My last blog entry was on 1st July 2015. It has almost been 6 months and I am not that proud of the lapse in time without writing down my thoughts. It is as I see not only bad for my readers but also for my mental health ;). In any case, one of my new year resolutions is to jot down atleast some of my thoughts every fortnight, if not every week. Hopefully, this new year resolution does not go down the drain as every other till date. My detailed retrospective for 2015 is below. But the key takeaways were that 2015 was an average year. A lot of things happened, some good, some bad, but they haven’t been able to satisfy me and I feel that the time spent could have been done in a better manner furthering towards my goals, both material and spiritual.

2015 started with a bang. January was the 3rd month of pregnancy for my wife with the due dates in July being fixed. In February, I got the bad news that the envelope containing my certificates that I had sent for my MBA course was returned back to me saying “Invalid Address”. I got in touch with the relevant authorities and they accepted my late submissions. In March, I finally got admitted to MBA which was to start in August. In the meantime, the office work was boiling down to boring chores and I had the experience of working in a very bad team from every perspective, be it work, relationships, etc. The first half of the year in the office was dreadful. The team I was put in was very immature and had some elements which didn’t care about team performance and delivery but instead cared about their personal ego satisfaction at the cost of redoing work and wasting company resources! This led to a lot of friction between various members with the final culmination point on me since I was quite vocal about those aspects. In any case, I then moved on to a much better team which had the delivery mentality and was mature enough to engage in various aspects. And this happened in the second half which helped take a lot of stress out of my life which was accumulated during the first half.

Since July was decided to be the due date for my 2nd child, my parents came in June and this time were planned to stay with us for 8 months. But then the bad news started rolling in. My paternal aunt passed away (@75 years) in end of June merely 20 days after my parents arrival. My parents especially my dad had a very hard time coping up with the loss. My 2nd child was born on 16th July with normal delivery procedures. Though my wife had to be rushed into the ambulance as she was bleeding from the afternoon. The baby came at 1.40am the next day who was supposed to change the next 6 months for all of us. She is a bundle of both joy but with gastric troubles. Her sleeping patterns are very unusual so we rarely got any sleep. In the meantime, my father started having low blood pressure and after a lot of deliberation, we finally had to pre-pone our parents departure tickets to leave in end of September. My MBA had started and I have to spend almost 10 hours a week to keep pace with submission of assignments and papers as demanded by the course.

After my parents went back to India, we received another bad news. This time my maternal grandfather  (90 years) expired after a prolonged illness. As if that was not enough, my cousin sister’s mother-in-law also expired in December. Incidentally, both my paternal aunt and cousin’s mother-in-law were best friends who had spent almost half of their lifetime together. Again in December, my uncle on father’s side expired (~80 years) after an illness as well. This is the only year that I know of when I have seen so many deaths in our family. Death is the final reality of life which we do not think about except when we see someone die. It is sometimes a point of spiritual thought as to how we can make the most out of our life instead of doing normal chores and passing away.

On the good side, my father’s health is back to normal, we have got a little bit of life back since our 2nd one is growing up and is almost 6 months now. My eldest is going to a Swedish school so hopefully has her future secured. We have invested in a house coming up in 3 years time from now. MBA in BTH is going along at full speed and we are almost at the end of semester learning a lot of things and fundamentals which are far more valuable to know in theory, even though have applied practically. Work is good and am enjoying with my new team. I released a CM12.1 ROM for Oppo Find5 on XDA and am now working for CM13.0 plus some other exquisite ROMs for Find5. A lot of new projects were started both on github and bitbucket. Gitlab has some interesting projects ongoing which I will open source once I reach a certain useable point. Plus I revived my interest in cricket and played quite a few games in summer with Danish Cricket League (though our team didn’t win any but hey!). Also I am playing badminton regularly which has a very positive effect on my mental and physical health. The bad part being at after my 2nd kid was born and my MBA started, I am not able to devote time to Cardio which I intend to start again this year. My Swedish is still worst than a “nollan”.

As for the new years resolutions, they are very simple.
1. Learn Swedish (carry forward from last year)
2. Finish all the different projects started in 2015
3. Keep up with the MBA, work and personal life starting with my exercises again

Hopefully, 2016 is much better than 2015. I do hope that I can contribute to the society which satisfies my soul and I am able to make my family and world at large a happier place. HAPPY NEW YEAR Everybody!