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Right to left 2024, a life poetry edition

Inspired by the poem that I improvised at this year’s NY Walk with HL and HY:

Decisions, decisions A fork in the foggy road Towards the practical plan Or towards the path of curiosity

It’s not just a decision that I have to make Between this and that  But a series of actions I have to decide to take Pass that first fork first

On the last day of 2024 I was panicking What have I done for myself that is not work related? Why do I feel guilty working on work  Rather than working on myself

Where does my motivation in life come from? I’m not one that starts a revolution While I’m good helping others in theirs I’m not so good at helping myself

If I had a stronger internal battery  to do things just for me I won’t settle for less, when the thing that I want to do  does not in any way shape or form affect others Can I be more “selfish”?

But, no one will be inconvenienced if I don’t go to grad school  No one is depending on me to do that The only thing that I may perhaps suffer from Is Ahma’s potential neglect and life regrets 

But the question for Ahma remains What does she want to do with her life? She has never given me a precise answer  But a general direction A high-level preference An “if possible, can we please…”

Go to places where I contribute to things greater than myself  While pursuing all my curiosities about things  Finding harmony in the world and people around me?

She said, maybe let’s try anthropology I find this subject fascinating I don’t know if I’ll enjoy it But, never try, never know

For most things in life she’s curious about I’d give in to her Her curiosity in things were so far easily satisfied Just try you’ll know… most of the time  She just needs to go to the library Look it up online Book a trip Try a new flavour

But this time it’s different  It’s not just a one-action thing There are so many steps and so many unknowns This is a path of winding fog Requiring some sacrifice and time and a lot of money (immediate and future)

Uncertain, ambiguous, risky Out of comfort zone

But ahma is not scared of ambiguity She likes figuring things out Climbing the career ladder is never my intention  It’s just par for the course

If I don’t do anything drastically different Life would be comfortable and stable But staying on this course on the default Means every year at this time of the year Ahma would come back and bug me Are we going to do this yet?

I need to give her an answer Ok let’s do this.

This year let’s not get distracted by work Instead of giving work 120 percent let’s just do 80 And let’s tune up this grad school prep project

Next, let’s define what progress is So that ahma will be happy next year with my report card She wants to see I’ve made more progress this year than last That I’m more certain of which grad school I’ll be applying to And talked to people in the field for advice about it Got clarity of my next steps and timeline to get there 

Doesn’t matter how long it might take, but at least know how long it might take

What if, I’d get distracted by work again and forgot? Nooo… I need to create a backlog with sprint review Spend 30 minutes every morning and give it all I’ve got

Yes, I should block my work calendar for it

—-

(Note: “Ahma” is the friend inside of me, personifying the person I’ll become in my silver years. I need to be responsible for her sake if not for mine)

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Right to left, 2024… ("Books" edition)

The 2024 Year In Review is here.

Okay I’m not going to deny I’m a thorough book nerd (apparently I’m in the top 27 percentile of NLB’s readers this year) So I’m going to try providing commentary according in books I’ve read throughout the year, since NLB has so conveniently compiled my book loans data in a neat little package for my review.

This is an overview of the books I borrowed from the library this year. But note that I did not in fact finish all of them. I’ve attempted reading “Improvise” twice as you can see above, but in both loans I gave up. My theory is because learning about improv is much harder through reading than actually attending a in-person course on it.

I borrowed “Creativity Inc” twice this year (it’s a super thick book that I couldn’t just finish in 3 weeks without rushing through). And in fact it’s actually a re-read from long ago. I first read this book when i was a much younger designer without much work life experience, but back then it provided me some insight about what it means to work in a good company that values how culture impacts their creative teams.

But reading this book this year hits different now that I’m sort of in a leadership position in a team of creatives. I now find the challenges that Catmull talks about pretty relatable, and took notes seriously on how Pixar tried addressing them over the years. It also reminds me that even such a remarkable company like Pixar are made up of very human problems we all face at work. And that is always the trickiest thing that takes time to fix and iterate.

I will comment on the genres I’ve been reading this year later in this post but what I’ll say here is that usually when I’m reading, most likely the subject I seek out might be correlated to something happening in my life.

The Chinese language books on the list are books I borrowed for my parents. Somehow I was hoping that problems in the family could also somehow be fixed if only we equip ourselves with the skillsets (and books) to do so. I passed the books to them, but whether they read it, I have no idea. As you can see, interpersonal communication skills is an issue within my family I would like us to fix.

I also borrowed the “Dummy’s guide to Anthropology” (twice!), in an attempt to kickstart my research about the field this year. But alas, to date, I still haven’t finish the book as it fell to the wayside to more distracting work-related books. I was reflecting on this matter with my friend HL, and came to the conclusion that perhaps “I don’t want it enough”. (More on that later)…

(Interesting chart but I wish it also included December’s data. I would probably see a consistent record at least reading 2 books per month)

With regards to media type, I used to be a lot more into audiobooks but I’ve realised that listening to audio allows to me speed through content casually, but more difficult to actually remember and absorb the content. So I’ve switch my preference to physical books. I still listen to a lot of podcasts casually (for the record, according to my Spotify Wrapped, I’m one of the top 0.5% of Business & Technology podcast listeners in 2024, eeks 😅) but seems like recently my more formal learning style would be through book text.

So it seems that in recent years I’ve been reading a lot of Business/management-related books. As I’ve mention earlier I have a tendency to consult the Book Gods to gain insight into problems I’m facing in life (am I a nerd, or am I just Hermione Granger? 🤣). And seems like this is a year of work problems.

Ever since I started this leadership role, the kinds of problems I have to deal with seems like a lot more annoying corporate life bullshit. I didn’t expect that I’ll ever get myself into this situation when I was a young aspiring designer, but here we are.

Moving away from my rant, for my favourite NLB read of the year, I'm about to succumb to recency bias to say it's this one I'm finishing now:

Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems (by Wendy Smith, Marianne Lewis)

I first heard of this book probably via a podcast (of which, I can't recall now). Combining theories from polarity thinking, systems thinking, organisational development, this book provides accessible and practical examples on how to navigate complexities and difficult choices in life, relationships, work, society. And shows us that we don't always have to get stuck in the mindset of compromise and trade-offs.

I particularly liked a quote that mentioned when faced to choose between black and white, instead of settling with a murky grey solution, we should try to achieve true balance of yin & yang, the best part of of both values. I always get a kick seeing the merging of Western thinking and Eastern schools of thought.

Just one more notable mention...

Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time (by James Suzman)

I really enjoyed this one. Very fascinating data and insights from history, anthropology, human geography, economics. For example, do you know that the original wealthy people of the human race were actually hunter gatherers of the prehistoric times? It totally flips the script on how we modern people think about wealth and status and the theory of "bullshit jobs". I've always sort of viewed rich people with suspicion (are they really happy?) and this book has provided evidence that further affirms my feelings somehow.

But you know what would be fun? To see how my tastes in books have changed over the years. I think last year I had more variety in my diet of books. Although my main staple are pretty much still work-related, I wish I read more fiction. Perhaps a New Year resolution for 2025...

...

Not book-related but a bonus media mention: My 2024 Spotify Wrapped

So Nikol Bokova is my top Spotify artist of the year. I screenshot this to my Prague colleague, Jan, announcing that his wife is my top musician of 2024 and he was so delighted haha. She has just release 2 more albums recently too.

I realised this post has been all about books and is getting too long. I shall continue reflection on my general life stuff in the next post (TBC!)

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36 is just tripling 12 years olds

So it’s time of the year again to acknowledge my short insignificant mortality in the world. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly significant to myself and my loved ones. But i mean just, insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, considering the world is bazillion years old, and we humans only started hanging around in the last 75,000 years or so.

As usual, I’m wishing for world peace. But I don’t know if my wishes are having any effect on the world at all, because it seems I’m seeing bad news happening every week. Is the world getting better or worse? I’m not sure. Maybe I just have to look hard enough.

So how is life like at 36 for me? I must say I’m doing pretty ok. I’ve got a nice cushy job that is interesting and challenging enough for me. Nice colleagues, and room for growth.

I’m just getting a little bit antsy sometimes because I’ve told my friends that someday I wanna go to grad school to study Anthropology. And now my friends keep asking me, so when are you going to quit? This is what happens when you tell people things… they keep you accountable to your words. It’s nice to have friends like that.

On the other hand, I’m not sure if I’m doing it because people expects me to do, and if I’m doing it to please them or myself? I think people want to see me happy and fulfilling my dreams. But it’s not like I am not happy right now either. I am quite content with my current life, and I have no major regrets if I were to die a plane crash.

Perhaps… that’s just the expectations of modern society. One always needs to have a goal to strive for, to reach for something more or different. And me standing still, being me, unchanging, and happy? That’s not, normal.

Do I have to worry about something missing in my life? Or will others worry for me? And will my people-pleasing self starts succumbing to their worries for me to then start worrying about myself? Nah, that’s just silly.

I think at the ripe old age of 36, I should know better.

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Reflections and Intentions 2023

It’s time for another year to round up and looking like it’s going to be a surprisingly longwinded one (I just have a lot of thoughts today ok?) Here we go…

💰 Financial Health:

So when I turned 35 this year, I thought, oh yeah, here’s a milestone because that’s when the government finally decides I’m old enough to get my own singles flat. And I thought, ok it’s a prudent thing to do, so why not? But then after going through the motions of applying for a BTO I realised that my current income doesn’t actually allow me to queue for one. And as for resale HDB, after doing some calculations, I realised it actually doesn’t make sense for me financially right now because of my intentions to go to grad school in the near future. (Thanks to CT, my financial advisor, who schooled me on the basics of financial literacy and ran through my options with me.)

