What you're seeing is the title photo of "Colombo Lights", one of my personal photographic albums I created in 2016 during my stay at Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Like I said in my previous post "Lifer" is a blog on my perception of life.
Now 2016 was a vital year for me after a successful ending for 2015 doing a solid internship at a leading licensed commercial bank in Sri Lanka, I strictly established myself as a disciplined student until I finish academics, completing the bachelor's degree on Business management, CIMA operational level and intermediary level of Applied banking and finance at the Institute of bankers - Sri Lanka.
And also I set up some strict resolutions to complete during the year where I nearly achieved them by the end of 2016.
Now, this post is something completely different from the other posts.
This is about my stay in Colombo during my 1st job at a leading global financial service provider (KPMG: Sri Lanka, One of the "Big Four" audit firms) doing external auditing for 1 year.
I stayed in a small apartment in Colombo 07 near Guildford Crescent. It was very close to my school where I did my primary, secondary and tertiary education which is Royal College, Colombo. This was an idea of my parents and my aunt (My mother's elder sister) to provide me with a guide to complete education easily which I strongly disagree due to my personal struggle during that period (2015 -2016) against my personal addictions and mental depression.
But I had to go. I didn't completely stay at Colombo. Sometimes I came home for the weekends.
It was in a summary a negative impact on me.
Because I wasn't ready to fully function alone with mental depression and personal addictions as conditions that are creating more problems in my personal life and accordingly affecting my professional and academic life also very bad.
So basically many of the goal settings were failed during the year 2016. But there were positives as well.
I was able to explore many of my creative and personal skills during my stay at Colombo. But overall it was havoc.
Anyway before going to Colombo and to establish a scope for the goal attainment for the year 2016 I established a SWOT analysis in my goal attainment. The planning was a real failure.
I hope you know what is a SWOT Analysis is. You can "Google" it and have a basic idea about it.
The SWOT analysis did not cover the fundamental aspects in depth which is related to my core "strengths".
Actually, my Colombo apartment which my parents rented to me became a "weakness" and a "threat" to goal attainment during 2016 in the long run.
The depth of SWOT analysis was highly misguided due to its analytical inaccuracies during the planning stage creating many of the factors not studied thoroughly and properly based on the goals set for my personal, academic and professional life.
I arrived in Colombo in the month of February 2016.
I conducted an audit in Nawala during that month. It was a global ICT (Information, Communication Technology) service provider located in Sri Lanka.
That was my first month alone at Colombo.
Had some pretty rough nights. Had nightmares because of old scary horror films I watched when I was a child and it was really hot in Colombo at night.
Anyway staying at Colombo alone, doing 3 academic courses, fighting alone the mental depression and personal addictions kinda screwed up initially the energy and rhythm of life, I had.
I had to do exercises every day running on the treadmill in the year 2015 to avoid my personal addictions.
Now coming to Colombo broke my rhythm by losing my treadmill at home, initially which I may guess the reason for losing my academic streak and other goal attainments in 2016, which was a major blow to my life, career-wise and academically.
Now studying this scenario it reflects the lack of "change management".
This was one of the modules discussed in the BSC. in Business Management 3rd year, which I actually studied at Colombo in National School of Business Management (NSBM).
The reader of this blog post can search it on "Google" for further studies.
The below-discussed model is a tool used in "Change Management" on how to manage change in the external and internal business environment.
So I tried to use it in my personal life as well.
Now simply if we consider "Kurt Lewin's force field analysis" the restraining forces for me to not to exercise was high, considering the lack of resources at Colombo but there was a possibility to implementing a running practice in a gym or at a sports ground nearby my apartment which would have impacted against the personal addictions and my mental depression. But unfortunately, it didn't work out. I did not do my physical exercises.
I managed to establish my frequent blogging in the year 2016 and also initiated my dream blogs during the year.
My movie freak blog views were significantly high during the year 2016. And also I was able to watch many good films during the year 2016.
