This is one of those yearend entries. My semester at school just ended and this year is also coming to a end. 2006 ended with some difficulty for me. This year has been life changing for a number of reasons.

I started my second Masters degree in January. It was a difficult decision since I really did not have to do this and it is very expensive and initially it was very hard but it is quite amazing how we can adapt to a change in the schedules and environments. It is almost unbelievable that I am done with half the course now. It has been a very rewarding experience till now and as I go into the next semester, I am thinking about my thesis, graduation and maybe the next steps in the course. The course has stretched me in ways that are hard to put in words: the last two semesters were particularly hard and my grades were not that great either but it is OK, I dont think that I can try any harder. I go to the gym to be fit so that I have the stamina to take the course. This is the first time I am being forced to be fit for an academic exercise.

I was involved in co-starting a company with a very close friend and while I have mostly scaled back my work and don’t really do much other than routine maintenance because of the way my friend and I decided to run the business. Starting up something along with school and work was very challenging. I am happy though with the effort and the way it turned out. I am now ready to start a new one and hope to start one pretty soon.

This year was very challenging professionally also. I was very busy coordinating worldwide release of a major piece of software for the company. It has been a big success as far as the technical expectations of the platform are concerned. Personally, I think I have had to learn a lot of things around teams, operations and customers. I have always been in operations but running a service for internal and external customers was something new along with designing parts of a mission critical platform. It has been a learning experience and I am quite happy with the results.

Some of the things I learnt in the process led me to take on a professional certification and I am quite happy that I got it since it has been on my mind to do this for a while. In fairness though, I did fail the first time by a whisker (maybe one or at the most two questions).

In 2007 though, most importantly I discovered my spirituality. It is very personal and a very few people know about it for obvious reasons. In the process though one of the things I have had a lot of problem with was humility, forgiveness and compassion. This was because of a number of things but mostly my past and making peace with it. I realize as I get older and have more experiences, these are things that I have to constantly work on and struggle with. I am not very happy about that but if only it were that easy. It is past though now and I look forward to bigger and better things in the future. The transition in the mind set was quite challenging.

I have had this site in various forms for more than 11 years now (and counting) and it is bit of a tradition here to post absolute unique visits at the end of a year. I did not do it last year because I was not sure if I wanted to shut this down. So here are the stats for this year averaged to around 90 visits every day. Thank you for visiting my site and being a part of my experience here on this planet. I really appreciate it. Do drop me a line to say hi!

If 2007 was about inside, the next year is about outside. 2008 already promises to be very adventurous in terms of work, education and travel among other things. I shed the old and truly get out of my shell and out of the past. I am starting off by moving my apartment and then I am off to new places and new experiences. Ones which I am excited but also a bit scared about. I wrote about my grant last month and everything is in place with tickets etc. I am also going to Zanzibar as a part of this adventure. I am really looking forward to being in a part of the world that I am completely unfamiliar with. It is funny after living in a place with very little sun for a while, I am yearning this. I was never a beach person especially because my skin cannot handle the sun. I am looking forward to this though. I hope to update this with photos soon enough. It has been two years since I jumped in to the unknown moved to a new place and this is one more such move. As I mentioned in the earlier post, hopefully this will lead to something long term and that sticks.

Finally, this year, because of my meditation, I discovered my music and that along with design has come to define my spirituality. You can see my playlist online. This was the main reason to re-enforce my fascination of the violin and especially because it is so hard to play. I started taking lessons this year and am continuing to practice. Playing it has been one of the most rewarding personal experiences. And here is me wishing you a very merry Christmas and Seasons greetings: you can barely hear me play because my mic is acting up but I am not complaining.

This is my first Christmas here in this country because I was travelling last year and I am very fortunate to spend it with friends since my family visited me already and the schedules dont match. As I count my blessings, I wish you Happy Holidays and hope that you have a fantastic 2008.