Since today is the last day of the year 2009, I’ll take this opportunity to reflect on my 2009 – the best and the worst. 2009 has been quite an uneventful year for me, if compared to 2008 where a lot of things happened. But well, 2009 is not too good a year for me too. Better than 2008 though.

The worst

• I received a pay cut towards the end of March. It was a reduction of working days, from 5 to 3. So it was around 30-40% pay cut. A huge amount, and I was very disappointed because I really loved working in that company. But life goes on and I’ve managed to find another job within 1 month.
• I joined a large company after that but it’s not what I expected it to be. Different job scope and it’s really quite a stressful job. But still, at least I should be glad that I do have a job. I should count myself more fortunate than a lot of people out there.
• My skin allergy is getting worse. Yes, I have ringworm problem (it’s not a worm, but more like a fungal infection which is quite common in tropical countries like Malaysia). It got better in 2008 but in 2nd half of 2009, it got worse. Some people stayed away from me because they think it’s contagious. Well, it is, if your skin is exposed to it for long period of time. But still, some people do get scared. Hopefully it’ll go away in 2010.

The best

• When I got my pay cut, I sent a lot of messages (MSN, Yahoo, emails, SMSes) out to my friends, asking them to help me get a job. And I can say I am very very blessed to have so many good friends by my side. Most of them have helped me (in one way or another) during that difficult period. Kudos to all of them and a sincere “Thank you” from me. Thanks for all the help, all the support and thanks for being there.
• In 2009, I finally brought my family to China. We went to Shanghai. It was quite a tiring trip for me, but I’m very happy because it’s one of my dad’s lifelong dreams to travel to Shanghai. I plan to bring my family to another place in China in 2010.
• I continued to pursue my passions in writing stories, drawing, gaming and technology. Looking forward to complete a light novel/graphic novel in 2010.
• I finally started a webcomic called Cubic Nation. It’s quite plain and not popular. I’ve received a lot of good and bad feedback. Some people called it a Dilbert clone, but well, it’s just something I love to do and those ideas were not from Dilbert. In 2010, I will try to update the comic on weekly basis, and also change the appearance a little.
• After thinking about getting a MacBook Pro and an iPod Touch for more than 6 months, I finally bought these 2 items for myself. I love them and I do feel they’ve helped me to increase my productivity. I’m currently playing around with the iPhone SDK. Hopefully I’ll be able to publish my first iPhone application/game in iTunes in the year 2010.
• In 2008, my total investment took a plunge of > 40%. Yeah, that was A LOT of money. But in 2009, I’ve more or less recovered what I’ve lost in 2008. So it’s a good thing and looking forward to continue this in 2010.
• I’m not someone who loves to travel around but I do know that I’m very lucky to actually get the opportunity to do so. I’ve learned a lot (and tasted a lot of good food) by traveling to different places this year – Kuching, Bangkok, Sydney, Shanghai, Suzhou, Xi Tang and Hangzhou.

So what’s for 2010 then? Well, it’s going to be a big big year for me. But to summarize, here are some of the things that I plan to do in 2010:

• Continue to pursue my passions in drawing, writing, gaming and technology. So expect me to continue writing in this blog, drawing in my webcomic, playing my PS3 and coming out with some applications.
• Improve things in terms of career and finance.
• Go for more family vacations.
• Stay healthy.
• Contribute more – blood donations, blogging, etc.

Simple as that.

What about you? Has 2009 been a good year for you? And what do you intend to achieve in 2010?

2009 is said to be a very bad year for everyone, even though the fortune tellers (or feng shui masters) are saying otherwise. I do believe that whenever there are bad news, there will always be good news as well. Same goes to opportunities vs problems. Whenever there are a lot of problems, there will always be a lot of opportunities. It’s just a matter of whether you are able to notice and utilize them.

But before that, we need to be able to predict what is going to happen in 2009. This is important since it will allow us to prepare ourselves better, and also to ensure we are ready to pounce when the opportunities present themselves.

Without wasting too much time, here are some of my predictions for the year 2009 (I do sound like I’m giving a speech eh?).

Will business hire someone to downsize in 2009?

Business in general

• More companies will close down.
• More startups will appear….and disappear.
• 2009 might be the beginning of some well-known corporations. Do remember that some of the famous brands we have now started during recession periods in the past.
• A lot of companies will start cutting cost, and some might mistakenly cut elements which are necessary for the long term prospect of the company. And this might send the companies to a downward spiral.
• There will still be businesses which can profit from this recession period. Do some research and you are sure to get some ideas.

