2015 Annual Review

2015 was, in many respects, a memorable year.

The financials started the year with a bang but then deteriorated rapidly as equity markets tanked, HK property prices retreated from their high water marks and the AUD/NZD deteriorated. In spite of which, household net worth rose 0.19 percent for the year. Obviously, the first few weeks of 2016 have seen a significant reduction in asset values and I will be looking at the impact on my retirement funding shortly.

A potentially serious health issue which arose in October 2014 was "finally" resolved in May 2015 (subject to six monthly check ups for the indefinite future). Fortunately the medical insurance offered through Generalli was excellent and covered most of the costs. Not so fortunately, the side effects of the medication did a hatchet job on my fitness and the distraction of researching the medical issues delayed work on other projects. Happily, all that is now six months behind me and I need a new excuse for my continued procrastination.

I completed my master's degree mid-year with distinction (the highest classification for a part-time degree) and a minor academic award for one of the papers I wrote. This was a great experience and, in some ways, it was disappointing that it came to an end.

The novel was not finished. While I can blame my medical issue in part, the more substantive reason was that the MFA experience motivated me to substantially redraft luge chunks of the novel. In any event, it is going to a copy editor by the end of January and (hopefully) will be self published sometime in April or May.

My fitness deteriorated a lot during the first half of the year but picked up once I was off the medication to the point where I was able to amble around the HK marathon last weekend (in a very slow time - even by my very slow standards) and am very happy to be back into it.

My (very) part time job and volunteer activities went as expected and I have no plans to change either of those at this stage.