Dear Visitor and well wishers!
Thank you for visiting my blog site. Please note that no new posts will be published here. From January 2017, this blog has been transferred to www.redwanadb.com. You will be able to read all the new published blogs as well as old blogs in the new domain. Please visit www.redwanadb.com (the new domain) and stay updated.
Redwan
Road to Boga Lake
The inception:
It was late noon of mid October. I was working in my office room. Wahid vai, Suhan vai and others were also in the room. I was tiered of long work. Suddenly I stopped what I was doing and shouted “damn it! I don’t like the works anymore. Need to have a break”. There are times when I get bored with my routine life and I become desperate to go out of the town. This was something like that. I knew there is a 3 day holiday coming up in next week. I didn’t want to waste this vacation sitting idle in my home. I asked Wahid “what’s your plan for upcoming holidays?” in return Wahid asked ‘What’s your plan?” I replied ” I want to get out of town. Let’s go somewhere.”
Few day back, Wahid shared a Facebook post regarding how to go to Bogalake and Tindu areas from Bandarban district. I recalled that post and replied to wahid vai ” lets go to Bandadban!”. I have visited bandarban once but Wahid have visited several times except boga lake. He has become an expert on Bandarban. For next 10 to 15 minutes Wahid described how beautiful Boga lake is and how wonderful it will be to stay night by the side of the Lake. His description raised my interest even higher.
Wahid, Manik and I were planning to go to Bhutan couple of times but each time we had to think of something else due to schedule conflicts. This time it was no exception. So to get somewhat feeling of mountains and clouds, we have chosen Bandarban as a proxy.
We have spent next two days for making an cost estimation, journey schedule, obtaining confirmation from Manik, Suhan vai, Talha & Roki. It was hard to get a bus ticket. Suhan van and Manik was not sure whether we will be able to pull it off. But at the end with Wahid vai and my endless effort, we managed bus ticket to Chittagong just before the night of journey. It was fastest tour plan and arrangement with my colleagues. Even though the it was raining heavily for last couple of days, it didn’t bother anyone.
Beginning of Journey:
Our initial plan was to start at evening and reach Chittagong by early morning. From Chittagong we will go to Bandarban and without any journey break we will reach to Roma Bazar by noon. After having lunch at roma bazar and shopping for BBQ, we will take a jeep and reach to boga lage by late afternoon. We will enjoy the evening by the side of boga lake and have BBQ. We will enjoy the moonlight night from the cottage and stay there for the night. Next day morning, we will go to Keokaradong mountain and return to Boga lake at the evening. We will head back to Roma bazar next morning and by noon we will start for Bandarban. We will reach Bandarban by evening and start for Dhaka if any bus is available. If there is no bus is available, we will stay the night on Bandarban and start to Dhaka next day. If the bus is scheduled for the evening, we will take go to Nilgiri and see around the Bandarban district.
Road to Boga Lake
But things do not always go with your plan. We purchased our bus ticket from busbd.com which allows to buy any long distance bus ticket. Our transport provider was AK Travels. Busbd.com charged us around 650 per person. Our bus was scheduled to start at 11:30 PM from Gabtoli bus stand. But at the day of journey, someone from AK Travel called me around 4:30 pm saying that they will not be taking us to our destination. When I asked the reason they replied that fare was not much enough during this busy time. After that he hanged up the phone. I was shocked and informed Wahid vai. We both decided to call the help line of busbd.com. After couple of call, they picked up the phone. I informed them about the situation and they said they will have a look.
After 10/15 minutes they called me back informing that AK Travel demands around BDT 1000/ per person and if we want to go we have to pay additional 350 taka per person. I instantly refused as their demand was too much higher. I told the customer care from busbd to reconsider this or else we will publicly disclose the issue. After conversation with them, I talked with several transport services and found out that there was no vacant sit for the day.
After hearing the issue with bus, Manik voted for cancel the tour while Wahid was in hesitation. Both of them was worried about the outcome of the tour as the beginning was not smooth. Meanwhile, Roki, Talha and Suhan vai laid back to their sits and informed us that they are with us in whatever decision we take. I was pissed of with the situation but I was determined to go for the tour. I wasn’t ready to quit at the very last moment. But finally everyone agreed to go for the tour.
