Happy New Year 2018!

Seems like it was only yesterday that I was posting about the New Year 2017. But it’s already the end of the year and 2018 is here. And for better or worse, this blog seems to have turned into a space to post my annual year end musings. Anyway, it’s the end of one year, and the begging of another year, so let’s take a look at what I had been up to in the past 365 days.

Wow, what a year had 2017 been. We started off with Donald Trump being sworn in as President of the United States. Politics in the Maldives were turbulent as usual, with several opposition MPs forced out of their seats after a Supreme Court ruling. There were several cases of severe weather in the Maldives and around the world; the climate seems to be getting worse year over year.

Alhamdhlillaahi, 2017 has generally been well for me. I started off the year in late January with an almost 3 week long trip to Malaysia to visit my friends back at UNMC. I had a well deserved rest from work and several long late night drives. The highlight of the trip was a two day long road trip to Pahang, driving up the hills. After I came back to Maldives, I had received a DJI Mavic Pro that I had been waiting for several months. This culminated in a couple of drone montages with the best being the one I shot in my island in June. Throughout the year, I was able to keep up with my creative challenge of posting on my Instagram (@dash8x) daily (and uploading the high res versions to Flickr). I completed the challenge in September after posting regularly for 365 days. Towards the end of the year, my long working hours got back to me and some old foes returned, having to undergo surgery for recurrence of Pilonidal Sinus which I’m still recovering from. I ended off the year with a week long family trip to Sri Lanka to visit my sister studying there.

Professionally, I seemed to have found my true calling at “Javaabu“. Alhamdhlillaahi, we had been getting projects consistently and of bigger scale than I could’ve imagined. And my long time friend and business partner Jailam finally moved back to Maldives and we were able to take the business to another level. We finally got our first office back in May, which was a small room rented out from a person’s apartment. We lasted just 2 months there since the place lacked a toilet and we couldn’t work for long hours. The second office we got was a tiny room in a house, which was smaller but cheaper. We worked from there for 6 months, sometimes staying up and pulling all-nighters to meet deadlines. Finally, right at the end of the year, we were able to get a proper office sized space that was brand new. In Sha Allah, 2018 is going to be an even more prosperous year for Javaabu.

As we embark on this new year, take a moment to enjoy my New Year’s Eve tradition of light painting. This year’s edition was near the construction site of the new IGMH building; Dharumavantha Hospital in Male’ City, Maldives. Special thanks to my friends Raunaq, Nash, Afrah, his wife and her friends, for helping with the light graffiti process. Hope you like the photo, and wish you all the best in 2018 and beyond.

Happy New Year 2018!

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