes clear that someone in the car has let out a secret stinker, you just don't know who. You try to look around for a guilty face without making it look like you've noticed - you don't want the culprit to feel too bad about himself, and you certainly don't want others to think it's you. You start to get really conscious of your movements, your facial expressions. You become wary that anything you do might be misinterpreted as guilt.

You start to wonder if it's appropriate to break the almost respectful silence by cracking a joke about what just happened. But then you hold yourself back: surely that would seem too defensive and might inadvertently cast suspicion upon yourself. You take into account the fact that the people with you are colleagues - you wouldn't want to offend someone you have to work with. You feel downright uncomfortable and the thought of making eye contact with anyone in the car becomes unbearable.

While your mind races thinking about the appropriate reaction to the situation, you realise the malodourous veil has disappeared (or perhaps you've just gotten used to it). The rigor mortis that had seized your body quickly fades away. You furtively take a long, deep breath to clear your mind and the black spots that were beginning to cloud your vision from all that shallow breathing. You begin to relax and shyly turn to the person next to you.

"You got any meetings on this afternoon?"

TDBD (Addendum)

11. Navigate the Northwest Passage (while it's still icy) on an ice-breaker.

Things to Do Before I Die.

I blame it on my fascination with Russian fiction and, well, general non-fiction, in the past year. Provoked by the need for retrospect that time forces upon us towards the end of every year; and the sense of hope that Christmas tends to bring round. That things are slow in the office also helps.

Yes, this is (part of) a list of stuff I'd like to do (in no particular order) before I die. It's likely to evolve over time, with more items changing than being ticked off. A crude manifestation of my life's objectives and ambitions. Maybe (hopefully?) even a prototype epitaph. So here goes:

1. Be choppered onto an offshore oil rig, preferably a new-ish one, in the North Sea (or wherever's sexy at the time), and choppered off, of course.

2. Cross the Bering Strait in a kayak.

3. Watch herds of migratory animals from a hot air balloon somewhere over Africa.

4. Do all that travelling I mentioned in the previous two posts.

5. Live and work in London.

6. Live and work in Russia.

7. Find a humanitarian cause and acting on it.

8. See the establishment and worldwide recognition of a contiguous and viable Palestine state capable of sustaining a nation.

9. Raise intelligent and useful kids.

10. Skydive.

...and lots of other stuff. That I can't be bothered to think about right now, when it's time to leave the office.

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I was reading TIME's list of people who have left us in 2007, and was shocked to find out that Kurt Vonnegut passed away this April. Vonnegut was my favourite critic of modern society and a major influence on how I think today. He's said and written countless memorable things, but I think the following is most apt for my blog:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

R.I.P. K.V.

Hello Traveller! (II)

Russia! Central Asia! North West China and Mongolia!

The Trans-Siberian Railway!

Hello Traveller!

It's a slow post-public holiday end-of-year Friday morning in the office, and work is the last thing on my mind.

Having browsed through Dio's list of places she would like to visit before she dies, I too feel compelled to make public my travelling desires. Bearing in mind that my days as an indentured slave would end sometime in 2011, here are my plans till then:

2008 > International Year of the Sanitation (?) and the Potato (I kid you not)

Climbing Mount Kinabalu and diving off Layang-Layang, Sabah; Mulu Caves in Sarawak

2009 > International Year of Astronomy and Natural Fibres (??!)

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania; feeling the Freddie in Zanzibar; maybe diving off Mozambique

2010 > International Year of Communications

Trek to Mount Everest Base Camp and getting some culture in Nepal

2011 > International Year of Forests

South America! More high altitude adventures in Machu Picchu! Don't forget Lake Titicaca! A boat ride on the Amazon River, parties in Rio de Janeiro! And culture in Buenos Aires :)

Yeah so there's a lot of physical activity up there, but what better time to do that than when I'm still young?

La la la la la...

Brown as a Berry!

That's me! Got back from a one week getaway to Goa last night, and I'm missing it already *sniff*

Here's a pic from the trip:



It pretty much sums up my Goan experience :)


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I think I've also figured out what I want. You know, from life. Yay!