I also started paying a bit more attention to my investments and spending that I started my own Excel spreadsheet to record stuff. I even applied a new bank account for my salary so that I can earn more interest. It’s still a bit of a headache for me to look at numbers but I think it’s good progress.

For next year, now that I have a goal of saving up for grad school in mind, I intend to keep up my habit to tracking my finances and see where I can optimise. But I also want to be more generous and see how I can treat my parents and family to more nice dinners or chip in a bit more for household spendings.

📚Favorite reads:

Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers (by Sheryl Cababa) - I’ve been looking up different courses and books on systems thinking for the past couple of years, this is the first time I’ve encountered a comprehensive take on contextualising this skill for designers and product people. Very accessible and plenty of examples illustrating the different concepts and system archetypes.

I hope more designers understand patterns of complex systems so that instead of incentivising quick fixes, we will be more aware how our solutions today impact the whole system over a longer time scale. I did a sharing session on this topic with my colleagues, I hope it would at least trigger some curiosity for some of them to learn more.

The Advantage (by Patrick Lencioni)

I read a bunch of Patrick Lencioni’s books on organisational health for work (The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Death by Meetings, Silos and Turf Wars etc) and taking notes while sighing a lot in recognition. Through these books I realised why it is such a red flag when your leaders do not engage in conflict often enough, and why it’s so important to have clearly articulated vision and goals, and how to have the right meetings in the right frequency to to discuss the right things.

The Singapore Synthesis: Innovation, Inclusion, Inspiration (by Ravi Menon)

A book that surprised me was The Singapore Synthesis which made me rethink about what it takes to build and run a nation, as well as new ideas and theories on how to make it sustainable in the long-term. It made me grateful to have smart people in our country researching and thinking about such things.

Next year, I intend to read more fiction – to re-stimulate my brain for imagination, relaxing it, and distract myself from too much work-related thoughts. I also want to read more social science and anthropology-related books, just to warm myself up mentally and intellectually for grad school.

🎓 Grad school prep

This year I took an impromptu solo trip to Croatia to study the anthropologists in their natural habitat – in research conferences apparently? I’ve never been to Croatia before, so it was a surprising trip even to myself, to hop onto 3 planes and a ferry over 30hours to get to a remote island. My parents thought I was going to a cult gathering and kept trying to dissuade me on my way to the airport. That was funny, but the lesson is, never to show them event website that looks suspiciously worded in Chinese translation.

I did take my time to scout around online for what subjects I would like to take my masters in and tried to imagine what kind of life it having a master in those disciplines would lead me to. I don’t mind leaving the design industry if it meant I would be able to work on something even more interesting with my life.

For next year, in order to warm myself up for academic work, I’ve decided to embark on a little personal research study just for the fun of it..

And hopefully by the end of the year, perhaps after a taste of research work, and some self-study, I will be able to decide if going for an Anthropology masters is right for me.

💼 Work:

At work, at some point, I felt almost ready to leave after setting up some processes and seeing the team dynamics improving a lot this year, with a bit of intervention. Looking back at my work journal this year, I realised a lot of the frustrating parts came from unclarity of goals from the leaders, and their inability to communicate and align their agendas (ego is the enemy). And I found out that these dysfunctional patterns unfortunately were cascaded down from the leadership levels above. Setting up systems and rules from an operations perspective helps with that, along with a lot of herding cats and 1-1 coffee sessions to figure out how to connect the dots.

I also suddenly became a manager of 2 new colleagues towards the end of the year. I had been wanting to start a team of my own for a while but for most part of the year it didn’t seem possible because of the headcount freeze. It’s been an emotionally draining issue for me – I was almost giving up on that and counting on just settling what I wanted to do for the team before leaving for my studies.

Now that these 2 have just transferred over from other teams, I feel like a new parent. I decided that it would be good for both them and me if I would stay just a while longer to stabilise this new function. I’m worried that they would have no one to guide them on what to do, or look out for them on their new journey as a designops practitioners. For me, I think it would be a good opportunity for my personal growth as well.

I also became more aware of mental health issues this year. There was a young colleague that took their own life this year. A few of our Singapore team members were quite affected by this, as this was something none of us were prepared for and know how to respond to. It was even hard to talk about… what is appropriate or taboo or just not HR-compliant. So much grey area to navigate.

Mental health issues at the workplace is much more important than I used to pay attention to. I’m not sure is it just the media surfacing these topics more prominently these days but I started noticing that everyone is suffering from something to a certain degree. Everyone has their “stuff”. Now that i have taken on the responsibility of being a people manager, this is something I have to be more mindful about. It’s a bit unnerving that I might do or say something wrong that could hurt or cause undue mental stress to someone. The other side of the coin is also not to treat people like helpless snowflakes. How can I help people become more mentally-resilient and develop their own self-compassion and boundary-setting habits?

I’m grateful that our company offers private counselling to those that needed it, as well as paid subscriptions to apps and resources to help us navigate difficult situations both at work and personally. Not many people have access to such resources on their own.

My intentions at work next year is to stabilise this Ops team up as much as possible so that they would be ready go on supporting the team without me. This means teaching them what I know, where to find help for things we don’t know, and who to reach out to for things that need coordination. Encouraging them form their own internal network of relationships and build up their “street cred” so that people start looking for them rather than reaching out to me.

There are many potential initiatives that I still find exciting to explore and experiment with, but we definitely need resources for it to be done properly. I will need to be more thick skin next year, ask my bosses for what I need. The risk I have to be mindful of is being too hands-on myself just because I want to see things move (and I still find the work too fun to just let others do it). But I have learn to set clear directives and do the work through others if I ever want to leave this team.

🧐 Courses and Learnings

“Middleness”: I completed another 3-day course at Common Ground by Shiao Yin, which as always, was excellent and worth every penny. It was about how to lead effectively as “middles” and all about seeing our power as part of the system and practicing integration from the position of top, middle, ground.

“Mindset Privilege”: Another thing that made an impression on me this year was about the concept of “mindset privilege” coined by Simon Sinek. The idea that there are some people whom no matter what life serves them, they can always take it with a smile and find ways to work things out. And conversely the less privileged person without this mindset, always has something to complain or feel helpless about, even if they have so much resources available to them, but somehow they cannot get themselves out of that state of feeling stuck. I always thought mindset is something we can change, but if it’s really a privilege does it mean some people are just lucky to have had the opportunity in their life to develop it? And that we should be empathise that not everyone can just unstuck themselves easily because they haven’t had the opportunity to develop such mindset? Food for thought. Anyway here’s the video interview: https://youtu.be/NcaQUH2K-wo?feature=shared

🎖️Wins

Doodlegram fundraiser: I’m quite happy with my ability to raise $1000 so quickly this year with my “doodlegrams” on Instagram for Hui Ying’s #1000GUIConnections fundraising program. I drew 20 pictures of friends and acquaintances, and sent the prints to them via snail mail for $50 each. Even though I’m no longer as active as a GUI volunteer as I was used to these days, that was a fun little thing that I’m proud to be involved.

Meditation: In bid of trying not to lose my momentum from the retreat last year, I wanted to keep up my meditation practice. But I knew I would have challenge doing it on my own time hence I decided to join a group. I’m proud to say that this year I’ve managed to keep my Friday evening discipline of going to group meditation almost weekly. Even tho 80% of the time sitting there, my mind was filled with work thoughts, or what to eat for dinner, at least I show up. And that’s enough. Sadhu sadhu sadhuuuu… 😄

Pod Pilot: At work, one of my proudest achievements was to convince the entire XD team to try out the Pod Model pilot experiment, where they had to commit actual time and resources to work together and serve our customers more holistically. Moving ourselves out of the product teams, into a more strategic position on the decision tables.

It took us months of preparation and negotiations within ourselves as well as the stakeholders from different divisions. This was also probably a scary move for many of the team members in the pilot who hasn’t experienced this way of working before, and we had to provide them with a lot of support from all directions. 6 months in, we are beginning to see some encouraging results from the outcomes of the experiment.

For next year, my goal is to strengthen this initiative by providing more leadership and strategy training for the team members who want to be part of future pods, as well as focus on setting up the right conditions for our future pods to be successful.

⛈️ Headwinds and challenges

Taking things down a notch: Last year I told myself that I should take things a bit easier at work because I’ve been a bit of a workaholic. I’ve failed. Who knew that to set up self-sustaining systems at work requires taking things up a notch, putting in more upfront effort? I also let myself get sucked into unnecessary work because I didn’t have the courage to delegate or ask for help. I expect that this pattern will continue next year unless I consciously keep track of my end goal of having this team run fine without me.

Familial disharmony: This year there was bit of drama that caused my family some stress. I tried to play a mediator so that things wouldn’t escalate, but I still haven’t convinced them talk things out in a healthy way. Although the meditation and Buddhist practice my parents started has helped them calm down a lot recently, but still I hope that one day they can set themselves free from all these needless expectations they have of themselves and their adult children. On the bright side, this could perhaps become the beginning of our family’s coming-of-age story.

