2014 in Review
So, the end of the year is upon me, and what a year it's been, I suppose. I've been regrettably lax in maintaining this blog so far this year; that's something to aspire to changing next year, perhaps.
Arbitrary as the time distinction may be, however, tomorrow is a public holiday and I don't have to wake up early to work; so I have the luxury of today to perform a simple, hm, review of the year. So, let's get down to it.
Fitness
According to my logs, I've run something like 80+ times over the entirety of 2014, beginning somewhere around February. That works out to about 200 km run, and about 20 hours of it. If you throw in the times I spend on weights and swimming and so on, that works out to about 40 hours this year in the gym - and there were also the trips to the mountains and the islands, which I think I'm justified in considering as having been physically strenuous given the activities carried out there.
Be that as it may, though, I didn't meet any of the fitness goals set for me this year. I still can't run 2.4 km in less than 13 minutes; my best time this year was 15 and a half, and that was months ago - my time last night was 17 minutes and 54 seconds, scarcely better than when I'd started. I've been having a difficult time of it for some time; I don't know if it's mental or physical, but I've not seen any improvement - quite the opposite in fact - over the last month or so. I can't do a single pull-up either, and can't support my own weight on the bars for more than about ten seconds before the pain is too much to bear. I have found, with a little interest, that I can do a handstand if braced against the wall, and given certain prerequisites about weather and physical condition, can swim the length of the swimming pool in one breath.
Shape-wise I haven't improved at all; I remain vaguely hourglass-shaped from the front on and distinctly egg-shaped from the side on. I was told a long time ago that I appeared to be improving, but as only one person expressed that opinion and it has not been backed up since by other sources, I have had to discard that opinion.
So do I have any goals for 2015? I suppose I'll maintain the same goals as I had this year; the graph, plotted out and given a trendline and extrapolated, indicates that at my current rate of improvement (ha!) I should achieve the desired time sometime in July. The friend who makes me run has also proposed some changes to the routine, mostly involving switching to pavement runs from treadmill use, which I'll have to incorporate somehow.
I should stress, of course, that these goals were not set by me; frankly if you ask me, this body is just waiting for a good round of cybernetic upgrades before it's going to be capable of anything besides scarfing down half the table at buffets and then going back for seconds. But I suppose it's nice to have people think one is capable of more than one thinks one is capable of, in a way, if there isn't too much pressure about it?
Finance
My finances aren't all shine and bauble either; I've significantly less savings at the moment than I'd planned or hoped to have - my expenditure tracker points to multiple unexpected, but large, one-off or unusual events. Things like credit card late fees or having to change the car's air-conditioning system or road taxes or reunions or weddings or trips; all of which were, I suppose, necessary and some of them were even enjoyable, but the upshot of it is that I have maybe half, maybe slightly more than half, of the savings I'd hoped to have. It's tolerable this year, because I only owe my father for car payments, but even so it's late payments and it's not a good thing.
And next year I need to start saving up for house payments, which means I'll need to have even tighter control over the things; it may actually need to be a strategy for me to perform the bank transfers at the beginning of each month to ensure I've got the payments off before I move any money off for personal expenditure. I don't think I have much of a reputation for being a spendthrift, but my expenditure tracker seems to argue otherwise.
So, goals for 2015? None really. I don't expect the Malaysian ringgit (and hence my buying power) to strengthen at all, and in fact it's been on a steady depreciating trend for the past goodness knows how many years and accelerating. I suppose I'll be satisfied just to get my payments up to date and have a little left over for personal enjoyment.
Work
I've been promoted to full Engineer position, and have gone through several training courses; in fact I've been in one for the past two days. It's somewhat satisfying, though it's not everything I'd like it to be. My time is still too much used on paperwork, and the move towards a fully electronic system for some documents is sometimes something of a source of distraction for me. I'm also dissatisfied with the turnover rate of people in a particular position; it's a somewhat intellectually demanding position, but at the same time requires the employee to perform repetitive tasks over long periods and possibly wok shifts, which mayn't be the most cohesive of job requirements. We've gone through nearly twenty people in it in the last few years.
I'd also like to be more certain of my own competence; my degree is unrelated to the work I do, and three years later it still rankles me slightly to think that if I ever wanted to change jobs, I would have no paperwork other than internal training documents and these assorted training courses' certificates of attendance or achievement. Of course, I could probably hold my own in an interview or through a probation period; but the lack of proper qualifications (so to speak) is something of a thorn, even if only a minor one.
