2008 : Year of Extremes

I kicked off 2008 with a New Year celebration with dinner at Seahorse Café in Miri with Da’a Ninut, Nyza, Yusri and Ikhwan before joining hordes of people for the countdown and enjoying fireworks display from atop Canada Hill. We then went to Thai Bar for the party. It was fun considering I never really celebrated new year before.



February: Luky, Nazmi and Syarizan (ex colleagues from MMHE)
March : Suffian, Sam, Nizar, Razak and Fuad
July: Mom, Om and Hani my fiancée


I have make lots of new friends in 2008. Most of them work for SSB. I even have a circle of friends called POK FC (Pok in Sarawak means bro or mate). They were a bunch of cool people. We did so many things together travelling, gatherings, sports or just enjoying chill out at KRP. These guys make Miri lively at least for me.



Work was great. I really enjoyed my time at SSB and hoping to come back one day. Shell really is a company that stressed on balancing work and fun. I won the best dressed award during TD engineering dinner, helped organised our 1st gas party, planting trees in a rain during Work hard Plant hard, and the will miss our team’s weekly Friday lunch.


Feb: Kota Kinabalu – Pok Fc
Apr: Kota Kinabalu - Solo
Jun: Sipadan – Pok Fc
Jul: Jakarta Bandung  - Pok FC
Aug: Bangkok – Sam, Razak, Nizar
Oct: Tioman – Pok Fc
End Oct : Qatar, first time to the Middle East, and started working for RasGas in Nov
Dec : Dubai
Dec : Rome, Florence, Pisa, Milan and Venice, Italy – With Aidid and met some new friends, Khairi & Sh. Amirah in Milan, Lang & Kasya  in  Venice where we celebrated New Year together


Istanbul Mar 2009
London / Manchester May 2009
Wedding 29/5/2009
Honeymoon June 2009
Complete Masters June 2009
Umrah August 2009
First raya as a husband Sep
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Paris Nov 2009
To have 200k in ASB by the end of the year
Australia Jan 2009
Things to look forward to in 2009
Travels
In August out of nowhere, LA recruitment sent me an email offering a job in Qatar. Everything went smoothly and I flew to Doha on 30th October to start working for RasGas. This is a big career leap for me. It provides me with the opportunity to work overseas as an expat. I am very grateful for this. With the extra salary I can afford to help my family and ready to settle down and start a family of my own.
Work
But in this year I also lost one of my dearest friends, Suffian. He fell ill in June and passed away last august for colorectal cancer. It was one of the saddest things that happen to me so far. I had far too many memories with him. And I still could not believe that he was gone.
I also met some new friends when travelling or during diving trips while keeping in touch with old friends from college, thanks to facebook.
Friends
In this year also, I have made one of the biggest decisions in my life by getting engage to my fiancée. We met in 2006 when we both work for MMHE. I don’t know how it happens, but the decision was mutual. I was excited and at the same time could not believe that I am soon leaving my bachelorhood. My family especially my mom was overjoyed with my decision to finally tie the knot.   
I enjoyed playing tour guide whenever I have friends and family coming to Miri for visits.
I did NAUI open water diving license after much persuasion by Da’a. My buddy during the training and certification was Fariza. Our instructor, Md Noh Masrakin was so patient with us. We sometime did not take the lessons very seriously and Fariza always know how to make people laugh. The other students were Angie, Han Wei and Amy.
My life in Miri was comfortable. I usually spent my afternoon after work at KRP (The Petroleum Recreation Club) with friends from POK FC. I miss having a round of pool, swim or sing our hearts out at KRP. We can utilise all the facilities for a meagre fee next to nothing.

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