2005 in review

The previous year did not start out good. Well, it just plain sucked. A very good friend of mine died. I find it difficult to define that time, that moment when you were told that he was gone. I just couldn't believe it, and it made me wonder what kind of year it would be with this kind of event.

Luckily (if you can say that), work took my mind off it most of the time. It was a very busy time for me at work. My responsibilites started to shift towards being a designer rather that a developer, and I had an opportunity to work as a pseudo-team lead on a small demo project.

Then came another opportunity, travel. As soon as I found out about it, I volunteered for the Pakistan project. And so I got to work on-site and got valuable work experience. As luck would have it, I was resourced to the Singapore project at the end of my 2 month stint in Pakistan. It was looking pretty good in terms of my career.

Then my grandfather died. 2 deaths in a year, could you imagine? At this point, mortality was becoming a constant companion. So when I found out that my coach in college had had a mild stroke, I had to give him my support and drop by the hospital. Thank God he is now recovering from it and that it wasn't too serious.

After all that happenings, I had to have a nice vacation. And gratefully, my friend invited me to Bohol for a whole week. (Watch out for the remaining blog entries of this event).

Pre christmas season, I was asked by my boss if I was willing to travel for yet another project. It was the Abu Dhabi project and they needed someone to fly ASAP. They say that Abu Dhabi is a nice place to visit, and I do think that it would be a nice experience to visit the sand dunes and go on a desert safari, but I respectfully declined given reasons of my own. Although I did mention that I was willing to go to the Cyprus project (I found out that they needed another designer over there).

I also started going to the gym more regularly and more seriously during this time. I still have to update you guys on that later on.

Christmas and New Year's day came and went with a lot of nothing. Just didn't feel the spirit this year. Overall, 2005 was not too bad considering. The highs where high and the lows the lowest I have been, I imagine. But such is life I guess.... and 2005 showed me that. I think I have a much better perception of life now, and going into 2006 I am looking forward to whatever comes.