World is in bad shape: There are wars and violence that broke out this year, bad news and unrests everywhere. Polarising politics. Climate change and the lackluster commitment by the G20 countries to do anything about it. Inflation and GST hikes. Mass layoffs from big and small companies alike. Gen AI disrupting many industries and our livelihood and posing long-term existential threat to humankind. Gosh, it’s difficult to feel hopeful for the future every time I tune in to the news. But we cannot let all these overwhelm us. On days like these, I’ll have to focus on the present moment, and remember Ajahn Brahm’s story of the dangerous snake pit – “Mmm… delicious 🍯!”

👣 Onward 2024

I’ve already sprinkled in what I want to do/improve in different aspects of my life next year. Theme of the year 2024 will be… (drumroll)… “Wholeness”.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Finding Common Ground podcast this year, and one of the questions they always ask the guests at the end is, what does being “whole” mean to you? Their different answers were always insightful.

For me, it just means to feel ok. I hope people around me will find ways to discover or rediscover parts of themselves that got lost, dropped, broken, or hurt along the way. I hope we will all find the courage and compassion to do so together, and not be bound by ego, fear, or self-judgements.

When we are not whole, our jagged edges can hurt people. But we can learn to piece ourselves like jigsaw puzzles so that we can feel whole together. When we are all whole, we can make the whole even wholier!

It’s 12am and officially 2024 now. Cheers to the new year.

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1 more day to being 35. Hurray!

And that means I can finally apply for a BTO! At least in the Single Singaporean context!

The BTO thing is not really a milestone that I care about that much but everybody and their aunties want me to do it, so i thought, eh, why not? And apparently I could also choose to go the "sales of balance" or "resale" route so that I can get a flat sooner. But I'm not that much in a rush to move out of my parents' home, so I figured I can probably wait that 3-5 years for that BTO to be completed. There are probably people in more dire need of a place to stay than me.

And if i'm being honest, acquiring, renovating, and maintaining a property sounds like just a whole lot of meaningless chore to me. (It's a safety net. It's a safety net. It's a safety net...)

Meanwhile things at work are getting interesting or frustrating (depending on which day you'd ask me). Past few months of trying to retain my ETR in Ops ended up futile and surprisingly emotional. Because I'm not going to get a headcount from CTO any time soon, I've decided that maybe I shouldn't delay my plans to go to grad school much longer. My director has put forward the plan to recruit/transfer internally (my not-so-secret plan is to find someone with the right skills and aptitude to take over my role someday). And that will be my goal after this pod thing is set up and running.

What is this pod thing? It's a new operating model and set of processes I designed to address this department's challenges in the long term. It seems promising and everyone is excited to kick it off, even the clients.

So I guess the next big thing is for me to test the hypotheses we have about this new model, oversee how it will be implemented in the next few months, and if it manages to gain traction, I would finally have a peace of mind to leave this company where I've spend almost 7 years of my life.

I have to keep in mind that there will always be new interesting problems to be solved here. I could already anticipate what's going to come next... but maybe I don't have to be that person solving them. I have to set that boundary for myself because otherwise I will never find the discipline to let others in the team be independent enough to take over.

One could argue about whether this team sinks or swim without me shouldn't be the deterrent for me to go and pursue for other goals in life. But perhaps I've already accepted this as one of my "puzzles to be solved" before I complete this game at "boss level" and finally feel like I'm able to leave.

There are probably many other more interesting and meaningful problems out there that deserves more of my attention. I just haven't discovered them yet. I feel like going to grad school is a way to force myself to broaden my horizons and worldview. I'm reading a lot of books that I never would have picked up years ago, but I wonder if I need to put myself out there and immerse in the subject matter and the community aspect of it long and deep enough to truly care at the same level of passion I am at work currently.

I recognise that I could only be so invested in the work that I do because I have such a secured, privileged life in Singapore, surrounded by family and friends who provide me with constant support and care. And financially, because I have no partners nor kids, I am literally quite free of burden (except for the impending study and HDB loans I will probably have to take in the coming years). This is a very lucky thing that I don't want to ever take for granted.

A few times over the course of my life, I've probably articulated in a few different ways, my guiding principle in life – that is, if I ever find myself at a crossroads of what to do, ask – what net positive in the world can I create with the resources I have?

Something that I resonated a lot from a Simon Sinek interview few months ago in which he said, the true purpose in life is to serve people that serve others. THIS. I don't enjoy the attention of being the "savior" – there's more satisfaction working behind-the-scenes to make sure things are running smoothly for those who do the work to help others. And paying it forward is the only way to have a multiplying positive impact on the world. (In other words, you don't need to shower your appreciation on me, just show up and do your fucking job well. It's the best way to thank me.)

Just that right now, my impact is inside the corporate world. My 23 year-old self would laugh at me now. She'd probably never imagine the 35 year-old person she'd grow into could care so much about some corporate shit. It's a miracle I haven't got jaded yet. But hey lil' Evon, you're still using your creative abilities to create things, but just in an unexpected setting for people who you've grown to care about. Your values haven't changed!

But what I can tell you is this – we are definitely still figuring things out. Let's check back in again in 10 years' time and ask 45 year-old Evon.

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2022 Review + Rezzo 2023

This post is almost a week late because I was trying to take it easy after my Bali meditation + fam vacation trip. This year end trip really made me appreciate the slow life where I was really trying not to overthink and over-plan. (Also, geez, what happened to me? When did I become this sort of person?)

It's only been 2 days into the new year and I'm beginning to feel tired of the super-fast pace of work life again. I must remind myself to take it down a notch, as John Green says. I'm not working in a hospital – nobody will die if my job doesn't get done.

But first, let's recap some things I'm really grateful for in 2022, in no particular order -

Gratitude list 2022

1. My parents: They are not perfect but they are always doing their best to care for us the ways they know how. I'm learning new things about their outlook in life recently. My mom is an optimist that makes the best out of every sucky unexpected situation because she just wants everyone to feel ok. I think I probably got that from her. My father cares a lot about the world at large. Although we have different views of what "good" is, I appreciate that side of him.

2. National Library Board: Ok nerd. I feel like somehow I'm reading more books than ever this year. And really starting to get back more into physical books. Although I still love Libby for its convenience, sometimes reading on digital devices can be distracting. So I really appreciate having such a great library system in Sg – I can choose either to hang out at a nearby air-conditioned library or just to lie in bed and scroll Libby on my phone. It's the top perk of being Singaporean IMO.

3. Authors: I cannot not mention the people that wrote those books I enjoyed so much from the library. Some of the books that moved me last year:

Jon Yates - Fractured: Why Our Societies Are Coming Apart and How We Put Them Back Together Again.

Brene Brown - Braving Wilderness, Dare to Lead, Atlas of the Heart (also her podcasts have helped me so much last year)

Hank Green - I don't read enough fiction so these YA books were a surprise pleasure for me: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

Yanis Varoufakis - Talking to My Daughter About The Economy

4. The 3-Headed-Oracle: We completed 2 more writing challenges this year! I really appreciate the way we kept so consistent with this habit through the process, and got to know how each other thinks. I enjoyed learning how we see the world through different lenses, having their perspectives was really valuable and precious.

5. Workshops attended: Learning new self-awareness, critical thinking and communication skills at 2 in-person workshops which both happened at Common Ground - Facilitating Conversations for Change (by Shiao-yin), and Seeing & Shifting Systems (by Studio Dojo). These courses were so perspective-expanding that I wish more people would have the chance to attend. So I'm also grateful that my company has L&D funds for us to upskill ourselves.

6. Vipassana: Renewing my meditation practice at a 10-day course, and getting to disconnect from the world temporarily. Really amazing to have the opportunity to do that again after more than 6 years, such a privilege. This is my third time doing it but I somehow still gained new understanding and wisdom this time around.

7. XD Summer Offsite: Something about work - Meeting all my XD colleagues in person at our offsite in Prague. Even though this trip was expensive (they flew all of us in SG down) it was also necessary to at least start the process of gaining trust and building connections in the newly re-organized team.

8. Standing up XD Ops: Finally given the opportunity to upstand this new function officially in the group. I also learned that sometimes the right thing to do is to actively ask for things and not just wait for them to drop from the sky. Unsaid expectations and unset boundaries will just cause resentment. This is a huge theme this year for work. Clear is kind.

Intention review 2022

So what did I say I wanted to do last year? Balance? I regretfully say I did not achieve that. I was too busy balancing other people's priorities while neglecting my own. I was reading and learning a lot more, desperately trying to get more information about why things happen the way they do, trying to get more tools that could help solve the problems I see. As a result, I was feeling quite burnt out at some point, and people around me noticed.

I guess that was what pushed me to sign myself up to do a 10-day silent retreat again. I have to forcefully shut myself away and disconnect from the external world to find out what is happening inside myself.

A lot of things came up for me during my time meditating - the past, the future, imagination of things that has yet to come, assumptions of how things came to be. I have to remind myself, all these are anicca, impermanent. Stories in my mind that arise and will pass away. I am not the same person just 1 millisecond ago, what for carrying this baggage forward? What is more important is the choices I can make in the present moment, which is to sit here and observe my breathe and my body sensations. That's the only true thing.

Knowing all these theoretically is one thing, but the benefit of having these 10 day silent protected time is for us to actually start the process of rewiring our brains and stop the habitual impulse reactions of daily life.

But still, I guess these 10 days are not enough. I was refreshed and ready for the new year, yet, just 2 days in, facing all these unread emails and to-do lists leftover from last year, I'm starting to feel tired again. This won't do.

