Happy New Year 2006!

Kian Ming and myself will like to wish everyone a very very happy new year in 2006.

This is our maiden year in blogging, and looking back, I think what has been achieved is quite a bit beyond what I have initially expected. For one, readership having peaked in November with a record 2,100 pageviews due to the Universiti Malaya debacle have stabilised at approximately 1,000 a day in December. I have also penned a great deal more than I have expected to write, even after declaring that I was overwhelmed in August.

Having signed up for Digi's EDGE mobile broadband service - they are having a 50% promotion on subscription fees, I'm now practically perpectually connected to the web all my waking hours. Hence, I'm writing while waiting for my flight out of KLIA, or when I'm spending half-an-hour in the KLIA Express or while I'm at the shopping mall accompanying my little one taking a afternoon nap. The only rude thing I probably have not done is to take out my notebook at a wedding dinner while waiting for dinner to be served!

I chose "Education" as a niche topic because I thought I wouldn't have enough time to write too many things given my work and family responsibilities (not to mention my too many other hobbies and past times). But "Education" itself, which to me is the most critical issue in Malaysia, appears to have way too many things to write about anyway!

Despite the new "demands" on my time, I've managed somehow to put up regular postings - which are hopefully useful to the readers out there. Hopefully in the next 2-3 weeks, I'm able to conclude some major contracts for my company, which will then enable me to comfortably devote the extra time I have to educational issues in Malaysia, not just via blogging but via other measures too. So keep your fingers crossed for me.

I was thinking about doing a wish list, but then I thought again - it's just going to be "one of those". Instead, I thought, while waiting for Blogspot to install a "category" function on the blog, I'll just highlight some of the key topics in the past year, which you may be interested to read, as a year in review:

* Universiti Malaya and the crises of our higher education system
* Private sector institutions of higher learning and their "world class" education system(?)
* Unemployed university graduates, its causes, effects and remedies

OK, once again, we'd like to wish all of you out there, a very very Happy New Year! :-)