2012: Life in Aker Solutions

What possibly painted the most vibrant shades to the year are the multitude of outings with my colleagues. It certainly made my day job feel a lot more meaningful. The following are a few of those I embarked on this year.

Hiking Trips - Bukit Tabur and Bukit Saga. 

Musical Outings - Great Baritone Arias at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas; Jason Mraz concert at Stadium Merdeka (credits to Zamir Ramli).

Skytrex Shah Alam - where I somehow managed to overcome my life-long fear of heights for half-a-day.

Runs - 10K run at the Standard Chartered KL Marathon (credits to Clara Anne); Terry Fox Run with a host of colleagues (probably takes the prize for feel-good event of the year).

Jogs Around KLCC Park - Not as consistent a feature as most of us would have liked (hindered at times by rain, and work), but we still made a significant number of jogs whenever we could.

Meteor Showers - Failed attempt at catching the Perseids (we ended up playing Mafia instead which is fun in its own right), before we caught the spectacular show of the Geminids in December.

Karaoke Sessions - I frankly lost count of how many sessions we had this year, but I figure it'll be in the order of 10.

Blood Donation - I finally realised I was born to give blood being an O+. Special thanks to Zehan Edreena.

Weddings - We took time during the weekends to attend wedding ceremonies of colleagues - namely Akissha, Selvan Adhirai & Fikree Kamil.

Sports Tournaments - Volleyball, Futsal, Bowling - no great victories worth mentioning, yet so much fun!

Badminton Sessions - Something we organised on Fridays, taking advantage of Aker's introduction of the '4 and a half day' workweek. Much fun. Special thanks to Zarul Fahemy.

Ping Pong Sessions - This was one of the New Year resolutions that I achieved. Special thanks to Amy Lim.

IEM Mandatory Courses - 'Safety & Health at Work' followed by 'Code of Ethics.' Only 'Engineering Management Practice' remains, after which I'll properly embark on my journey to becoming a Professional Engineer.

Oil & Gas Exhibitions - World Gas Conference (WGC) and OGA.

Movie Outings - easily 30 movies watched this year. There was a movie outing on most Wednesdays of the year. Truly impressive stuff. Credits to Abdullah Yasin & Zarul Fahemy. There were also a couple of Movie Marathons organised by Humaira and Lenard at their respective residences.

Lunches & Dinners - TOO MANY to list!

Here's to another year of memorable outings together! :)

February - Of Acquaintance & Reacquaintance

A beautiful month it was. I woke up every morning eagerly looking forward to the rest of the day. There was much to do, yet there never is enough days in February despite this being a leap year. Now that the dust has finally settled, I am left with the lingering sense of nostalgia.. Happiness encapsulated within the memories, of the days of February.

There was the trip to Penang with Julian, Kwong Hann and Alvin - my immediate reminiscence of which kick-started the month for me. The first weekend of the month had me tripping to the south of the peninsular on a rather unorthodox trip with a primarily-Mensan group. I experienced Singapore in a way like never before, before we spent a night at Tanjong Piai - continental Asia's southern-most tip. There really is no way to properly describe this amazing trip in words, let alone photos so I shall not even bother trying. If you really want to know more about this trip I suggest you simply ask me in person anytime because I doubt I'll forget the experience down the years. There is however a niche collection of photos from the first day courtesy of Patrick Khoo: https://plus.google.com/photos/107212895984411636275/albums/5705301294624697313?banner=pwa

After returning to KL for a short celebration of Thaipusam and a few more hours at work, I revisited Singapore the following weekend with Julian. This time I took the opportunity to pay a few friends and relatives a quick visit. I put up at Kishan's place on both the nights I was there, as I spent the days traveling the island on foot and the MRT.

After returning back to KL via the Aeroline bus with Julian, the next couple of weeks were full of plans with Julian, Kwong Hann, Alvin and Ziyu as we looked to make the most of Julian's time in Malaysia before we finally saw him off at the airport on the 19th. In between there was the Mensa Heritage post-trip reunion at The Curve. The next weekend I caught the Great Baritone Arias by the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra with my colleagues at KLCC. If that wasn't enough, the last night of this February was brought to a close with a night at Alexis where I was serenaded by the wonderful vocals of the a capella group from Down Under, The Idea of North.

I really cannot say enough about each and every experience I've listed above.. and then there are those that I haven't even mentioned. To top it all off - I didn't even need a special Valentine's experience to make this month a special and memorable one. What an incredible month it was.. and I have my 25th birthday to look forward to in a few days. Bliss!