Intentions 2023

1. Spend more time practicing meditation. From past experience of previous retreats, my self-discipline has not been very strong when it comes to daily sittings. This a new strategy this time is to join a regular group. I've put a recurring event on my calendar to attend a weekly group sitting. Hopefully, this will help me maintain my practice.

2. Help my family be more healthy. In both body and mind. My parents are getting older, and although they are actively doing exercise by themselves, I think they would also benefit from learning Vipassana and begin the reduce their mental burden of growing old (and having the worrisome baggage of 3 single adult children lol). I'm also seeing how my bro is suffering from health problems because of an unhealthy lifestyle. He too could benefit from being more mindful of his habits. It may be a tall order to have them sign up for a 10-day meditation course, but hey, I've done harder things! 3. Turn things down a notch. I know it's counter-intuitive to say I have a deadline, but I've told my boss that I want to leave for my postgrad studies by the next year. So during this timeframe, I'm going to try my best to see what things I can create automated or self-running systems around, and maximize things that can be left undone. In short, how can I make myself dispensable? 4. Continue to serve others and build relationships, but be less "bottom". I used to think that there is a freedom that comes with being invisible and ego-less, and have used that easygoingness to get people to trust me and thus get what I need to be done. But I am starting to learn that doing things this way can be effective earlier in my career, but does not scale when I reached a certain level. Sometimes the right and kind actions are to actively set boundaries, keep clarifying situations, and align expectations. Don't try to be everything for everyone, instead, how can I help others learn how to help each other and help themselves?

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Jun 2022

Time again for another mid-year check-in / "bday post".

June this year was kinda intense at work as we were busy preparing the leadership team for the re-org and offsite event at Prague. But I had a short break few days before the offsite flying over a bit earlier to hang out with Eos for a bit. She's never been to Prague before (I've been to Brugge a couple of times to visit her in previous work trips) so this was also like an excellent opportunity for her to do some sightseeing in a city she's never been to.

Eos taught me to a secret to make our legs look longer in photos. (You just have to point it a bit sideways.)

Also a weekend hiking trip to the breathtaking Bohemia/Saxon Switzerland.

After the work trip, I flew home a bit earlier than the rest of the gang. Partly so that I could have some chill me-time, esp after spending a week socialising with so many of my colleagues, my social energy tank was hitting quite low. Also because I was flying Qatar, while the rest was with SQ, which was on different schedule. (Sidenote: So lucky I was on this flight – SQ was cancelled last minute, European transferring airports in chaos, and the girls had a terrible flight adventure back home)

"White shirt party" - XDSG's last fancy dinner in Prague, and bday celebration for me.

The flight back was also quite a serendipitous encounter. On the transfer gate at Doha airport, waiting to board my flight, I spotted a caucasian lady talking on the phone with a very familiar tone and accent. I glanced up my book and only to see this lady's face masked up and wearing a puffy newsboy cap. She had that iconic Astrid vibe but I couldn't be sure, because, what are the chances?

So I just minded my own business, boarded the plane. And while loading my stuff on the overhead cabin, I looked over and saw this lady again a few seats away from me in the opposite aisle. She was with another guy who also looked quite familiar... But still, that's fine. It's probably not her... but hmm... this is flight to Singapore. Maybe...

The rest of the flight was uneventful until we landed at Changi Airport finally. Once I got off the plane, I texted Huiling and told her about how I saw someone that looked suspiciously like Astrid on the plane. She quickly replied that, recently Astrid did post on facebook that she's coming back to Singapore for a visit. Maybe it's really her, and I should go say hi.

By then I was already at the arrival lounge, taking my time to go to the toilet, then went to slowly check out the Duty Free shops to lookseelooksee if there is any cheap alcohol to buy (Not that I would know what is cheap anyway). No way I would see her again.

Walking into the liquor section, I spotted that lady was again, and this time I was able to see her upclose, and hear her speaking to her husband. By then I was 90% sure it was Astrid. So I put on my thick skin, went up and asked, "Excuse me, Hi. Are you Astrid?"

She looked up, startled, squinted through her funky glasses, then a looked of recognition crept to her face, "Evon! What a surprise!" She pulled down her face mask and said, "Yes I am! Long time no see!" and reached out for a hug.

She was genuinely surprised and told me that it's kind of weird fate that I was the one that she would bump into the first time landing in Singapore since moving away 5 years ago. The last time we met was also by chance encounter – on our nature walk at the Green Corridor, her last walk before leaving Singapore. That is strangely fated indeed.

19 Jun 2022: Took a selfie with my fav FYP prof at Changi Arrival Hall - what a weirdly wonderful chance encounter to be on the same flight. Such a great gift from the universe on my bday??

I jioed Huiling to meet up with Astrid for lunch the following Monday to catch up even more. (Bread Yard at Galaxis)

Now for some mid-year check-in reflections. Looking at my previous post, seems like I haven't made much progress in terms of achieving "Balance". But actually, I realised I've never really defined what that really means and how that shows up in terms of my actions and behaviour. So, my bad.

I'm still spending most of my time at work. But does "balance" actually mean spending half my time at work, and half in my non-work life? Or is it a "feeling", something more intangible and less measurable?

Realistically, it would probably be a torture for me to limit how much time I spend at work. I've come to realise that it's just not how my brain works. I cannot just switch it off. Especially when I'm working through a problem or just generally thinking about ways to improve things. And I do enjoy these "work" moments as much as things like eating breakfast foods, hanging out with people I like, reading a book in a quiet cafe, nua-ing in my bed while watching 荷兰村, or going for a walk in the neighbourhood while listening to my favorite podcasts.

So maybe I should just stop feeling guilty about not being able to shut down. And just embrace the fact that, whatever I do, I will just give it my all, and it's ok that my priorities can shift based on the season. After all, I've recently come to realise I'm quite good at regulating my own well-being, and never take on more than I can tahan.

My friend Chris once asked me, if life is like a bento box, with many different sized compartments, how would my bento box look like? I recalled that my answer back then, I think probably now still stands, as more like a caifan box – with everything piled on top of each other messily. All the flavours of the gravy from each dish mixed in each other... that's what makes life more delicious, isn't it?

And since I just turned 34, a few people are asking if I would buy a flat when I turn 35 next year. I guess that would be the prudent thing to do?? But I just have no motivation to start looking into it yet.

However, recently a very vivid vision came to me, that would probably not be possible to do in my parents' house...

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31 Dec 2021

It's raining outside, I've got my cup of coffee, turned on some Ella Fitzgerald, and lit the candle on my desk. The cozy mood is set. Let's do this.

Huiling sent us a very comprehensive template on Notion on the kinds of things you can possibly write a year-end review on, but just looking at the template makes it feel like homework and I could not bring myself to get started. So maybe I'll just freeform it, let's jazz this!

So speaking of jazz, I wonder if it's a sign of getting old. It seems like my taste for it have grown this year, says my Spotify year end review post thing – that and tv/film soundtracks. I've always had a healthy amount of jazz in my ears in previous years but this year I seem to have consumed even more of it.

I could probably attribute my choice of music to more time spent reading this year, not just audiobooks during my morning runs/walks, but also actual ebooks and physical books. I needed some soothing mood background music while I walk on the threadmill at 3km/h, with my eyes fixed on the book or ipad set in front of me.

Here are some of my fave reads this year (in no particular order)

Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Brain - David Eagleman

Boundaries - Henry Cloud

Think Again - Adam Grant

Orbiting the Giant Hairball - Gordon MacKenzie

The Art of Gathering - Priya Parker

I realised most of these are behavioural, neuropsychology-related books, or books that teaches me something about how humans interact with each other, and why we act the way we do. I find this sort of subject endlessly fascinating, because there are always so many a-ha moments relating to my own experience. But I am learning to be careful about spotting bias in the authors' perspectives as well. Being published in a book doesn't always equate to the objective "truth" in every context.

I like applying some of these new found theories into my daily life and work situations to conduct my own social experiments and observations. I think that's why I enjoy my work so much – there is a sort of thrill to test some theory i've just read in a book or heard in a podcast. Sometimes they go to some degrees off from my expectations, but that's how learning and experience happens.

Looking back on the things I did at work this year, I realised how brave I have become. Instead of just accepting what the higher ups are saying and doing, I find myself increasingly questioning why, and whether that's the best way to do things, and what the potential repercussions that those decisions may lead to are.

My manager was eyeing on the global XD lead position since last year, and we all expected he would get the job. He even started preparing us for the conversation of succession of his role, once he moves up.

I knew I was one of the top of mind on his list for the manager role, and tried to seriously consider it. But from all angles I knew it was not the right role for me. So I had to find ways to reject this proposal, by instead coming up with a different proposal of legitimising my role as designOps globally instead – which I felt in my gut was a more important priority for this organisation since no one else was taking care of it right at the moment.

After months of delay from the top, we eventually got news that boss was not going to be the new lead, instead, the manager from Prague got it. But by now, I knew this still doesn't change things in terms of what this org needs, regardless of who took that position up. So I went to talk to this new big boss about how having this role could help the org (of course, with a bit of patient planning, corroborating with key people, and timing the right moment).

And that's a kinda bold of me, isn't it? Is this a political move? I think so, a little bit. And perhaps "politics" is not such a bad word when its intention is to bring about positive change. But doing things for your own agenda without caring how it might affect others is when things will get ugly. I've come to realise that people don't always start off with "evil" intentions – different agendas occur because people have different ways of look at things based on their own experience and perspectives, and thus they form beliefs that their way is truly the best way forward. And on the other extreme, people can be so fearful of offending others, that they do not want to make any bold decisions or take ownership, instead, just let the proverbial fish rot in the drawer slowly. It's a safer, more conservative choice for yourself, but it's also a potential tragedy of the commons.

