Happy New Year Everyone,
Welcome to Part 2 of my ‘2018 Year in Review’. In Part 1, I covered my 2018 content as well as provided a brief idea of what I will be posting in 2019, see ‘Spectrumecons Year in Review (Part 1)’. In Part 2, I will provide a more general recap of my activities during the year and some of my plans for 2019.
I had quite a bit of fun 2018. I also did not splurge too much either. The highlight of the year had to be my trip to Alaska. I have a lot of photographs and videos. I still want to share them but I have not found the time to do so yet. So far, I have only shared my experience cruising with the ’Carnival Legend’. That post contains a video I made on my mobile phone. There is a lot to do on that ship. I also went on a short trip to Singapore, which I have not shared anything on yet. Don’t worry, I will get round to it sometime in the New Year.
The Singapore trip was a brief holiday I managed to squeeze in just before a project/business case review job. For those of you who don’t know, I run my own economics business. Quite a bit of my work comes from reviewing Government projects. The trip to Singapore was great. I managed to squeeze in a lot of thing in under a week.
I went to Sentosa Island twice. One time was to Universal Studios Singapore and the other time was to visit all the other attractions on this amazing resort island.
I went to the Singapore Zoological Gardens. It is possibly the best zoo in the world. It is definitely the best Zoo I have visited. The animals have a lot of room to roam. I am generally a critic of zoos but I believe the Singapore Zoological Gardens does a very good job in taking care of their animals.
I also spent a day at Orchard Road, which is the main shopping area in Singapore. They have shops above and below the road. I went to Marina Bay to watch the Spectra, lights and water show. I also visited the Gardens by the Bay, which are located just opposite the Marina Sands Hotel. I could go into a lot more detail but I’ll save that for a post purely dedicated to my trip to Singapore.
Getting back to Australia from Singapore was quite a stressful experience. I booked a flight to leave Singapore at midnight to get me back to Sydney by 10am. I had another flight from Sydney booked for 4pm that would get me back into Brisbane around 5pm. I planned to get home to have an early night so I could get up at 5:30am the next day for work (the job I mentioned about earlier). That plan completely fell apart as my flight out of Singapore was delayed by 9 hours. To cut a long story short, I still made it back to Brisbane but I reached home in the early hours of the morning, giving me just a couple of hours sleep before a very long day. At least I managed to finish reading all the reports with my time at the airport as well as on the plane.
I think I have about 5 or 6 posts to share regarding my trip to Alaska. I will not say too much about it but I can give a quick summary of what I did. The trip began with a long flight from Brisbane to Vancouver. I think the flight was about 15 hours. Next, we (I went with my sister) flew from Vancouver to Seattle, the flight was supposed to take 30 minutes but it was delayed for about 4 hours. We finally ended up in Seattle, where we changed some money and bought lunch. We had a quiet afternoon suffering from exhaustion from the flights.
We spent the next few days in Seattle before sailing off to Alaska. Seattle is a very nice city and great for someone a little geeky like myself. We spent almost a whole day at the Museum of Pop Culture. We also visited the underground tour of the old city. We spent some time walking around Century Link Stadium and Safeco Field. We visited Pike Place Market where we had dinner. I also visited the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I will write a post dedicated to explaining the foundation and I will share some of my own views on some of the work being done.
Next up, was the five-day cruise to Alaska. We visited Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, Victoria and ended back in Seattle. It was a truly amazing cruise. We were so lucky with the weather. We had amazing blue skies almost every day. Ketchikan was a bit cloudy but the rain held off.
After the cruise, we spent a few days in Vancouver. We were very lucky with the weather again. We went to Grouse Mountain, Capilano Suspension Bridge, Whistler Mountain, the little town where they filmed ‘Once Upon A Time’ and spent a couple of days exploring the city and Stanley Park. One day we must have walked over 15km; I wish I had my Fitbit back then. It was tiring but fun. I don’t want to get into any details as I will save them for the full posts and videos.
I have mentioned a few times that I run my own economics business. I did not get a lot of business in 2018 but it was sufficient to get me through the year. I reviewed several projects as well as updated an economics model.
The reviews went pretty well. A team of experts conducts the reviews. I am the economics expert on the team. There is a lot of work involved with each job. I need to read the full business case, which is normally unnecessarily long. I need to read supporting documents such as technical reports and appendices to the business case. I need to be familiar with work done prior to the business case, which is normally a Preliminary Evaluation.
After getting through all the documentation, the review requires interviews with all relevant project team members and leaders. Once that is complete, a report is written up and presented to the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO). Recommendations are provided regarding how the project should proceed as well as the general health of the project, i.e. what’s going well and what’s not.
I updated the cost benefit analysis economics model, which I designed several years ago. It was a very simple update. To my advantage, there are few people with the skill set to build or even update these models. Whenever work is needed, I am the only option available.
I will be starting my year in Australia but I will not be ending it there. I will be moving back to the United Kingdom. Moving country to another is a big decision, a decision that I have made before. In 2005, I moved from Singapore to Australia. In 1989, I moved from England to Singapore. My parents made the decision to move to Singapore but I still experienced all the chaos involved with such a big move.
I have enjoyed my time in Australia but it has not been the most welcoming country for my family. I became an Australian citizen in 2013. Unfortunately, I am the only member of my family that could become a citizen. It helped that I worked for the Government and they were able to sponsor my permanent residency, which eventually lead to my citizenship. Even with sponsorship, it still took me eight years to become a citizen. My sister is still not an Australian citizen, even though she moved here the same time as I did. Her citizenship application is currently being reviewed. The constant rule changes and very long processing times has made migrating very difficult.
It is far more difficult for both my mother and brother. Last time I checked, there was a permanent visa that my mother could apply for but that would cost over AU$50,000. We were strongly considering this option until we found out that my brother would not be able to migrate because he has Down syndrome. The reasons provided by immigration were based on the costs of his expected healthcare. It did not matter that I said I would agree to pay for any of his medical expenses. We gave up our battle with immigration a few years ago and we agreed we would return to England.
My mother and brother have been living in England for about 10 years. She is getting older and looking after my brother is becoming more difficult. Her legs are not as good as they used to be and she requires an operation to get them fixed. As Australia, is not going to be a long-term option and my mother’s declining health. I have decided to leave Australia and return to the United Kingdom. I can confidently say that this will be happening in 2019.
It will be sad to leave Australia. There is a lot a love about Australia. There is also a lot to dislike as well. The number one problem is the Government. The problems go far beyond bad immigration policy. I have written about it in several posts, you can find them at the bottom of this post in my collection of works. My ‘darkside of economics’ series has plenty of examples.
Departing Australia and moving back to the United Kingdom is both sad and exciting. Sad to leave Australia but I am excited to be reunited with mother and brother as well as about arriving in Britain during the Brexit year. It could be the worse time to arrive or possibly the best. The Pound is a little weaker and property prices are down a little as well. I am also not sure how I will establish my business in the UK either. I will probably look at opportunities to work for a university or college. I will continue my adventures on Steem. I still aim to become a full-time Steemian at some point, I can make this commitment once Steem has significantly increased in price (There are no guarantees but I am confident prices will increase when Steem receives more exposure).
Other than the big move, I don’t have any other travel plans for 2019. If SteemFest 4 is in Europe, there is a good chance I will show up. Living in Australia made it very difficult to attend the event in Krakow.
This brings me to the end of my review of my 2018 and insight into my 2019. I hoped you enjoyed both posts. I wish everyone a happy New Year. We have some wild times ahead.
If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These posts will be updated frequently.