Road to Boga Lake
At the evening, people from busbd.com called me and informed me that AK travel has agreed to settle on BDT 800. We can ride on the bus if we agree to pay additional BDT 150. Or else we have to manage our own ride. In that case busbd will refund our money within a week. I didn’t have any other option available so I agreed to pay additional money and confirmed our travel later in the night.
After settling the issue with AK travel and busbd, our journey has been confirmed. We were suppoed to get on the bus on 11:30pm. So I instructed everyone to be at the Gabtoli bus stand by 11:00pm. I was sure that rest of the tour will go smoothly according to our plan. But I didn’t know that luck was not in our favor with this tour and lots of troubles were waiting for us.
(to be continued in Episode 2)
I haven’t written anything for a long time. I used to write lots of gibberish things once in a while. There were time I used to write short stories, short poems and blogs on different topics. But lately I haven’t done any of these. I planned to write something many times but at the end I couldn’t make it. Most of the time I can’t think of a good topic and sometimes I feel lazy to write. But today I realized I got trapped in creative block.
Creative block is a situation where your creative side of your brain stops working. This a frustrating time when you can’t do anything creative. Creative blocks happen mostly when your are stressed or stuck in personal problem or your didn’t utilized your brain cells lately. For me I think all these were applicable for me.
Lately I was so much stressed with office work that I hardly got time for my own. I used to work till late night and as a result used to start late in the morning. Most of the time of the day, only work was in my mind. When I was a CA student, I used to play different games in Facebook and in my mobile. In past few months, I hardly could get time to play mobile games. I was busy even in the weekends. Therefore, my primary objective during my free time was to sleep as much as possible. I believe “Sleep” is be best medicine in the world.
As I was stressed and got involved with different matters, I didn’t have time for creative works. Even I lost creativity in my office works. After passing CA, CMA and completing MBA, I didn’t have much of the things to study. Even though there was lots of material and journal I wish to study but it doesn’t happen if there is no urge for it. I haven’t studied for a while. So I almost lost connection with my creative side of the brain. I was out of practice and it became difficult for me to write anything. Several times I sat down to write some blogs but I didn’t felt the interest I usually do. Also there was some technical issues with my blog site. Apparently my ISP has blocked access to any WordPress hosted sites. I can’t even access my own blog from my home. This was one big reason for not writing any blog in past few months because it was not possible for me to write anything while I was at work.
All these combined factors kept me away from writing anything. As was stressed with work pressure, I had to use my logical side of brain more often. I stopped using the emotional side. You should know that every person or living thing has two side of brain. One side side is logical side and another is the emotional side. Logical side helps us to function and take decision. On the other hand emotional side helps us to think, feel, have imagination. Creativity comes only when you can use your emotional side. People live and functions by blending both logical and emotional side. If your stop avoiding emotional side, you will become a robot where you will keep working. But if you use only emotional, you will be living out of reality all the time. So ideal scenario is to blend both of the emotional side and the logical side. you can make decision with your feelings not just logic.
Lately, I felt that I have lost touch with my emotional side. So to getting back in touch with the creative side, I started to have a personal time off each day. In my personal time, I walk alone in the street or lie down in my bed while thinking about differ things. Basically I let my mind wonder around. I come up with different absurd theories. Reading books is very much helpful to get in touch with the emotional side. Books help you to feel what the characters in the books are thinking or feeling. You can create your own world for them. So I started reading different books written by different well recognized writers like Sayed Mustaba Ali, Manik Bandhapadhay, Porshuram and Trilokonath Mukhpadday. I’m sure many of you haven’t hard the name of these writers. These writers are from early period of the twentieth century but their writings are totally out of the box for the people of that time.
As I got back to with my emotional side a bit, I now feel the urge to write something. I’m planning to write on a regular basis. I don’t care if there is no one reads my writings. I don’t write for other people. I started this blog to write all my random pointless thoughts. This is exactly what I will do. I will write all the gibberish thing I want. I will get out of this trap of creative block.
Happy New Year Everyone!! By way of nature, we have passed one year. Another came to us with new hope and expectations. New year brings us new promises and new opportunities. With the beginning of new year, Its time for making our resolutions. Each year I make few resolution and aim to execute those resolutions. For 2017 I’ve made several wishes/ resolutions.
Similar to the previous year, theme of this year resolution is career progression, building network and remaining healthy.
So have your made your new year resolution? what’s your new year resolution? share with me in the comment section below.