But gee... I'm also aware of how "workaholic" I've been this year, or ever since COVID started. I'm working longer hours but I don't feel stressed – just optimally challenged and treating work (and surrounding activities like reading, watching talks and tutorials, listening to podcasts) like a fun game. But I could see how from an outside perspective I might be viewed as someone with "no life". In fact I feel ashamed sometimes for thinking about work too much – it's almost like an addiction just like any other hobby like gaming or gambling. If I were to think about it from an addiction perspective, addiction becomes harmful when one starts neglecting other aspects of their life, and detrimental to their relationships. I'll try to be more mindful of that in 2022, making sure I won't accidentally fall into the traps of actual work addiction.

Last year in my reflection post, I mentioned 2 things for 2021:

1. Be more intentional in the things I do.

2. Be more generous with my time with my parents.

Intentionality in this case is more like a mindset. I think I did try to plan and prepare for things with more specific agendas and outcomes in mind. Sometimes to the point of overthinking/ over-planning (to the point that I have dreams or nightmares about crucial meetings/events). But this intentionality has proved to be quite helpful than harmful so far, so I intend to keep it up.

Towards the last quarter of the year I've also spent a lot more time with my mom, taking my Fridays off to go to the parks and beaches to do some rubbish-picking together. And on this last week of the year, I organised a DIY 4D3N silent meditation retreat in a hotel room for my parents. I think they were surprised how much they actually enjoyed it, although reluctant to go when I told them about it at first. I think what I learned from this experiment is, when you show that you put in the care wholeheartedly, even if it's an outrageous idea, people will more likely appreciate your effort and reciprocate.

My theme for 2022 will be Balance. No over-committing myself at work, no matter how much fun I might be having. Maybe find other activities that can help me develop as a fuller human being, whatever that means. Yes, I will take some time to investigate into that.

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The thing about being 33

I turned one year older today.

Last year today, the world was in the middle of a pandemic and everything seemed so dire. But vaccines have since been made available and the world is slowly inching into recovery. So I am feeling slightly more optimistic about the future today.

Although Singapore is still in mild lockdown again, and I cannot go out with my friends to celebrate bdays as we usually do, I feel so so loved and blessed.

Our doorbell has been ringing non-stop this afternoon as food delivery men kept bringing cakes and desserts to my door. My sweet friends had sent these sweet treats over to me since we cannot meet up any time soon.

I have received the loveliest handwritten and hand drawn bday cards from friends, and also got the awesomest ecard from my colleagues in the UX team, in the form of a figma mini novel titled "The Chronicles of Ahma". A very sweet and funny tale with hilarious collaged illustrations. I am simply amazed by their creativity and ability to come up with such an entertaining story together within a day (all 11 of them had written at least a chapter each for the story!)

So so touched.

But there is nothing much special about being 33. It's a moment in a series of moments in this life. Yet I am so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful friends and family. And I think that all these love is enough to last me a lifetime and then some. Like, what the heck??

I was thinking, some people can go an entire lifetime without ever feeling like they are loved. But why do some people get so much of it? Or is it simply a matter of the mind?

Or is it like, maybe our brain has some special receptor for this 'warm gooey' feeling? Those that has particularly sensitive receptor receives more of it, and when you feel it, you would want to give people around you more kindness. And then when you give, you will receive more too. It's probably a supporting causal loop (Ha! I've been studying systems recently).

My bday wish is for more people in the world to feel kindness and love. Then maybe more people would learn how to give it too... especially to our enemies. Then there will be no more wars and fighting and selfish politics. And we will finally achieve world peace.

I do realise that I'm 33, and maybe for some people there is no place for idealism and naive thoughts like that in the world. It's sad that the older people get, the more they are not allowed to entertain such idealistic thoughts. "It's impractical, we need to protect ourselves first!" they say. But I think if you keep looking at the world like everyone is out to get you, then it really becomes your world.

I would rather believe that people do cruel/ selfish/ inconsiderate things because no one ever taught them otherwise growing up. So show them a bit of compassion and maybe one day we can stop that vicious cycle, somehow.

Yeah, ugh, I know... such childish thoughts. But it's my bday, just let me have it. Btw, the ending of Disney's Raya was wonderful in a terrible way for the same reason...

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Relax... 2020 is almost over.

Despite all its doom and gloom, the year of the pandemic was not so bad for myself. The entire year was pretty endurable because I have a steady job that allows me to work from home, and i’m comfortable enough not needing constant social gatherings (thank goodness for my introversion).

It’s a year I burnt through a lot more books and podcasts. My favourites this year are mostly biographies, surprisingly. I loved Michelle Obama’s Becoming, and then Barack Obama’s A Promised Land. I also just finished a biography on Jacinda Arden - A New Kind of Leader. I noticed a pattern in my choice of biographies to read, and even the type of people I look up to this year. I love watching videos of Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, and Katie Porter, who happens to be members of the US Congress. 

I wonder why I’m so enthralled by these politicians. The way their minds work is fascinating. And the way they displayed leadership and compassion in times of insurmountable challenges, and the way they faced fierce opposition and critics with unwavering confidence and strength – those are such inspiring qualities that I hope to cultivate in myself one day.

One impactful event I had the opportunity to attend this year was a workshop conducted by The Thought Collective, called Facilitating Powerful Conversations I. Through this 4 days of intensive training of self-awareness and reflection on my communication/behavioural habits, i had a different perspective of what kind of potential for impact I have in the people around me and the world. Although it will still take a lot of skill and practice to successfully manoeuvre around certain high stakes conversations to get to a good outcome, I now have better clarity on how it can happen. 

At the beginning of the lockdown I was doing a lot of youtube exercise videos. They were quick and fun. My favourite was PE with Joe, this workout coach that teaches HIIT moves while in halloween costumes. That was fun for the period of CB where we were all cooped up at home. But as restrictions started lifting, I found myself getting out more frequently to jog and have long solo morning walks while listening to my auditory entertainment (sometimes I even take long detours if I found a particularly interesting book or podcast). I also enjoyed weekend runs with ahmeow, who had recently moved to a swanky condo with her bf near Clarke Quay. So we would frequently run by the river to random destinations for breakfast. So in fact I think that made me a bit fitter despite snacking a lot while WFH. 

I also learnt a bit of solo dancing to Charleston jazz music. This year I tried to learn the basic moves in my room, and that was very fun and such a joyful act that just lifts one’s mood! I’m still too cheapo to pay for online classes though. Maybe it’s enough to stick with my crappy anyhow dance moves, the point is just to dance and have fun, yes? :P

This year I also started guiding people under my wings at work. It’s a new kind of responsibility, to have juniors to coach and to care about their growth. Boss taught us (Bonelli jiejies) that to start with, we need to care not only of our reports career, but also their personal well being. Have 1-1s with them and be generous with sharing. 

Initially I thought that’s simple enough. Just hang out with them, chit chat about work, about life. What they want to achieve, set some goals and plan to get there etc. But at times I doubted what I was doing is effective or the best way to move them forward. Was I being too “nice” and not giving enough constructive honest critique, or too coddling toward their personal issues and complaints?  

In FPC, I learnt that sometimes being nice is the unkind thing to do. To be truly kind, you have to be honest and clear. I guess it’s the same idea Kim Scott touted in her book, Radical Candor. Maybe I need to reread that book again. I want to be more intentional about my 1-1s, and make sure every session is well spent for them. This new responsibility is challenging but I do find that it can be quite fulfilling to watch people grow into where they want to be. 

This year was also the first time I faced serious workplace conflict, and that was a little bit traumatic. When your team members are fighting, and feelings are hurt, what is the right way to manage the situation? I’ve learnt that the stakes can be quite different when you’re fighting as an individual team member versus if you’re fighting for your team member as a lead. Somehow things will get political and messy when everyone are behaving as though it’s ‘us’ against ‘them’. I don’t have the right answer to this yet, but I hope I will one day.

Having spent much more time at home this year, I think that helped me get a lot closer to my mum. Turns out all we need is more time for interaction. My father is still a tough nut to crack. He’s supposed to be retired this year, but he still wants to continue working. I guess having something to do is good for older people, keeps them occupied and feeling purposeful. But also as a result we hardly get time to chat. And when we do, it’s always nagging as usual. I continue to look forward to the day that will change. 

But I also realised that my parents are getting older and their health is starting to deteriorate. Recently my father was hospitalised for an operation on his bleeding gut. And also my mom got a diabetes scare after a doctor checkup. They are worried about their health and that is worrisome for me. Such is the natural course of life but it seems to be moving a bit too fast for my liking.

Of all the goals I set for myself last year, I somehow managed to fulfil this one - to write more. Surprisingly I did a lot more writing, of various kinds. At first, my intention was to develop my voice by writing about design or self-helpy stuff, so I started a series of essays (which went unpublished). I soon got bored of that without an audience. The funnest piece of writing exercise came instead from the 30-day writing challenges that the 3-Headed Oracles (with Ling San and Kat) did. We found writing for each other to read so enjoyable that we did 3 seasons of it so far. The last one we even did an exquisite corpse-inspired fiction writing exercise where we took turns to continue a story where the previous person left off. We ended up with a fairly entertaining 30-chapter children’s novella.

What i’m looking forward to next year is to be a bit more intentional in everything I do, be it at work and in my relationships. I also want to be more generous with my parents in terms of my attention and time. 

