2012 Christmas Letter
19/12/12 17:11 Filed in: Christmas Letters
2010 was about change. 2011 was about nothing. 2012 will be remembered, for me, about the bad news.
For the Year of the Dragon, in which I was born, this was supposed to be a good year. OK, somebody forgot to tell the bloody dragon to be nice to me!
Whilst I was relatively healthy this year except for my neck problem, quite a few people close to me had some health issues. Whilst one can say “so there’s nothing wrong with you”, it worries me and saddens me to know of their illness and empathise with what they went / are going through. It really hit home one night a few months ago when I thought I was going to lose my best friend. Thankfully, that did not happen. All my friends are still around, which is good news. Pete, hang in there. Your fighting spirit is an inspiration.
I lost my “god cat”, Mayhem. He was one of two cats that belongs to my best friend. No he didn’t live with us but I was there, bringing him home from the RSPCA years ago and I saw him week in, week out. He and his brother, Mischief, are real characters. He will be missed.
The other big news in my life revolved around.....wait for it....”ME”!
No, I did not get married, didn’t get any one pregnant, didn’t have any unknown child / children come knocking on the door.
Let me put it in a positive note: due to an organisation restructure, I am now seeking new challenges in the next stage of my career. (That’s what they teach you to say!)
So there. I will leave Oracle on 2nd January and off to god-knows-where.
OK, enough bad news. Well, leaving Oracle may not be bad news anyway. Looking on the bright side, they gave me a lot of money to buy all the toys I want, so I’ll be buying a few new lenses for my camera.
Since I received the news, the help and support I received from people have been great. I’m really surprised how many people offered their assistance. It has been a humbling experience. I am truly grateful.
Speaking of camera, I did a bit more shooting this year and have taken an interest in studio lighting. (How can I not be shooting the beautiful Kate?) To save a bit of money (as I’m still experimenting), I hijacked our garage and turned it into a small photography studio, with my own strobe lights etc. That’s certainly fun. A couple of shots from my garage, er, I mean, studio:
It’s the first time I set up the lights myself so I thought it was a good effort. It was also nice of Kate to put up with me - I almost panicked when the lighting came out all wrong but she gave me some suggestions and gradually we got on the right track. Whew! The left photo was taken in the front garden.
Thanks to Qantas, we/I travelled quite a bit this year.
In March we did our usual Hong Kong / Taipei trip. In addition to the great gatherings with cousins from mum’s side, the highlight was meeting up with our “long lost” cousins from dad’s side in Hong Kong. We last saw each other when we were kids and as we live in different countries, we just never stayed in contact. This time, thanks to another cousin, we figured life’s short and family is important.
It was a great meeting. We hardly know each other (or remember each other) but over lunch we re-connected and it was like we’ve known each other for all these years! THAT, is a special highlight of our trip.
pastedGraphic
We also had one of my aunts joined us for our trip to Taipei and it was a lot of fun. She got to meet many of my friends and it was great to see that she was enjoying herself.
I know we do this trip pretty much same time each year but so far, each year there’s a highlight to make it different than the previous year. It’s really not the tourist spots but the people who make a place special so that you go back again and again.
Now I’ll explain why I said “thanks to Qantas” - Qantas had these “double status point” promotions during the year, so we decided to take advantage of that. Double status points allows me to accumulate enough points to keep my “Gold” status quicker so yes, you all know I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.
So in April, as part of the double status points promotion, I took another trip to HK for a few days. The highlight of that trip: the new hotel I was staying in (using company corporate rate), caught fire the morning I was due to check in! So I spent 9 hours on the plane wondering if I’d have a hotel to stay when I get to HK. I found out later that the Front Office Manager of my favourite hotel had left a room for me...That was so nice of him.
I met up with one of my long lost cousin and she took me to a French restaurant. Very nice. Here are some photos (I only remember that the last one was a Tiramisu):
In May (the month), May (my sister) and I flew to Auckland for a weekend. We flew out on Saturday morning from Sydney and back in Sydney on Sunday morning. We stayed in the hotel across the road from the airport. LAN Chile is really the pits. Their airline booking system CANNOT handle people wanting to fly to Auckland for one day. So guess what, they cancelled our return flight in order to check us in on the outgoing flight - and forgot to re-book us on the return trip the next day! Luckily, it wasn’t a full flight and we were able to re-book and got back without too much stress.
In June, I flew to Shanghai to give a one-day training and flew back. They flew me business class with an One World partner airline but I did not get any status points. Didn’t even get to meet up with friends. All for nothing. What a waste.
In August, mum, May and I went to HK for another double status points trip. Bloody hot. No, not me. I’m talking about the weather. Mum and May went shopping and bought lots. I just wanted air-conditioning and a cold drink.
In October, May and I went to Beijing. 4-day trip. We covered Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Mutianyu Great Wall as well as some shopping in 3 days. Did not take a single taxi. We got around using the local subway system or hired car for the day trips. May finally got to see the places I’ve been talking about. We climbed up the mountain to the Great Wall instead of taking the cable car. It was the second time for me and I regretted it half way through - just like the first time! However, when we finally reached the Wall, we got a sense of achievement. I was last there about 7 years ago - still gives me the goosebumps this time looking at the long, winding, endless wall for as far as the eye can see (or the zoom lens for that matter)!
Photos: Top - At the MuTianYu Great Wall. Middle - May at the Summer Palace, almost 700 year-old vase from the Yuan Dynasty. Bottom - One of the palaces in the Forbidden City. Note the mirrors on each side. They would have been imported from Europe as Chinese used to use copper as mirrors.
Looking back, this year has been a roller coaster ride. I have had many good memories but there were also quite a few heart breaks. Yes, life is full of ups and downs but crickey, couldn’t they have rationed it and spread over 10 years instead of 1??
Thankfully, many of my friends are on the mend and those closest and dearest to me are also on the mend.
I may not have a job any more but at least I still have my family and friends. For that, I’m most thankful.
Besides, if you’ve read my previous Christmas letters, you would know I wasn’t happy in my job anyway, so perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
This time though, I will not let this pull me down. So don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.
Our home theatre finally got an upgrade after 15 years. Since the introduction of HDMI, I have been putting off upgrading the system, because I know replacing the cables will be a nightmare. So over the years, I’ve been buying new components but stuck to inferior video output (i.e. no HDMI).
Quite a few hours (including an emergency call to our electrician) later, the new home theatre is now operational. It is a joy to watch movies in the home theatre again.
Speaking of joy, Kismet the cat has displaced me as the fun in the house. She understands “movie time!” as the prompt to go to the home theatre.
Ending this on a positive note - The music this year, I thought it appropriate to use “O Come All Ye Faithful” sung by the great Mario Lanza.
Keep the faith.
Merry Christmas.
Your friend,
Bevan