I expanded my hobby in photography using my father's Canon DSLR camera and also my Sony mobile using Instagram. I used Picasa as an editing tool. And also my mother's Apple iPhone 6S was also used for initial and closing photography to expand the photographing experience. Many of the photographic experiences are shared below in the following social media websites.
Facebook link -
https://www.facebook.com/dpolwatte/media_set?set=a.1107338649328406.1073741851.100001568433023&type=3
Instagram link -
https://www.instagram.com/dimanthapolwatte/?hl=en
During the year 2016, I drastically started reading many books related to Buddhism, Business Strategy, professional / career development, novels on history and a book my father wrote which I helped out to publish by doing some editing.
Many of these activities were done during Colombo at my small apartment and the "Kurt Lewin's force field theory" and its "restraining elements" didn't work out negatively in these goal attainments because of my inner core positive drive to achieve the above things personally.
Now like I said in the year 2015 I ran around 148 km (Oct. 2015 - Dec. 2015) using the treadmill.
I wanted to utilize that training practically in 2016.
Since I was busy in Awurudu Season 2016 conducting audits with my team of KPMG I couldn't participate in any event of a marathon.
But I managed to participate in "Run For Their Lives - 2016" on December 4th in Race Course and ran 5.2 km in around 36 minutes which is beyond my personal analytics according to my running application "Runkeeper".
I also managed to envision on my book project on "education and practical implementation" where I established a draft at Colombo.
During the month of March 16' to April 16', I was at Gampaha, my home doing auditing in a manufacturing business entity at Kelaniya where I have lost my energy for academics and professional life after my exercise streak got lost. Anyway, I managed to survive with my mental depression and personal depression.
In the month of May 16', I came to Colombo and stayed alone straight till June 16'. It was an amazing experience.
I also walked in the city alone at night in the Wesak night at 2016 which was a personal enlightening experience.
But after June 16' the workload got extremely high and I lost touch of my grasp again (In simple terms increase of depression).
I managed to do my assigned audits accordingly but it was quite tough and hard to balance a personal, academic and professional life with my expectations.
I managed to pass three banking subjects and several subjects of my degree during my stay at Colombo.
But I failed CIMA on August 16' where everything went haywire (Got worse).
It was the off-peak period of our audit firm where many audits were not conducted (because many financial periods of the companies which prepared financial statements are now being audited - Less significant clients - March 31st clients and December 31st clients) but still I failed to get a hold of the work failing one subject "Organizations management".
It increased my mental depression and personal addictions spiraling me into a worse condition.
I learned to make tea according to my mother's formula/recipe where she specified the amount of sugar, milk powder, Nestomalt, and tea powder to the teacup making it unique to her like a secret recipe which was only kept by her as a secret. Now I know how to make it alone.
And also I experienced much local food from shops close by to our KPMG: Sri Lanka - head office providing traditional foods of many ethnicities lived in our country.
It was a multicultural experience.
Shops were "A-one", "Nelum Kole", "Que" and "Delight".
I daily took the bus routes of 138 up and down giving me moments at many bus stands of the city that never sleeps.
Well Overall my scope of life expanded when I left Colombo in October 2016 but my personal addictions and mental depression is still there.
The work environment was a tough crowd. It was pure competition spearheading my scope on the world. (KPMG: Sri Lanka)
Anyway, it was 6 months to remember giving me a lifetime experience.
And as an ending note, I can't discard my other tenant at the Colombo apartment who is a lecturer at Colombo University.
He was a guy who studied his higher education there (Colombo University) and later continued to get his Ph.D. at USA (United States of America). [Dr. Sameera Vishwakula]Now he is a lecturer there.
He was a funny guy. He used to make this time-lapse videos of sunrise at the rooftop of our apartment making me more exposed to photography and use of digital devices.
The professional life again was very tough, hard and it required concentration and proper expertise in accounting and finance. The firm I worked was a leading audit firm (KPMG Sri Lanka) which functioned globally so the exposure was high and also competitive.
But overall it was an amazing experience at Colombo alone. It was bad timing though.
Anyway, it was a good storming session for the future.
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