And I just hope 2021 will be a bit better for the world. May everyone find their own ways to be happy and healthy and safe. 

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My birthday wishes for 2020

This year’s birthday was... a lot. The world is in a global pandemic and having the worst economic crisis in a 100 years. People sick, dead, jobless, angry, grieving. Countries at war with each other. 

Singapore was on partial lock down for the past 2.5 months and only some of the restrictions were finally lifted yesterday on my birthday (which allowed some of my colleagues to come take me out for lunch).

Work has been intense for the past few of weeks as well. And working from home sometimes also adds to the mental strain when you’re on calls all day in front of the computer, but without the real face-to-face kind of human interaction. But when I zoom out and see all that is happening in the world, I feel super grateful that I still have a job that I love, and people that care about me. 

And at the same time, I am also feeling very troubled that many others in the world are suffering so much. So much injustice, greed, selfishness, and hate. And at this point it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel for some of these people. 

Somehow, I also feel sad for the kids graduating this year who didn’t get to have a proper graduation ceremony because of the lockdown. Graduation was a special time that I remember looking forward to. Because it’s the last time I would ever get to see my friends and professors in school, and having a final send off moment together before officially entering adulthood. And where we sang the cringey Vitamin C Graduation song and hugged each other with tears. I feel sorry Class of 2020 cannot get to have this experience. Yes, it’s a #firstworldproblem but still deserves to be acknowledged. 

My wish for this year is probably same as every other year, may all beings be happy, peaceful and healthy. May there be no more wars. May the vaccine for this virus come soon and let everyone have access to it (not just the rich and privileged). May we all be more resilient to overcome the social, health, economic, ecological and political challenges ahead. 

And, just be kind to each other.

See, if we can handle this crisis, we can handle anything! (And please let this period be the ultimate test. I’m not sure if the world can handle much more.)

“A dream is a wish a heart makes...” - title of a Disney song by Raven Simone.

A vision is a dream that a head makes. And when we align our head and heart, we get? Hope. (Heh, I came up with this myself... I should be a poet, hor?)

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Dear 2010 Evon... this is 2020 Evon. Yes, ourselves in 10 years. Omg! Yes yes, I’ll let you freak out for a while, as it’s not every day you receive a letter from the future. Actually i’ll like to receive a letter from 2030 myself... I’ll let you know how it goes.  Anyway girl, just wanted to let you know, you don’t have to worry abt the future. Just follow your heart and do what feels right. You will feel scared and useless sometimes, but you will also do a lot of things that makes you feel brave.

And you will meet so many great people that will inspire you along this journey. Unfortunately you will still not be “cool” in the conventional kind of way in 2020, but at least you are will be surrounded by lot of people who loves you and think u are in your own special way, and that’s all that matters, really. 

You/me, 2020

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2019 - Year in Review

Hello, tumblr journal, long time no see. While you were away I was having rendezvous with 2 other journals - Notion (for work thoughts) and my exercise book (for personal mundane reflections). But you probably already guessed it.

But you see, I always will come back to you because we made a pact to see each other at least twice a year, isn’t it? On June 19 and Dec 31.

So you would like to interview me about what I’ve been up to this year? Oh how kind! There are quite few people in this world is interested in little old me, hee.

1. What are your favourite memories this year?

Tele and phone calls from Jappu. Janchan and I have grown in our friendship this year surprisingly despite her being away for such a long time. I have learnt that long distance friendship is kinda fun (in fact when she was coming back home I was even a bit upset)!

Travelling with Jessi laoniang is always a treat. She is entertaining in her unassuming and authentic ways and I enjoy her cheerful company.

The monthly Kampung Sketching sessions. It’s really cool to see Lingsan overcome her fear of hosting events and now she is a pro. And to see people coming to the kampung for the first time and drawings of the kampung in so many different interesting angles.

2. What trips have you made this year and what were some highlights?

i) Prague work trip with Lulu and Claire - Snow sledding in the mountains, and going to a Czech police station to report a scam, hanging out with chor and gary after work.

ii) New Zealand with the family - Breathtaking mountain views, hiking in the rain in full gear, and skydiving over the glaciers.

iii) Beijing IXDC trip with Jess - The making of our fried chicken MV was so much fun! And eating 小龙虾，鸭脖 and beer at midnight at the hostel corridor.

iv) Boxmeer/Prague/Bruges - Business trip by myself for the first time was kinda liberating, and also getting to visit Eos in Brugge again.

v) BKK UX Savvy trip with the team - boring conference but awesome company. 5am clubbu gymmy and brekki with meowchan.

vi) JB with Lulu and Jan - making up silly animal stories, shiok Thai massage, being tickled at their new hair transformations, and interesting Grab/JB customs adventure to end it off.

3. What is the biggest change you noticed about yourself this year?

I noticed ever since taking on this role in Design Operations, I started to come out of my shell a bit more, wanting to take care of my colleagues and doing things to make sure they are happy at work. Despite being an introvert, I realised I enjoy socialising with people and making people feel comfortable. And i have also become a bit more assertive and confident in things that I believe are right to do.

4. What was the biggest challenge you had to face this year?

Politics at work busted my idealistic bubble. I was a bit upset when I heard stories of people fighting and competing with each other... just for promotion, raises and recognition. Isn’t it ridiculous? But perhaps to survive in the corporate world I have to just do my best and accept that this is normal but try not to get sucked into all the negativity.

Just stay on course, remember what you are here for - to help people solve their problems, and give it your all! Ego is the enemy.

I also learnt that sometimes my happy-go-lucky attitude doesn’t work well on everyone, and might even offend people who takes things very seriously. I need to be careful about that. But it is a tough habit to kick, because sometimes I can get slightly antsy when someone around me is in a bad mood and I don’t know why, and I would want to do something to neutralise that mood.

5. Read any good books?

Ever since I got Libby, I have been devouring new books every month, and I am learning so much! The most impactful to me this year is probably The Power Of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. And the second one is also by the same author, Switch. These 2 books made me understand more about human psychology and how to motivate people to do things.

Other special mentions are Radical Candor (about how being brutally honest and caring personally is important) and Never Split The Difference (a book on negotiation). I learnt so much from these books that I even made nerdy ppt slides to share them with my friends, forcing them to sit through my presentations, heh. Poor things.

6. Any people you’d like to thank this year?

I can never thank my parents enough for all the things they provide me, so this top spot will always be saved for them. Although they always nag at me, and never emotionally expressive, the things they do for my siblings and I is really unconditional love.

As usual, my UX family whom I spend perhaps even more time than my actual family. This has been a year of experiments and emotional up and downs. But I feel we have learnt and grown a lot together as a team.

And all my friends. Who taught me so many things through their life stories and inspiring me to be better. Thanks to them, just a text, a call, or a meetup away, I am never lonely. (I sometimes do really wonder how that feels like!)

Ajahn Brahm. Hehe, this is a great monk that I have learnt a lot from and he probably has changed my life already. To be kindful, to be gentle, to be peaceful is to be happy.

7. What were some new things you tried this year?

5am club. Exercise regime. Brewing my own filter coffee. Getting more regular in short 15min sittings. Starting a work journal to reflect about things and people at work.

8. Name some of your favourite things of 2019

Ajahn Brahm’s dhamma talks - I always thought that I was a glass-half-full kind of girl but recently after getting hooked onto Ajahn Brahm’s stories on youtube, I became even more so. I also enjoyed repeating those stories to my friends, especially when I thought they could use some positivity to help them see their life difficulties from a different perspective. So much so that even my boss used one of the stories I told to tease me every time i made a very “evon” mistake. (Mmm... honey...)

Sodastream - I bought this for the family so that my brothers would stop buying unhealthy soft drinks. It worked! Mmm.. soda water.

Janchan’s morning challenges - thats how i started waking up early and getting productive in the mornings. But that girl does not follow through to her own challenges, tsk tsk.

Audrey’s life hack for bubble tea cup - use a silicone bag! I have amused many woobbee and each-a-cup aunties when i bring it to dabao my bubble tea.

9. What were your new year resolutions last year and how did you do?

Well well well. Let’s see.

1- Figure out how to be a leader: I am learning a lot just by observing the way boss does things. I hope he can be our leader in many years to come so I will always have the privilege to learn from him.

2 - Being more articulate and assertive: In some ways I realised I have subconsciously learned to do that in situations that requires me to do so. And the trick is just to do it with humble confidence.

3 - Plan more and be less slipshod about things: Hmm... as an operations lead I suppose I should feel guilty about not working on this more. But as I have learnt from a very wise monk, too much planning is futile sometimes, and may cause unnecessary stress on yourself and others, hehe. I kid. I will carry this rezzo forward to next year.

4 - Being more caring with my parents: Still working on it. And sometimes I will tend to fall into my old habits of silent avoidance, especially when they start nagging. But I think this year I have tried being more attentive to their needs, and talking more.

5 - Continue staying healthy: I think I’m doing pretty well in this, especially since starting to wake up super early. I have more time to workout physically with my simple exercise regime, as well as mentally through short meditation sittings and journal writing.

10. Rezzos for 2020 to start the year off of?

1 - Continue working on trying to care more for my parents, and take on more responsibilities regarding household stuff. Make them less worried that their kids can’t be independent without them.

2 - I want to try writing, and develop my own voice. As I learn more about leadership and being human, I thought should document this journey in someway so that perhaps it could help someone else one day on a similar path too.

