Our plastic Christmas tree just got taken down this week and returned to its place in the store room.....almost 2 months after X'mas and a week after the 15th day of Chinese New Year.

As I watch the last plays of the string of lights wrapped around the tree before I pull the plug, I suddenly take stock of the resolutions I made and realized that I'd broken almost everyone of them already.....

1. Lose 10kg. I went the other way and have put on 2 more kilos by end January.

2. Limit myself to a roll of flim a week. I'd already burnt through 30 rolls by mid Feb. Well....I could still salvage this resolution if I cut down my film use to a roll every 2 weeks for the rest of the year...or if I migrated to digital.

3. Not fondle any of my photo gear. THAT went out the window when I kissed my Contax G2 and Leica M 'good morning' and wished them "Happy New Year Darlings!" on the morning of 1 Jan....

4. ALWAYS put my family first before photography. That was broken on the first weekend of Jan 03' when I sneaked out with the guys for a "First Weekend of 2003" shoot forgetting that I was supposed to bring my girls for breakfast at MacDonald's

5. Quit smoking. Broke that within 10 minutes after midnight of 31 December 2002.

There ARE a couple of resolutions that're still going strong though.

I promised myself to be a more attentive daddy to Genna. This I think I've done well.....so far. The time spent on bonding our relationship blossemed with her being my top model of choice every weekend morning when the sun creeps into our bedroom and living asrea.

She really likes to listen to my tall travel tales and as my wife so kindly puts it, 'rubbish' tricks. One would be to have my 2 year old pronounce correctly words like EOS, Kiev, Contax G2, Contax RTS II, Fuji, Ilford,Velvia and Kodak. Its a real kick when I see Genna pick up a Yellow K2 correctly from my foot high stack of filters.

A more difficult trick would be teaching her how to disassemble the baseplate of the M6 and loading a roll of film properly. She's able to load a roll of flim in the EOS already without destroying the shutter mechanism. Kids these days are so intelligent!

My other big resolution would be to teach my wife how to handle an SLR well. That's going to be tough considering her strong attachment to P&S idiot proof cameras (that sometimes turn out better pictures than me with my equiptment)

Serious resolutions this year would be to:

1. Cover Buddhism in South East Asia more thoroughly

2. Cover Burma, Vietnam and the Philippines

3. Getting exhibited more

4. Making statements through photographs for those who have no voice in society

5. Actually putting down the lenses and listening to life and its messages. I'd produced a few good images in 02' but feel that in the pursuit and drive for imaging excellence, I'd sometimes neglected a subject's silent words.

Not actually a resolution but a real wish is for this world to be a more peaceful place where hunger and disease is eradicated, where children enjoy real childhoods.