Beliefs
I'm... not very much of a religious person, I suppose, at least not now; it could be that I'm generally too cynical and pessimistic about the things I can see to really properly trust in the God I can't see, hear, touch, etc. Of course there's the parts about being able to hear Him through His Word, see Him through other people or His actions, and things like that; but they seem too much like self-convincing and psyching oneself up to be, well, properly there.
There are other issues in it, too, of course; there's a part in Discworld where Granny Weatherwax notes that if you believed, really believed, in a God who loved like a mother and protected like a father, who made all and loves it all and hates evil - then you'd have to live like it, and you'd also have to hate evil wherever you found it and so on. And there are other things in it too; hard things like accepting painful change and the nature of God as forge-fire and ruling lion and disciplinarian, that go against - well, let's be honest - I'd like it best if it were some fuzzy benevolence that I could hope in to keep me comfortable. But I can't forget those parts, which may be for the best in the end. I suppose some mental wrestling is to come, if or when I ever have the time for it; but until then it just keeps getting deferred away or glanced off, lightly. It's too large a can of worms for me to approach, right now.
World Events
It hasn't really been a great year, here, either, has it? Between the planes going missing or crashing, the plunging prices of crude oil and rubber and palm oil, weird weather patterns, and politics in general... yeah. Not been great.
Local Events
Not so great on the home front, either, has it though? There's been weird weather locally too - droughts and then high winds that ripped off roofs and felled trees, and then now there's the floods up north. All this amidst the general idiocy of the politicians who can't seem to open their mouths without horrifically offending somebody or other somehow - and of course the one good one gets killed in a traffic accident while the others roam free.
Leisure
Leisure-wise... well, this is probably the one part of the thing that's not too terribly bad, I suppose? I've played through a few quite enjoyable games and have managed to get into a semi-regular game of Pathfinder, which I'm quite liking even if the GM has a penchant for surprise battles where the entire party has conveniently lost all their gear or have multiple penalties on them.
Other Things
...I don't really think there's anything else; my life really is that dull. I suppose this is where I should note that I've managed to keep my parents disappointed for yet another year by remaining obstinately single, though.
So that was 2014, the bare bones of it, off the top of my head. If it doesn't sound great, that's because it wasn't, and no amount of future nostalgia will make it better. And will 2015 be any better?
...no, not really, I don't think it will. There's a general opinion that optimism is better than pessimism, but I keep in mind the fact that it's usually the optimists who die early.
Arbitrary as the time distinction may be, however, tomorrow is a public holiday and I don't have to wake up early to work; so I have the luxury of today to perform a simple, hm, review of the year. So, let's get down to it.
Fitness
According to my logs, I've run something like 80+ times over the entirety of 2014, beginning somewhere around February. That works out to about 200 km run, and about 20 hours of it. If you throw in the times I spend on weights and swimming and so on, that works out to about 40 hours this year in the gym - and there were also the trips to the mountains and the islands, which I think I'm justified in considering as having been physically strenuous given the activities carried out there.
Be that as it may, though, I didn't meet any of the fitness goals set for me this year. I still can't run 2.4 km in less than 13 minutes; my best time this year was 15 and a half, and that was months ago - my time last night was 17 minutes and 54 seconds, scarcely better than when I'd started. I've been having a difficult time of it for some time; I don't know if it's mental or physical, but I've not seen any improvement - quite the opposite in fact - over the last month or so. I can't do a single pull-up either, and can't support my own weight on the bars for more than about ten seconds before the pain is too much to bear. I have found, with a little interest, that I can do a handstand if braced against the wall, and given certain prerequisites about weather and physical condition, can swim the length of the swimming pool in one breath.
Shape-wise I haven't improved at all; I remain vaguely hourglass-shaped from the front on and distinctly egg-shaped from the side on. I was told a long time ago that I appeared to be improving, but as only one person expressed that opinion and it has not been backed up since by other sources, I have had to discard that opinion.
So do I have any goals for 2015? I suppose I'll maintain the same goals as I had this year; the graph, plotted out and given a trendline and extrapolated, indicates that at my current rate of improvement (ha!) I should achieve the desired time sometime in July. The friend who makes me run has also proposed some changes to the routine, mostly involving switching to pavement runs from treadmill use, which I'll have to incorporate somehow.
I should stress, of course, that these goals were not set by me; frankly if you ask me, this body is just waiting for a good round of cybernetic upgrades before it's going to be capable of anything besides scarfing down half the table at buffets and then going back for seconds. But I suppose it's nice to have people think one is capable of more than one thinks one is capable of, in a way, if there isn't too much pressure about it?