3 - I’m surprised I didn’t mention anything about money in last year’s post. That is something I’ve always be clueless about. And today I made a ditch attempt to be more “adult” by getting a credit card, so that I can get more interests out of my bank... or something. Yeah, ok I will try to learn more about this finance thing in 2020!

4 - Find a new personal project that can give me a belly burning feeling, that is not work related. Ok la, maybe no need belly burn, just a mild tingle also can. Something that I would be excited to work on for at least a couple of months.

5 - What’s that thing about being less slipshod again? 🤔

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31 Things

I started this yearly tradition of reflection on my birthday and this year I’m a few day late because I had been sick on my bday which is not exactly ideal day to spend one’s bday. But this year I have been very blessed and feel so loved by people around me (I still can’t believe what my colleagues and friends did to surprise me) But first, let me list 31 things I’m grateful for (not in any particular order).

31. An able and relatively healthy body to do all the things I want to do (besides still not being able to donate blood - dammit hemogloboodles!)

30. Being financially comfortable to afford simple conveniences of the modern world. (I can afford to buy things and going on trips.)

29. The internet - where I can get to buy things online, learn new things, keep abreast what things happening in the world, and keep in contact with my friends and family.

28. Book Depository - I’m a regular customer and fan.

27. Youtube - for keeping me entertained and informed.

26. Libby - my favourite new digital library app. I’ve been reading a lot more and listening to lots of audiobooks ever since i started using it.

25. Skype - My communication portal for the nightly konbanwas with Ling-san.

24. Telegram - My communication portal for all the morning ohaiyos with Jan-chan.

23. The GUI web and digital marketing team - we’ve been meeting almost weekly to work on various things and it really feels great to be part of something and working hard together as volunteers. Even though we sometimes don’t really know what we’re doing, it’s heartening to see our efforts going into something good. Even though the future for GUI is uncertain, we hope to keep this kampung spirit going strong to impact as many people as we can.

22. Medium - An essential source of learning on various design and industry best practices. I probably owe much of my career to this blog publishing site.

21. Coffee - This year I developed a preference for black coffee. Lulu said only psychopaths drink coffee black with no sugar. I beg to differ. Or am I psycho?

20. Wireless bluetooth technology - I love my cheap $20 earphones from Lazada. I wear it to exercise at my aunty gym corner downstairs while listening to podcasts. And I wear it on my commute. It’s an any-purpose kind of earphones.

19. Long walks - I love walking around the neighbourhood by myself on weekends while listening to an audiobook.

18. Long walks with my family - This year’s Mother’s Day my fam decided to have a picnic at Punggol waterfront and after that we walked for 4 hours to Hougang. It was tiring but memorable. And I realised that once we got over the painful parental nagging part of the conversation, things can be quite pleasant.

17. Patient friends who are willing to listen to my nerdy book presentations - I make use of them to revise what i’ve learnt from the books I read.

16. My loving work family - Jessie, Shirshir, Vikas korkor, Lily, Lulu, Elwin, Shishi, Jan-chan, and of cos our boss, Pranav. They make me look forward to coming to work every day.

15. My parents - though they never outwardly express their affections but I know they care for us deeply. Despite all their nagging, it is always out of concern for us. And I like that they never complain when I bring them out to do shenanigans like climbing mountains in New Zealand.

14. Having a comfortable housing - I have lived in this flat ever since I was born. Although the walls crack and the tap doesn’t always have the best water pressure, I like having my own space in my room. And all my stuff. Though now sitting at my desk and looking around, maybe I should consider marie-kondoing...

13. Headspace - Although I don’t meditate as often as I’d like to, this app has provided my much needed companion to get into the mood. Recently I discovered their sleepcasts mode which makes bedtime much more interesting and soothing (I love that narrator’s voice)

12. Late night talkshow hosts - Thank you Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah for the entertainment that is American politics and world affairs.

11. Postcards - I love writing as much as receiving postcards from friends. It is always a delight to hear from friends who got surprised from receiving a card from me. This is such a simple gesture that can bring so much joy, I wonder why people don’t do it more.

10. Each-A-Cup - they truly are the most underrated bubble tea shop. I appreciate that they brew every cup with tea leaves on the spot per order. My all-time favourite order is hot earl grey milk tea, 25% sugar, no pearls. Ordered with my reusable tea mug and cup holder, of course. 

9. Apple Pay - I appreciate places that accept digital payments. I now no longer have to fumble around with my wallet and holding up the queue. Although it always makes spending money much more easy and I have to be more mindful about that. 

8. ReOps Slack - This is a very active online community of researchers. I’m learning so much from the conversations happening in there which is pretty useful to bring into our research team at work.

7. Vipassana - recently my parents started looking into meditation in their own way and seems like they are seeing benefits of it. I’m still hoping to get them to join a proper retreat one day.

6. Empress Porridge - I look forward to Wednesdays when they have their special chicken and century egg porridge. Which I would, of course, dabao with my container and get 50 cents off. 

5. Journal notebooks - Ever since last year’s bday (when jan-chan gave me my first book) I have cultivated a habit of writing down details about my day. This gives me space to reflect. And sometimes noting down seemingly mundane things is a good mindfulness practice in itself.

4. My job - I have stepped into a new role at work this year and I think I’m still struggling to figure it out. But someone reminded me recently that if something is easy it’s probably not worth doing. 

3. Ground-Up Initiative - This is a community where I have met so many kind, interesting, passionate, and wise individuals. I feel inspired and renewed every time I go to the kampung. This place made me feel hope years ago when I almost felt jaded about Singapore. 

2.  Being Singaporean - Despite all the complains, I still feel lucky to grow up in a country where I don’t have to worry about safety, education, political instability. And I have freedom to travel almost anywhere with this passport. 

1. My privileges - To be growing up in a stable country. To be in a middle income bracket. To receive a world-class education. To have free access to information. To be able bodied. To be bilingual in English and Mandarin. To be a designer. To be human. 

I think I should be spending more time thinking about, how can I best leverage on these privileges to drive more positive impact? Sometimes I think about how I am just one person. How can little old me be any use to the world? I am sometimes lazy, sometimes shy, sometimes fearful, and sometimes just feel not good enough. Yes, they are excuses and may seem very valid. But I try to also remind myself these other conditions that put me in better position than others in the world to do something to help improve things. 

So far in my 31 years on Earth, I wonder how much net contribution/destruction I have made. If only there is a formula and a way to track that because I think it is always useful to take stock and review our footprint on this world. But at the same time, we are all going to die one day, so does it all matter? 

Heh, morbid way to end this birthday reflection, desuyo?

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We are not nouns, we are verbs

Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

Austin Kleon’s blog

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An ideal work day

Since I’ve already wrote about my ideal day years ago, Ling san and I decided to revisit this idea but be more specific/realistic. Because we can’t all have a day where its all play and no work! So here’s my idea of a best day at work.

9.30am - Came in early to grab a good seat at the office. The blue zone was very empty right now, conducive for some deep planning work. But I'll grab myself a cup of coffee first. Today's beans were especially fragrant so I made a latte. Then I turned on some chill music and check my emails. All very positive news about our product launches, and words of encouragement and thanks from colleagues.

10.00am - Start preparing some presentation about some recent UX learnings, and feeling fulfilled and excited while working on it. Planning how to share and apply it within our teams.

10.30am - My colleagues came in and saying Hi cheerfully. I went around and pet everyone's head and everyone is in a good mood.

11am - Ooh, someone brought a lot of snacks from overseas! And many of them are my favourite! Like Stroopwafels and chocolates crunchies. Brought some snacks to my table to munch as I try to finish the work I started earlier.

12pm - Time for lunch! Everyone decided to bring their own containers to dabao today. Very good, save environment! We went downstairs and get the food we want to have today and some extras to share. My boss also contributed some free desserts for us. And someone bought us all bubble tea.

1.30pm - After a nice long lunch of interesting conversations with colleagues, where I found out a lot of interesting details of their lives, I go for a meeting.

2.30pm - Phew, that was an intense meeting but we were very productive. Lots of clearly defined and assigned action items and I can't wait to start working on them. Go back to my desk to get back to work, and realised a sweetie colleague had made me a warm cup of tea!

4pm - Time for daily scrum with Prague. Everyone was present and the updates were done fairly quickly, and we even had time for some small cheerful chitchats before getting back to work.

4.30pm - Another meeting with my design partner where we reviewed and updated on each others work. We uncovered an interesting but exciting design problem, so decided to split up to ideate on it. We also got a lot of stuff discussed to be shared with the product team. 

5pm - Time for a quick break! Went to the never-ending snacks table to grab some more munchies and had a good chat with some colleague that I'm not so close with. I never knew they had such interesting hobbies before! And then they recommended me a book which they knew I'd definitely be into.

5.15pm - A colleague came to me for advice about their project that they got stuck at. After some questioning and guiding them through their process, they finally managed to get some new insights and got inspired to continue and was able to have a breakthrough! They thanked me for my help.

Continue some deep productive work before the day ends at 6pm. Hung out with my colleagues around the piano, sang some jolly Christmas songs before we all head back home in high spirits.

The end

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2018 - Year in Review

Hot Mess Bitch à la Jan Bon - the most impressive dish I made (or participated in making) this year, on 31 Dec 2018. I guess now this space is for photos of what I did on NYE, following tradition of last year. It comprised of honeyed butter biscuit (baked from scratch!), sausage cream gravy, garlic polenta grits, cheesy scrambled eggs, topped with more uncased Italian sausage. 

