Review of 2012

Today is the last day of 2012, and Hannah is off to pick Grace up from the airport. I took the chance to do a quick review of year, see what I have achieved, what have slipped through... Looking back, the year 2012 was a hectic year for me. There are lots of good things that happened, and there is not shortage of bad memories. However, I think I will just review the great significant moments, and put the bad memories as where they should be... in the memories at the back on my mind :)

First, there was the wedding... there was only 3 months between my proposal and the wedding, and although we wanted a small event, there was still tremendous amount of prep work. However, we survived, and it was a memorable and beautiful wedding at the Singapore Botanical Gardens. There....I finally got married! :)

During mid-2012, I received my first class honors MSc, and proceed on to my PhD studies. Everyone was telling me that the research topic I have chosen - marine coral microecology, is a challenge not just in terms of logistics, but also financial. Stubborn as I am, or maybe ignorant, I told my adviser - I CAN DO IT!.... and I persisted!... I secured financial and logistic support for my research in Taiwan... so I spend nearly 2 weeks in April looking for the perfect research location. I got a good line-up of professors (Kench, Davy and Tang) who will be advising me on different aspect of my research, and I am confident this will turn out to be a fruitful collaboration. Will be going back to Taiwan in June 2013 for my first stage of research, and I definitely looking forward to more research challenges in the year 2013.

Work has taken another higher level as well. I am working as a tutor in more labs, and I guess I am getting a reputation for being a tough but not-too-shabby tutor :). Hannah also started working as a tutor in the labs this year, and she is enjoying her new role in school. Financially, it definitely helps a lot with both of us working at the same time. 

Finally, diving! Although, I never achieved the number of dives I set for my goals in 2012, we still had quite a good year. We finally got around to do both the GUE Fundamentals and the GUE Rec III courses after a long time of planning. Now, we are a step higher in terms of our diving career. In the new year, we have decided to take a step back from courses, and concentrate on getting more in-water experiences, especially diving with trimix. Also, we found a easy access dive site on Waiheke - Enclosure Bay. We will be checking it out, but as it  looks right now, it will be a place where we will be getting some substantial underwater time.... well, it's free and it's near...literally 5 minutes from our house!

Looking back at the goals I set out at the beginning of 2012, there are some success, there are some which are ongoing, and there are some which I have not achieved....

1. Finish and publish the two papers I have been working on for the past 3 months (still going strong... adding one more paper to the list!) .
2. Portions of the PhD research to be done : location recce (ACHIEVED), collaborators negotiation (ACHIEVED), literature review  (ACHIEVED) , experimental design  (ACHIEVED) .
3. Publish at least one paper from my PhD research before end of 2012 (DID NOT MAKE IT!)
4. Pass our GUE fundamentals (ACHIEVED)and Rec 3 (Trimix)  (ACHIEVED)  .
5. Conduct at least one exploration dive on the Blue Creek resurgence with TechDive NZ. (CHANGE OF PLAN - CANCELLED SINCE THE EXPLORATION IS SET IN FEB 2013, WHICH I WOULD BE IN SYDNEY FOR A WORKSHOP)
6. Clock a total of at least 40 recreational dives and 10 technical dives  (did 40 dives this year, but half of it is training dives in the course...thus making it about 20 recreational dives) . 
7. Teach 2 labs per week (this will help with the monthly finances as well :) )(ACHIEVED)
8. Stick to a exercise regime (not too bad...keeping it going on)
9. Run the Auckland Marathon....(DID NOT MAKE IT :( )
10. Call home (Singapore) at least once every fortnight  (not too bad...still calling home on a regular basis) .
11. Go home (Singapore) at least one time in year 2012 (not counting the wedding date!) (ACHIEVED).
12. Go back to Iron Mountain.  (CHANGE OF PLAN - CANCELLED SINCE GRACE IS COMING END OF YEAR)
13. Training Jet at least 2 times a week.... so that he is more obedient,and I can keep my sanity. (not too bad...keeping it going on)
14. Runs at least 3 times a week, so I can at least survive the Auckland Marathon.(RUNNING ABOUT TWICE A WEEK)
15. Published my personal/ work website (ACHIEVED)

Sorry if there are grammar and spelling mistakes... did not have time to go through. Happy New Year.