Part 3 - 2006 reflections and the new year ahead

I know this is very very late, but here goes anyway. I’ll start off by listing some small yet significant things that happened in 2006.

- 1st job experience in a private organisation,

- Having the house (and my room too) repainted and getting more toy storage space,

- The opportunity to sample self-composed music
from this fella

In the area of university and studies, I’m glad to have had the opportunity to have studied a bit of Japanese, albeit it being a time consuming subject, and sociology. Also, I’m on track studying a little bit more about my interest, namely polymers, through modules either in chemistry or material science. I intend to further my knowledge about polymers by taking more of these types of modules that will somehow tip the balance towards getting employed in a polymer related industry. At this point in time, doing a masters in polymer chemistry looks very appealing after thinking about it for half a semester, and now I have a good reason to study and not just blindly studying whatever comes my way. Also, last semester I tried an old method to study for my finals, and it seems to be paying off again after seeing how my grades are the best out of all the semesters I had so far.

Another area I saw a huge improvement in is in the area of decision making. Previously, I used to be a wishy-washy person, living a carefree life and stuff. There were certain stuff that I stubbornly did not want to change at all. But, a bit of that has changed. I’ve improved a bit, though there are certain issues that have yet to resurface and have not yet been resolved. I do want to continue to improve on it though. I guess that all part of growing up I guess.

In my previous post, I mentioned something about a bomb just waiting to go off. Well, I’ll explain it here. During my pre-Net days, I used to be very active in church, holding quite a few responsibilities too. Then in 2000, I hung up everything and ‘ran away’ to another church and lied low for 6 years. During that time, at the back of my mind, I knew that God would ‘haunt’ (pardon the failure for a better word) me for it, hence the bomb waiting to go off. Now, God decided that I’ve been stuck at this crossroads for long enough and wanted me to move on. I understand the commitments, the responsibility and most dreadfully, the cost. I’ve already made up my mind already, so there’s pretty much no turning back. I’ve also pretty much seen the end… how I’ll get there is another issue altogether. So now I’ll just have to listen for his direction and I’m pretty much prepared for how God wants to place me in.

Sometime after Christmas 2006, I received news that a very good online pal had passed away. It was Jon Denning aka Pongo(136). Pongo was _the_ authority to look up if ever anyone had a question in regards to any inflatable toy. He also had acquired quite a bit of toys over the years too. In a way, he inspired me to start my own wealth of “inflatable knowledge” starting with the modern (post-2003?) toys. But overall, he was a very person to chat with. Never did sense a bit of pride in his tone.

The news came all too suddenly. One of our friends grew concerned that Pongo hadn’t appeared online for about 3 months already, and decided to snail mail to check how he was doing. It turned out however that Pongo’s brother sent the reply and said he had passed away about a month earlier during a heart operation. The feeling was awkward, at first. This was the first time my fears was founded, which is the only time you know something bad happened to anyone would be that they didn’t appeared online for a long time. This is a sad but inescapable truth. Another thing was how, in a sense, unprepared I was for this piece of news. I knew all along that Pongo had a congenital heart condition through casual chats that I used to have with him. But, he seemed to belittle it, shrugging it off as it’d became pretty much normal to him. He always seemed fine after taking his medication or the regular hospital checkups. But looking back, I realised that each time I talked with him, his health seemed to be deteriorating, albeit not at a drastic rate. Pongo always had a cheerful disposition around his convos.

When the news sunk in, I still felt numb. I just talked with other friends who knew him well. Like just... be there. I suppose it helped both the party over the other side and myself deal with the loss.

Ultimately, I suppose the people that made 2006 for me were my online friends. And I’d like to state for the record that I enjoyed each and every bit of your company. You guys are the best.