Economy

• The world’s economy will become worse in 2009 since all the previous negative forecasts will become a reality. Also, more companies will report losses or minimal profits.
• Malaysia will most likely enter recession in 2nd or 3rd quarter of the year, even though our economy experts are saying otherwise. Malaysia has the highest number of people with debts/loans in Asia Pacific and even if our banks are very strong, we can’t deny the fact that there are a lot of multinationals in Malaysia. Struggling multinationals might start retrenching people or closing down their operations, thus increasing the number of jobless people. Jobless people will not be able to pay the debts/loans and this can be quite bad.
• I expect the stock market to bottom up in 3rd quarter of 2009 and starts its long journey towards recovery in 4th quarter of 2009 or beginning of 2010.
• USD will continue to rise against Malaysia Ringgit. I expect it to reach 3.7-3.8 range.

Health

• Cures for some diseases or illnesses will be found.
• However, more unknown illnesses will start to appear.
• Old illnesses will also start to become a problem but I doubt there will be any global epidemic in 2009, thanks to our advanced medical science.
• More and more people will start to become health conscious. Healthy food will become more popular this year. So will hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and labs (for blood test).

Job & career

• More people will lose their jobs due to recession and retrenchments.
• Number of candidates per job opportunity (especially in a multinational company) will increase tremendously since everyone wants to work in a stable company in 2009.
• Average salary will become lower because people no longer dare to ask for too much. Benefits might not be so good too.
• The differences will be very obvious between employees with good attitude and employees with not-so-good attitude.
• There will be lesser interesting jobs and more boring jobs. Why? Because interesting jobs tend to be risky at times and most companies prefer to do things with low risks in 2009.
• More people will go for certifications and additional trainings in order to make themselves more attractive to potential employers.
• Hiring and recruitment process will be stricter than before because nobody wants to hire someone useless. Also, terminating someone can be very expensive. Thus, prevention is better than cure.
• Starting salary for fresh graduates might be worse than years before because companies would prefer to hire someone who can hit the ground running on his/her first day.
• Employees should be prepared to step outside their “comfort zone” and be more than what they have been hired for. If they don’t do that, someone else out there will be more willing to do that.

The new IPhone which will change the world? You must be joking

Technology

• Internet connection will become faster.
• Mobile applications will be more popular but not the next “IN” thing.
• Web applications will be even more popular with the introduction of affordable netbooks.
• Microsoft’s future will rely on the upcoming Windows 7.
• Steve Jobs’ creativity will be greatly missed in Apple. I do hope he’ll be fine.
• Desktop applications which allow users to work online and offline, could be the next “IN” thing.
• Open source technologies will become even more popular this year since they’re free and every business wants to cut cost.
• However, be prepared to have a lot of IT projects (especially the big ones) suspended or postponed since IT projects are normally one of the many things struggling businesses would love to cut.

That’s all I can think of. Spent a lot on this. LOL and I just remember I’ve yet to work on my project today!

Do feel free to comment or to add on

I went for my first medical checkup 2 weeks ago – blood test. The result came out last week and I was surprised that I’m perfectly healthy. Just kidding. My title is saying otherwise.

Anyway, I got pretty bad high cholesterol problem. I’m not fat, in case you’re wondering. Ok, maybe a little but not THAT fat. I also tend not to eat so much unhealthy food…except for…..muruku and twisties. =_=

My level of bad cholesterol is quite high. The normal I think is 2.38 and mine is around 1.3 more. That is not good at all and I’m only 26 !!

My doctor said this to me which completely changed my behavior : “Either you go on diet or I’ll have to give you medicine for 1 month.”

It is THAT serious. Medicines to control cholesterol ?!? I thought that’s only needed for older people? =_=

Since then, I’ve changed my lifestyle completely. I go to gym whenever I can (1.5x more than before my blood test result came out). I don’t eat fried food ANYMORE. After 2 weeks, I didn’t eat anything fried. No more fried rice, fried noodle, nothing. No more fatty meat. No more junk food – no keropok (only a little bit of dark chocolate).

My friends and colleagues started to say that I’m getting paranoid and that I should just eat and don’t care. Some even “forced” me to eat. And I wasn’t very polite. I raised my voice and said “When I said NO, means NO. This is my body and my health. You don’t care but I care” to which my friend fell silent.

And no, I don’t think I’m getting paranoid. After all, it’s only 2 months. I need to control my cholesterol level and see if it will go down in 2 months time. I will go for another blood test 2 months later.

What about you? Have you done your blood test? Are you high in cholesterol as well?

p/s……… the reason I went for the med checkup, was that I didn’t feel good even after gym session. I think my body was telling me to go for check up and I did. Prevention is better than cure and don’t think that just because you’re young, you shouldn’t care about your cholesterol level.