Finance
My finances aren't all shine and bauble either; I've significantly less savings at the moment than I'd planned or hoped to have - my expenditure tracker points to multiple unexpected, but large, one-off or unusual events. Things like credit card late fees or having to change the car's air-conditioning system or road taxes or reunions or weddings or trips; all of which were, I suppose, necessary and some of them were even enjoyable, but the upshot of it is that I have maybe half, maybe slightly more than half, of the savings I'd hoped to have. It's tolerable this year, because I only owe my father for car payments, but even so it's late payments and it's not a good thing.
And next year I need to start saving up for house payments, which means I'll need to have even tighter control over the things; it may actually need to be a strategy for me to perform the bank transfers at the beginning of each month to ensure I've got the payments off before I move any money off for personal expenditure. I don't think I have much of a reputation for being a spendthrift, but my expenditure tracker seems to argue otherwise.
So, goals for 2015? None really. I don't expect the Malaysian ringgit (and hence my buying power) to strengthen at all, and in fact it's been on a steady depreciating trend for the past goodness knows how many years and accelerating. I suppose I'll be satisfied just to get my payments up to date and have a little left over for personal enjoyment.
Work
I've been promoted to full Engineer position, and have gone through several training courses; in fact I've been in one for the past two days. It's somewhat satisfying, though it's not everything I'd like it to be. My time is still too much used on paperwork, and the move towards a fully electronic system for some documents is sometimes something of a source of distraction for me. I'm also dissatisfied with the turnover rate of people in a particular position; it's a somewhat intellectually demanding position, but at the same time requires the employee to perform repetitive tasks over long periods and possibly wok shifts, which mayn't be the most cohesive of job requirements. We've gone through nearly twenty people in it in the last few years.
I'd also like to be more certain of my own competence; my degree is unrelated to the work I do, and three years later it still rankles me slightly to think that if I ever wanted to change jobs, I would have no paperwork other than internal training documents and these assorted training courses' certificates of attendance or achievement. Of course, I could probably hold my own in an interview or through a probation period; but the lack of proper qualifications (so to speak) is something of a thorn, even if only a minor one.
Beliefs
I'm... not very much of a religious person, I suppose, at least not now; it could be that I'm generally too cynical and pessimistic about the things I can see to really properly trust in the God I can't see, hear, touch, etc. Of course there's the parts about being able to hear Him through His Word, see Him through other people or His actions, and things like that; but they seem too much like self-convincing and psyching oneself up to be, well, properly there.
There are other issues in it, too, of course; there's a part in Discworld where Granny Weatherwax notes that if you believed, really believed, in a God who loved like a mother and protected like a father, who made all and loves it all and hates evil - then you'd have to live like it, and you'd also have to hate evil wherever you found it and so on. And there are other things in it too; hard things like accepting painful change and the nature of God as forge-fire and ruling lion and disciplinarian, that go against - well, let's be honest - I'd like it best if it were some fuzzy benevolence that I could hope in to keep me comfortable. But I can't forget those parts, which may be for the best in the end. I suppose some mental wrestling is to come, if or when I ever have the time for it; but until then it just keeps getting deferred away or glanced off, lightly. It's too large a can of worms for me to approach, right now.
World Events
It hasn't really been a great year, here, either, has it? Between the planes going missing or crashing, the plunging prices of crude oil and rubber and palm oil, weird weather patterns, and politics in general... yeah. Not been great.
Local Events
Not so great on the home front, either, has it though? There's been weird weather locally too - droughts and then high winds that ripped off roofs and felled trees, and then now there's the floods up north. All this amidst the general idiocy of the politicians who can't seem to open their mouths without horrifically offending somebody or other somehow - and of course the one good one gets killed in a traffic accident while the others roam free.
Leisure
Leisure-wise... well, this is probably the one part of the thing that's not too terribly bad, I suppose? I've played through a few quite enjoyable games and have managed to get into a semi-regular game of Pathfinder, which I'm quite liking even if the GM has a penchant for surprise battles where the entire party has conveniently lost all their gear or have multiple penalties on them.
Other Things
...I don't really think there's anything else; my life really is that dull. I suppose this is where I should note that I've managed to keep my parents disappointed for yet another year by remaining obstinately single, though.
So that was 2014, the bare bones of it, off the top of my head. If it doesn't sound great, that's because it wasn't, and no amount of future nostalgia will make it better. And will 2015 be any better?
...no, not really, I don't think it will. There's a general opinion that optimism is better than pessimism, but I keep in mind the fact that it's usually the optimists who die early.
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