Happy New Year!

Hi all - a very happy new year to you and your family! I just looked at the last (and the first) post I made on this blog and I am ashamed - it has been almost 4 and half months of laziness on my part. I really hope I can blog more regularly in 2008. I feel it is a good way to collect my thoughts and review things happening in my life.

So how did you spend the night of 31st Dec 2007? My housemates and I invited some friends over and we played board/card games like UNO and Risk. We ordered Pizza for dinner from Sarpinos Pizzeria (I know this might sound strange to those in the US but having good pizza in Singapore is a rarity) and counted down 10 seconds before midnight. This was followed up by some dancing, of which i was a reluctant participant - but i did enjoy some of the salsa moves. It felt good putting the 4 weeks of salsa lessons to use. I think salsa is a lot fun when the girl really lets the guy lead with no pre-conceived moves in mind.

The next day (1st Jan 2008) was a holiday and Nirva and I decided to start the New Year on a healthy note. We decided to go on this 42 km bike trail - the parks on the eastern side of Singapore are now connected to each other and the whole trail is 42 km in length. We started at about 2:30 in the afternoon - the weather was really nice - cloudy and windy. In the end we did only 18km, but it was so much fun. I will post in greater detail about the bike trail later (with photos).

Another good thing I did yesterday was to call all my mamas (uncles on my mother's side) and talk to them. During the last year, I did not call any one regularly besides Shankar mama, mostly out of laziness, and also because Shankar mama and I can really talk about a variety of things ranging from politics to books to movies to cricket etc. Now when i was in India, I was really very close to all my 4 mamas - so at some point of time last year, my other mamas started feeling a bit left out and thought that I was not very keen on talking to them - when that was definitely not the case. So I forced myself to sit near the telephone and call each one of them one by one and talk to them for at least 15 min each. I also spoke with my cousin and her wife and heard the first words from my niece's mouth - it was just wonderful! At the end of it, I was a bit exhausted after being on the phone for about 2 hours - but it felt very good. It felt that I had started off 2008 on just the right notes - be it personal health or relationships. These are 2 of the 3 things I want to work on in 2008.

The 3rd and the hardest thing for me is to address my work - it has been 4 months since I have really lost any interest whatsoever in my job. The workplace itself seems to be going from bad to worse - come to think of it, it has been unstable since I joined in 2004, with no signs of getting settled ever. I would so want to just get out of this place and do something on my own - but I have 3 more years of my bond to serve. I really must force myself to think clearly and talk to my managers about getting into a meaningful job position here - after all I can't sit here unhappy and under-utilized for 3 years! I just need to do this for myself - for my own good. I do wish I can break all self-imposed barriers and get on this task asap - that would really make the start of this New Year absolutely rocking!