Most people make New Year's resolutions on Jan 1st. I always make mine on my birthday, which is my own personal New Year celebration. But before I make my resolutions, it's time to look back and see what happened in this past year. I work in an industry I love, and which allows me to learn something new every day at work (big thank you to my colleagues who have so patient and kind and have taught me more than I think they realise). I am doing a part-time degree that is inspiring beyond anything I could've dreamed and where I have made some wonderful new friends. I have seen some amazing exhibitions, conferences (Interesting2008), events (bschool meets dschool was definitely a highlight) and performances, most notably my alltime hero Bruce Springsteen in A'dam, my teenage heroes The Black Crowes, new discoveries Jamie Lidell and John Mayer (twice) who's fast becoming one of my new favourites. I completed some of my 1,001 things to do, most notably and memorably the 2 Michelin ** dinner at The Square earlier this year which opened up whole new avenues of addiction. I've met some inspiring, interesting, amazing, wonderful people both online and offline. And of course there's my family whom I love so dearly and who are my most ardent supporters for which I can't thank them enough, it's a wonderful feeling that whatever I do or dream up of doing, they are right there for me, cheering me on. If you can measure a person's wealth by her friends, then I'm a billionaire; there's so many wonderful people I get to share my life with, and so much love that I feel incredibly lucky. And yes, I do get very sentimental and soppy about these things, especially on my birthday, but it's my blog and I'll be soppy if I want to.

Life is very good. And I am grateful for that and humbled by it. And thank everyone who's been so instrumental in making this my best year ever so far. For this coming year I hope to travel a bit more (kicking off in a few days when I fly to Dallas to visit Al and the lovely miss M, followed by a trip to India late November to attend a wedding), continue to enjoy work and school (and try to balance the two), and enjoying this wonderful city some more. There you go. Soppiness over now, back to normal broadcast from the next post onwards.

A picture is worth a 1000 words. If it's done the right way, that is. I saw a website called GraphJam this morning which has the best graphs, piecharts and Venn diagrams that I've ever seen. Here's an example:

Now, especially if you're an MBA or a consultant, repeat after me: "I will not, under any circumstances now or in the future, create diagrams, pie- or barcharts or Venn Diagrams that add nothing whatsoever to the slide deck I am making. I will only use them where they make sense and help my audience to understand what I'm talking about, not to show off I've found the graph-making button in my software.'

And if you do feel the need to toy around with graphs, create one and submit it to GraphJam.

{Graphjam chart from here}

you can have with a suit on. Saw this on the tube and couldn't help but chuckle.