Thursday, December 29, 2011

Review of the year 2011


This photo is of my family taken just last week for Xmas.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Years

Well, as you can see, I barely wrote anything on this blog this year.
Wait. Thats not true. I wrote tons of stuff this year. I just didn't write on this blog.

As per a post I wrote on this blog back in January, I got hooked on Squidoo. A year later - my first year anniversary is tomorrow - and I am still hooked on Squidoo. I have written 170 lenses (or pages) in my first year. I still read a few books, but I write the reviews on Squidoo instead of writing them here.

I do apologise for not keeping up with this blog. I barely managed 25 posts this year. Gasp, That is just so bad!!! But I guess 4 years is pretty good to keep a blog going. Most people would have stopped blogging long before now.

Anyway, as I said, I am still hooked on Squidoo. I have found some great friends there. So for the year 2012, you can expect to find me there and not here. My profile page is here under the name of Serenia.

My family have gotten through the madness that is Christmas. We are now coming up to New Years.

The state of the world and politics is getting worse. I fully expect World War 3 to break out in 2012. I am also wondering if this is what the Mayans meant when they claimed the end of the age (world) will happen in December 2012. 

That is what the world is building up to, simply because certain  governments will NOT step back and think rationally and logically about how their actions are affecting the majority of people on this planet. These governments are just too greedy to get what they want - and they dont care about the rest of the people either. This was shown by the Occupy Wall Street protest movement that started up in September of this year. It represented the 99% (the majority of the populations) protesting against the financial institutes and the banks (the very wealthy and greedy 1%)  for destroying the economy.

Today as the new year is about to tick over - most of those OWS protests have been evicted by city councils. In New York, in Oakland (California) and in Toronto. Some of the protesters have been in battles against the police. People have been injured - some seriously. Most other protests have given up because of the Xmas Holidays and/or Winter (Dunedin, New Zealand). Other protests are still trying to stay in their place of occupation and are fighting their municipal councils (Auckland, New Zealand).

The western world is in a major Depression. The economy has gone way past a Recession. So far inflation is running at around 3% (at least here in Canada it is). But wages (for those few who are still employed) are either frozen or rising at only 1%. Thus making the prices of food, gas and other items too expensive. People are being laid off from their jobs, they are unable to pay their mortages and their homes are being foreclosed by the banks. So many families are being forced out of their homes, it is not funny.

I graduated from my college in 2009 and have not been able to find work. I did seriously look during 2010 but I didnt look quite so much in 2011. I guess you can say I have given up looking - but shhh, dont tell my son. He is not at all happy with me not working. He wants me to work, so I can bring in more money for the family - purely to buy him more toys!!!!

We did make one major purchase this year. We purchased another computer. We now have 3 computers - one for each member of the family. 

The very old one is running on Windows XP and is 6 years old.
The not so old one runs on Windows Vista and is 3 years old.
The brand new computer has Windows 7 but is not yet hooked up to our little network.

We are currently waiting for a 2 Terabyte (that is 2048 Gigabyte)  harddrive to arrive from Hong Kong - in order to be able to save everything as we move stuff from one computer to another. We had to purchase this harddrive from HongKong. It was a lot cheaper. Only cost us $50 plus shipping. A brand new 2 Terabyte harddrive in Canada costs over $200!!!

Anyway, this is my review of the year 2011. I do still hope to get a part time job in 2012. I will still be looking, but I wont be making it a full time job.

So I wish all my readers a safe and happy New Years and a peaceful year in 2012.

Ciao!!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Anniversary of sorts

I just wanted to make a note of todays important anniversary.
This is NOT book related - This is a personal anniversary.
And no its not my wedding anniversary - That's in October.

5 years ago today - December 13, 2006 - I finally became a permanent resident of Canada - after 5 years of processing.

I have been in Canada now for 11 years - I spent the first 6 of those years as a visitor or on a work permit. And the last 5 years as a permanent resident.

I hope to become a Canadian citizen sometime in the next 5 years.