I was kinda procrastinating writing this post I guess because I was placing such unnecessarily high expectations on this post to be the motherlode of all reflections this year, especially since I have started keeping a handwritten (almost-daily) journal recently. Sorry bloggy, I hope you don’t feel jealous.

This year feels too short and too long at once. I almost cannot remember what I did for the first half of the year (partly also because my journal writing habit only started post-June when Janz handed me my first journal book and encouraged me to start writing in it so that I can remember and process stuff that happened in my life). 

Maybe it feels long because I accidentally travelled a little too much this year (What blasphemy! Like too much is a thing when it comes to travelling?) But that was mostly thanks to the opportunity to do so from my work trips. Let me count the cities: Rome, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Brussels, Bruges, Krabi, NYC, Seattle, Vancouver, Melaka.

Oh yeah and I turned 30 this year too. It’s surprisingly uneventful, but I guess this year is when I started feeling more like an adult, less wet behind the ears and more okay with being myself. Especially since now at work I’m surrounded by so many young people, and it feels kinda weird that they seem to look up to me and come to me for advice. 

New things I tried in 2018

Improv. I took an improv 101 class at the beginning of the year. It was good fun and pushed me out of my comfort zone to be less self-conscious and more spontaneous. I see some potential in using the concept of improv for the design process and I hope one day I can convince my colleagues to go check it out as well.

Piloxing. I wanted to make use of ActiveSG credits for the first time, and the idea of mixing pilates and kickboxing intrigued me. It was ok, pretty fun and not as intense as I expected. It’s kinda like a high-impact cardio exercise. Not my thing but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Speaking at public events. I was invited as a speaker and panelist at General Assembly to talk about my experience as a designer. The first one was scary (and embarrassingly eventful). The next 2 as a panelist were more relaxed as I didn’t need to prepare that much. There is kind of an adrenaline kick doing this kind of thing sometimes, haha. 

Journal writing. I have to thank Janz for encouraging this habit by giving me a notebook for my birthday. I think writing down thoughts and just things that happen in the day really helps me process stuff and is kinda therapeutic. I would write about conversations I had, things I observed, and maybe even stuff I watched. 

PTTC aka Physical Touch Treatment Centre. This might sound a bit weird but in our Krabi UX teambonding trip, the girls were training me to be more touchy in showing sayang. That included patting heads and linking hands. And now I have become kinda good at it. (Okay.. this still sounds weird!)

Confessed to a boy. Rejected by said boy. But now we are good friends and I think I’m happy with that. And I think I’m pretty low maintenance and self-sufficient as a person/non-gf. This year I also concluded my online dating experiment and the result is the realisation that I don’t really need to find a partner to have a fulfilled life. Actually I already knew that from the start but this was a validation. But I’m grateful to have met so many guys from outside of my social bubble that I wouldn’t have met in otherwise. And the experience of meeting strangers also trained me to be more thick skin and be more socially confident. Glad I did this.

Things that made me sad in 2018

Colleagues that left. Early this year I was kinda shook when Michelle left. Even though we are not that close as friends, she and I had a good partnership as my researcher. Then Leonard, then Lydia, our dear POs. And then Gaofeng and Ernie left. My fellow Easy Team pioneers from the very beginning. :(

Macbook died. Itchy backside made me prematurely install Mojave OS before it was company-approved. My computer ended up getting corrupted and the IT guy tried so hard to help me save it for 2 whole weeks. In the end with all means tried, there was no choice to reformat the whole thing, and I lost all my files. That was an emotional 2 weeks.

SG team got booted off project. I found out after coming back from a trip and it hit me like a suddenly flying slap. But I don’t think it was anyone’s fault, just circumstances. And now I actually look forward to new challenges after this project comes to an end for me.

Chief Laihock’s passing. Chief was a great leader and strong pillar holding up GUI for the past 11 years, an inspiration to me and many people who know him. His passing was a sudden one and because of this keeping the kampung became a problem. I feel for the core team members who are working so hard to keep things running and continuing to fight this fight. Such passion is admirable and makes me want to do whatever I can to help.

Things I’m happy about in 2018

Read more books. Somehow managed to squeeze in more books into my reading diet this year. I’ve been gifted and lent many books this year and I guess because of that I was obliged to finish them, and that turned out to be a good thing. I also somehow unknowingly influenced some young’ins to start reading as a habit too, which surprised me. 

Learnt to monkey bar. I had a random goal of learning how to monkey bar in September. I’ve never ever been able to do it, when I first saw other kids playing on it in pri sch and felt left out and embarrassed because I couldn’t. But this year I decided to see if I could train myself to do it, perhaps because the bar was always at the fitness station downstairs mocking me. And in November I showed it. That sense of jubilance and exhilaration I had when I finally made that first swing from one bar to the next was amazing. And in the next couple of weeks of training I finally made it through the entire ladder. Woohoo!

Strengthened bonding with colleagues. This year the UX team has expanded quite a bit. We welcomed in Janz, Lily, Oppa, Shirshir, Shishi, Lulu and Lala. And we got close almost instantly, which I think is unusual for team of such size. Boss has done an incredible job in scaling positive team culture somehow, and I think for next year our challenge is how to spread this culture beyond just our team. 

Launched a fundraising campaign for GUI. The GUI web team’s work did not slack off since the launch of the 2.0 website last year. We did another release of 2.1 with some improvements after conducting some usability/feedback session with folks. And then in August when news of Laihock’s passing triggered the urgency to raise funds to keep GUI going and keep the land, we worked very hard meeting every week to come up with ideas on how to start a fundraising and awareness campaign. We pushed this campaign out in November and now to continue the efforts to tweak and optimise the message. Grateful to have a supportive volunteer team working hard together on this.

Didn’t take an MC this year. Last year I got sick quite often, almost once every 2 months. Then Gaofeng gave a suggestion that intrigued me. Exercise more. I decided to give it a try. And I’m proud to report that ever since I started exercising every alternate morning, my MC count this year has declined by 100%. I still got sick once or twice this year but it wasn’t so serious that I had to be bedridden. And I found going for a jog in the morning actually lifts my mood for the day. Two birds, bingo.

Knitted a hat. I joined our office’s Knit For Love group to learn how to knit a hat, and all knitted items would be donated to Singapore Cancer Society. I managed to finish mine in about 2-3 months after lots of getting stuck and having help. I was surprised that there are actually quite a few knitting enthusiasts in our office. And even to see a different side to those very notoriously fierce colleagues in the office - they were very kind and patient when it comes to teaching and guiding others. I love discovering new kinder sides of people.

Favourite things of 2018

Nonfiction Book - Crucial Conversations. Borrowed this from Lydia’s bookshelf. We even have a book review club at her house now to share our learnings. This book has valuable advice on how to handle tough conversations and I hope I could put it to proper practice and truly learn to do it.  

Fiction Book - A Dog’s Purpose. A gift from Janz she got at Strand Bookstore. This was a surprisingly thought-provoking book despite the silliness of the premise. Best of all, it’s only USD 48 cents. 

Podcast - Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. This one was recommended by Wei, a new friend I made from the DesignOps summit. Nothing can replace my love for Invisibilia but this one was another surprising gem. I like how they dissect and examine each chapter through lens of different themes and that made this beloved series even more meaningful.

Youtube Channel - Vox. I like the variety of smart educational and timely content presented in a visually appealing and simple to understand way. I especially liked their series explaining music and politics.

Music - Tessa Violet. Dodie. Chillhop radio. Pomplamoose.

Day memory - Cycling in Bruges with Eos. This was literally my idea of a perfect day come true. We had a cheap and cheerful breakfast at Hema, then rented a bike, and cycled all the way to Belgium in cool autumn weather, passing beautiful fields of flowers and farmlands and smelly cows. Had a sumptuous seafood lunch before heading back to town, serendipitously stumbling into an art gallery opening with free wine. Had a pigeon for dinner, then ending the day listening to jazz at a bar. 

Trip memory - NYC/Seattle/Vancouver with Janz. I liked our adventurous/slipshod spirit and the resulting shenanigans we got into because of that. And all our silly and thoughtful conversations in between. And the food we got to try and coming up with a weird rating system for them. 

Bonus - Making a Chinese rap music video with Jess. Jess and I bonded a lot during this 3-week Prague rotation trip. I liked practicing our rap every day walking to and from our office and hotel, and basically everywhere we go. She is such an easy person to have fun with, and we get a kick filming ourselves and annoying Leonard along the way (bless him).

Things to work on in 2019

Figure out how to be a leader. I recently got promoted to Design Ops Lead of the team. There will be a lot of dealing with people and processes, and that is something I have to learn how to manoeuvre. But having a new challenge is always exciting.

Being more articulate and assertive. Along with the above might mean learning how to better communicate expectations and handling tough situations.

Plan more and be less slipshod about things. There are times to be happy-go-lucky and be spontaneous about things. But wisdom is knowing when to pay attention and take care of the details, especially when the outcome might affect other people, not just myself.

Being more caring with my parents. Last year one of my resolutions was to improve my communication with my parents. I tried by listening to more chinese podcasts and speaking chinese more often. But I realised sometimes talking is not enough, it’s the tone and body language. How you show attention and care that matters. 

Continue staying healthy. In the mind and the body. That means keeping and perhaps even increasing my regular exercise regime. And meditate more regularly! 

So here’s what I did on the first day of 2019 – Taking a beautiful hike with my lovely buddies! It’s a gonna be happy new year, oh yes.