2009 - The New Year Ahead

It's 26th December already!!! 6 more days and we would be in 2009!!! What do you think of 2009? Are you looking forward to it? Positive about it?

For me, I would say that I would try to be optimistic for 2009, although I know that at global front, we are facing a 1929-like situation. But isn't it that during tough time, we can build our character.

For me, 2009 would hopefully be another fruitful year...

I started the year of 2008, hoping that I can cut my weight, reducing it from 86kg to 80kg... I failed. I know I won't make it now. I am at 85kg, so unless I cut 1kg per day for the next few days, I am not going to make it. But I think, what is good is that, a number of my friends are telling me that I look healthier. With more blood in my face... hahaha.. :) That's good. It shows blogging at late night doesn't affect me...

For 2009, I definitely hope to reduce my weight down. I would keep my previous target of 80kg. I know it is no big deal to cut 5kg, but to me, it is still very tough. What I hope I would do in 2009, would be to exercise more. I think out of the past many years, 2008 is the year where I exercised the least. I do walk a lot, since I rely on public transport, but to really go out and sweat (I guess bowling doesn't count), I haven't been doing a lot of exercises. Yes. I do play a number of table tennis games, golf once etc, but I guess not enough to really make a difference in my weight.

That's on weight and exercise. On professional development, I am quite happy with my career change from management consulting to product development in a human resources company. I would say that I have learned a lot of new things at JobStreet.com and it has been a very fruitful experience. The exposure to try out many new things, especially going on TVs, radios, magazine etc has been great learning. I definitely hope to be able to learn more at my work, and get to perform better, since I would be entering my 2nd year at JobStreet.com, no longer a newbie. :)

Outside of work, I hope to develop myself, in learning more knowledge, soft skills etc. It would be great for me to try out new stuff. This is especially so, as I am nearing the end of my 20s, and going to reach the age of 30 already.

Hope to build up my relationship with family, friends etc too. Since I joined JobStreet.com, I do have a bit more time, and it would be great to spend more time chatting, relaxing etc. Age is catching up for me too. :)

For my country - Malaysia, 2008 has been a huge year, where a lot of transformation happens. I definitely hope that we can move forward in 2009. A few of stuff in my wish list. All Malaysians (irrespective of political parties, races, religions, gender etc) would work together to develop our country and also be more united. Lets find our similiarities, rather than differences. It is good that our younger netizens are generally colour blind, but we hope to see more of such people. And also I wish to see our MPs can one day vote using their own conscience in parliaments or state assemblies. Today, neither BN or Pakatan Rakyat MPs are able to do that. I definitely hope to see that day to come!

Globally, we are plagued with the financial crisis, which to many, we are not yet "into the tunnel". Things are going to get quite ugly, but I hope that this tough time would help us to belt up and tighten our grips, reform, and we would all emerge a better world after this. In the midst of this crisis, would hope that the layoffs would not be as serious.

On personal investment side, I am still hopefully in my 3 main investments - JobStreet.com, Accenture and Air Asia.com . This year has been a bad year. I do lose quite significantly in my investment, but looking in the long run, I am hopeful on the fundamental of the companies. I invest in the people of those firms. The former 2 are the companies I am working or have worked at and Air Asia is a company that I admire. I still believe on the fundamental of those companies. Like Accenture, their Q1 for 2008-09 financials (Sep to Nov 2008) is positive, and that speaks volume of the company.

Now, with me having been a blogger for 15 months, I hope that this blog can help to inspire at least a few people. If not inspiring, I hope that it does at least bring across information etc to others, at least in the stuff that I care - education, youth, charity, career etc. I definitely welcome anyone who has interesting articles to highlight to me, so that I can share with more people here. Thanks a lot to all my loyal blog readers too. I definitely never expect the traffic to my blog could be at today's rate. Comparing December 2007 and December 2008, my traffic has gone up 5 fold. That's tremendous, if you look at this as a P&L. :)

And I would like to suggest that all of you start your day with Cool People Care . It is interesting to read their 5 minutes idea of how we can care about others, do something for the environment etc.

And they are kind enough to invite me to join other bloggers in asking you guys to share your comments in this post, helping to share on your 2009 plan and help to inspire others. They would be monitoring the comments of this blog too. The 10 most inspiring comments around the globe would be thanked with a copy of their new book - "Today is a New Day". You can find it here .

Would do a book review of the book above pretty soon! Stay tuned!

May I wish all of you have a great year ahead in 2009! Lets move forward!!!
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Click here to read more of Chen Chow's posts

Would encourage any of my blog readers to share with me any event that you come across. As long as the event/activity/initiative is education/charity/youth oriented and is not-for-profit, I would be more than happy to post it to share!