My Friends, Colleagues, Relatives and everyone! 2017 is here! On this occasion, I’m wishing you a Happy New Year! At the end of each year, I do an evaluation of the past year and make resolution for the new year. I write two separate blog, one regarding the flashback of the past year and another for the resolution. This time it would not be any exception.
In the flashback I try to compare what I planned to do in my new year resolution and what I actually did during the year. 2016 was not a eventful year for me like 2015. From my experience, i have noticed that even years trends to be uneventful for me. But that does not mean nothing happens to me in the even years. In my 2016 Resolution, primary objective was to progress in my career, ensuring secure economic future and maintain a healthy and peaceful file.
I started 2016 with Bell’s Palsy. Due to that, half of my face was partially paralyzed. It was a terrible time for me. I have recovered a lot since then but not yet fully recovered. My doctor said that some palsy might take some long time but it will be ok over the time. Even though I have stopped taking the medicines but I often go for nerve stimulation therapy known as TENS.I’m hoping to be completely recovered as soon as possible.
I became a Chartered Accountant back in 2015. I had to work hard for it since 2012. During this 3 year time, I almost got disconnected with my friends and family members. One of my resolution for 2016 was to reconnect with my friends and family members. I visited many of my relatives and family members during Eid and any other opportunity I got. I also reconnected with friends from junior school, high school, college and university. I have met with them on several occasions, did some outing and remained connected through social media. I also reconnected with the persons who are very dear to me.
After becoming CA, I wanted to focus on my career development. I remained with A. Qasem & Co. Chartered Accountants as Manager. You must have already know that A. Qasem & Co. is a Member firm of EY in Bangladesh. Recently I have been promoted to Manager Rank in EY. Earlier I was in Senior Associate rank in EY Global. While working with AQC, I got several job offers but declined most of them as they was not matching with my long term objective. I felt that remaining in EY is the good option for me. Besides, I’m enjoying the challenges and my works in EY. I’m developing new sets of skills which I didn’t have earlier.
In related to the career progress, I wanted to have a secure economic future. Generally I have a tendency to spend almost all of my money. So I took couple of deposit schemes to ensure savings for future.
I tried my best to remain a fun loving person. Tried to maintain good sense of hummer with people. But there were times I god mad with people and for work pressure. I might have acted rude but I tried to recover as soon as possible.
My learning was bit slowed down during the year. I completed my CIMA and MBA during the year. I also have progressed a bit in my ICMAB study. Initially it was my plan for the year to got admitted in ICAEW and CISA. But later I have decided to skip CISA for now. Pursuing CISA would not add value to me right now. So I followed my plan with ICAEW. I got admitted in ICAEW hoping to attend the first exam in November 2016. But unfortunately I was not able to attend that session as the exam entry window already expired. Now I’m planning to appear in June 2017 exam. Apart from these, I’ve not learned nothing much. I wanted learn driving but it didn’t happen. May be next year.
Work pressure was extremely high during the year. But I tried to maintain good work life balance. I went to watch movie in theater several times with my friends and colleagues. I also went on travelling hill tracks couple of time. It was really exciting. Also I have visited Chittagong and India for different purposes.Start actually saving for rainy days.
I wanted to be a practicing Muslim. I’m pretty sure I have not reached that level yet. I need to work on that.
I already mentioned that I started the year with sickness. It was my plan to maintain a healthy life during the year. Alhamdulillah! I had no sickness during the year. Only sickness was the bels palsy I had. That too was recovering. I was planning to drop some weight but looks like it was actually the opposite.
Well That’s pretty much how 2016 was for me. With the help of Facebook, I made a month-wise highlight for 2016.
2016 was not that much exciting year for me. But I’m sure 2017 will be an exciting one. But during 2016, I gained lots of experiences. Due to those experiences, I was able to made lots of matured decisions.
Finally, let me share you the performance of my Blog in 2016. During the year, I wrote 12 blogs on different topics. Visitors of my blog site has increased significantly. My blog site attracted over 31,700 visitors. Last year number of visitors was over 17,000. I’m hopeful that my site will get even more visitors in 2017.
I’m expecting many big things in 2017. Hopefully 2017 will be an exciting year for you too. May Allah grants your expectations. Once again wishing you a Happy and peaceful new Year!!!
Redwan's Almost Daily Blog 