Oh well, I injured my finger again. I accidentally cut my right thumb last month and this month it is my left thumb’s turn. Well, at least it is on my non-dominant hand this time and it wasn’t a deep cut.

It’s public holiday today and I am going out to study. Well, I planned to reach office way earlier but things don’t go to plan as usual… I haven’t had lunch either so it is going to be a really late lunch for me. I guess I will study till later time than I expected then…

Hopefully I don’t fail the CISSP exam again. It’s tough to concentrate though so I might end up rescheduling it. Gahhh. At this rate, it’s going to impact my other plans soon…

I’m down with flu and sinus infection again. Sigh. It’s really forcing me to take a break. Oh well. I only hope that I can recover before my flight. 🙁

I already started doing research and aiming what I want to get during my trip. Hehe. I even have reservations on 1 of the item because I heard there’s only 1 set available and I really want that. 😀 Can’t wait for my vacation to start haha.

I feel like recently I am blossoming more into a flower. Especially with my new Pleats Mama cherry blossom bag. Sakura is carrying her new sakura bag and dressed in sakura colours today. 😀 Well, I wore my cream pleats blouse from Uniqlo with my pink linen shorts from Muji today. Oh I picked my black merino wool cardigan from Sezane as well. So it definitely matches the bag colours that I got. You can see a photo of the bag in here. I matched it with my VCA Sweet Alhambra necklace in rose gold and it is a perfect addition to the entire outfit. 🙂 I’m definitely blossoming well and beautifully! I took a selfie of my outfit of the day and all of my friends (probably biased haha) praised my outfit choice. Whee!

Okay, except for Alex who commented that I look like an auntie who is going to wet market to buy vegetables (all in Chinese). Rude! -.-

I used to be a dehydrated flower but now that I am refocusing everything on myself, I’m definitely blossoming well. A flower needs water to grow well. The same for grass too. I should always focus on myself and direct the water to myself to grow well.

That reminded me of something that a friend told me. My real Chinese name can be translated to Japanese name “Reika”. I just checked and whoa, Google translate did translate it accurately.

YJ*: Sakura actually fits you well because hua means flower
Me: yessssssss
Me: not bad, you are smart
Me: your PhD has come in handy hahahahaha
YJ: also btw your Chinese name can pass as a Japanese name
Me: eh is it???
YJ: yes
YJ: rei ka

* Not going to put the name of my friend because he is listed as a public figure on Google and I don’t want my blog to appear when his students googled for his name…

It was an old conversation but as I am blogging about blossoming more into a flower, I decided to google about “rei ka”. Apparently it means “beautiful, lovely, flower, petal”.

Perfecto lah. All these glowing up is actually inline with my name. *acts out a pretty pose* I’m vain and I’m not even going to deny it. Hahaha. 😀 If I knew my Chinese name can be translated to such a beautiful Japanese name, I would have called myself Reika instead of Sakura. Lol…

No idea why no one ever told me about “Reika” name… Not even my friends, who knew both Chinese and Japanese. I am not exactly sure how to write it in Japanese characters though and my friend didn’t type it for me. Luckily I got a Japanese mentor and I have my 1-1 meeting with him tomorrow so I will definitely ask him about it. Otherwise, I have to ask my Japanese violin teacher this Sunday during my violin class. If I like how the characters looks like, then I might add it into my online name. Haha.

On a side note, will I recommend anyone to buy Pleats Mama bag? Probably no. I already see some design and quality issues on my first day of use. To be honest, I haven’t had a bag brand which I do not complain, except Hermes. LOL. I also have complaints about my Hermes bags but Hermes after sales is always able to address every single concern I have. So no complaints about it. No wonder I have the most number of bags from this brand so far. I don’t think I ever bought so many bags from a single brand/shop before in my life…

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone who is celebrating! Hope life has been good to you guys so far!

My life has been pretty boring these days. Other than working, I have been studying. Almost all my free time were spent on home stuff. Well, I guess that’s adulting. 🙂

I am feeling blessed that I have friends who supported me during the tough times and also listening to my rants. Yes I know sometimes it can be quite overwhelming haha. Sometimes I am also impressed by myself on how I can able to push through.

I’m on my healing journey after the traumatic breakup. Well, it doesn’t matter how fast my ex-boyfriend can move on to the next relationship as I just need to focus on my own healing. It’s a constant reminder to myself. Things happen for a reason and I have many lessons learned about men and also myself. I should count my blessings and be glad that at least I am still alive and well. I am also thankful for the various mentors who spent time to teach me my soft skills and life skills (like how to filter the right men faster and see through their masks fast) hahaha.

I really don’t want to go through more surgeries after going through 2 surgeries last year. Still waiting for my “stop all weights lifting exercises” mandate from my surgeon to be lifted before I can resume my gym and also yoga classes. I can still do hiking which is what I was doing before I got really busy with life in general.

I’m finally on my return flights back home! Well, I have to take 2 flights home since I am flying back from San Francisco. I am so done with flying for the year. I think I took the most number of flights in this year as compared to other years. By the end of this trip, I would have taken 11 flights. Now I am on my 10th flight for this year. Well, I had my personal trip in Seoul back in May 2023. Then a business trip in October 2023 in Seoul followed by another business trip and personal trips in November and December 2023.

I also spent the most money this year as well. 2024 will be a year of major change in my life – hopefully positive changes.