It had been a tough week this week. I had to study for my CISSP exam, then work pressures from trying to get promotion and sudden increase in workload. Then I attended 2 days of FS-ISAC conference on Tuesday and Wednesday as well.

The conference has pretty good food but I only took 2 photos of the food. I took the photo of my snacks on the first day and wow, the sushi is very, very nice.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Treble Story (@thetreblestory)

Then I took photo of the lunch on the second day.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Treble Story (@thetreblestory)

It was great to meet my ex-colleagues at Grab and PayPal. I even saw my interviewer for SAP and six group. It’s the same guy and he remembered me. He even came over to say hello to me on the second day when he saw me eating at one of the tables. I was shocked that he remembered me and he was like, “Of course I will remember you.” Haha, did I do that well in the interviews? But then again I didn’t make it to the next round for six group leh… Shrugs. I went to add him on LinkedIn and he accepted it. Woohoo to a new LinkedIn connection. Haha.

Then I went to Singapore International Jewelry Expo 2024 at Marina Bay Sands on Thursday and Friday. I got myself a string of rainbow tourmaline beads and a pair of Akoya pearl earrings in set in 18K gold. 😀 It’s my first ever Akoya or saltwater pearl jewellery and wow, the lustre is very impressive. I really love it and it looks so much better than my freshwater pearls jewellery. I actually dropped 1 of it on the floor and then it kept bouncing because it is so round. Yes, it’s quite expensive since it is Japanese Akoya and also it is quite round. I really love it though and have been wearing ever since I got it. Not supposed to wear it daily though so I guess I will rotate it with my blue sapphire earrings for now. Haha.

I looked so pretty with the new Akoya pearl earrings though. Its shine and lustre makes my face looks even fairer and prettier lah. 🙂 Love it so much now!

I’m quite glad that I did not get any tanzanite or blue sapphire gems since I didn’t manage to find one that I am truly satisfied. It’s either the colour is nice but cut is meh or the other way round. I think I will just send my current tanzanite gem for certification to confirm that it is really tanzanite before getting it set into my jewellery piece. At least the cut is really nice on that gem even though the colour could have been better. I might consider getting pink diamonds some day but let’s see how it goes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Treble Story (@thetreblestory)

I also presented a patent idea to my Patent Legal team on Friday and I think it went well. Hopefully I get another patent approved soon. 🙂 It was my first presentation with the legal team ever since I took over the entire innovation4good program. Yes, I’m now a program lead for it. I was also invited to present in 1 of the company events (India Innovation Forum) next, next week. It’s my first presentation whereby I was invited and going to present it by myself. Whee! I’m going to start to prepare the slides after my CISSP exam. It’s really different when you are invited because the organisers will send you the list of stuff to cover as per your request. It’s like you don’t really need to push or market yourself hard. I told the good news to 1 of my mentors who has been focusing on improving my own presentation and marketing myself better. Maybe I will get his help to help me review my slides. Hehe.

I had some health issue at the moment and I hope it clears up soon. If it doesn’t clear up by end of this month then I will have to be referred to a specialist and potentially take a biopsy. Sigh. I already had 2 cancer scares last year and really don’t want to go through it again. Please let it recover soon.

I was studying for CISSP at night last weekend (not this weekend) and I felt I was seeing stars. Felt quite dizzy and stuff. I think I have been too stressed recently and I just kept pushing on (which I am very good at) so my body is like pressing all the alarm bells to force me to rest. 🙁

It certainly doesn’t help that for the past week, I am like going out everyday and rushing here and there – be it work or personal life. Mostly due to work though. It’s tough to earn money these days, especially with the widespread layoffs in tech industry.

I met one of my mentors at the FS-ISAC conference and she commented that I should drop the part of finding love/husband. “Dun spread yourself thin.” is what she texted me on WhatsApp. I’m shocked to hear it from her because I didn’t say much about my personal life recently. I also didn’t tell her about my health issues recently. It’s interesting how Gulabi is also saying something along the same lines but that’s because she knew I have been sick for the past few months. She’s like… I know you can push and stretch yourself and will continue to do it but please take breaks.

My mentor also commented that she is happy that I have improved. I asked if I wore better and more suitable clothing for the conference and she said, it is not just the clothing that you have improved. You also improved in your demeanour and how you present yourself in a work setting. It’s impressive because I did it in 3 months and she told me that I need to spend time alone to be my true self. Everyone has different sides and I need to rest more and spend more alone time to recover. It’s going to be very tiring for me to keep up to the work demeanour. This reminded me of what my manager had told me before. Everyone has a different sides to show at work, at personal life and with their spouses.

I did a lot to reach to this stage. Reading lots of audio books, having multiple mentors, had therapy (to recover from my toxic relationship and face my own giants), researching on the dressing sense and how I can carry myself better. I’m also getting better at makeup and I definitely look way better now haha. Alex was commenting that 1 of my outfit of the day photos how I look like 28 years old and the clothes are like 18 years old so average is 23 years old. Wow, for a guy who always suan/disturb/bring me down to say that I look younger than my age (33 years old), it was quite an achievement. Makeup and dressing really can make one looks younger. Gulabi also commented how I look like same age or just a bit older than the new intern in 1 of the photos. Mind you, the intern is like 24 years old? Now the question is whether I can sustain this stage without pushing myself to my limits.

I guess I have to pick the right balls to manage now. Cannot drop the glass balls in my life and that includes health. I probably will stop swiping on the dating apps a few months to refocus my life in some important aspects that are coming up.

But I’m still curious to see if my fengshui master is right that I will have peach blossom luck in August. He specifically told me to look out in June and July this year. Well, I think I already rejected 2 men so far after having a few dates with them. Cause…. cannot make it lah. Sometimes good looks can only bring you so far. I had enough of mummy’s boy and indecisive dudes. All these rotten peach blossom luck arh… 😐 Then there’s 1 that seems quite high potential but not sure if we will actually end up meeting given that the conversation is slowly fading/dying after I told him I am not free to meet this weekend and said will prefer to meet after my exam next Wednesday. Lol. Maybe he is not meant to be or just one of the dudes who is either married or attached but still swiping to find ladies to spend time on weekends. Shrugs.

The next time I see my fengshui master, I must definitely bring this up. How come he is so accurate about being May 2024 will be a very tough time for me but in terms of the peach blossom part, he isn’t very accurate. 🙁 However, I did reject 2 men within the same month so hmmm…

Dear God, please just send my future husband to me. Stop sending men to teach me stuff that I need to know. Have I not learn enough? :'(

Anyway, just 3 more days to my CISSP exam. I really hope I can pass and get my ISC2 membership. If I pass it, then maybe I will consider learning driving so that if I relocate to US for work, I can still drive myself around. Oh well, a girl got to do what she needed to. I’m not going to be able to be a passenger princess sadly. 🙁

I got 2 new jadeite rings in a week – both from Lihong Jade. I’m becoming a lover for rings. Hoho, what is happening to me? 1 year ago I don’t even like to wear rings. Hahaha. Now I am wearing 2 jadeite rings with 1 gold ring.

I’m usually on full accessories mode these days. It’s like a little ritual that I enjoyed while preparing to go out. Like the “time to decorate myself” ritual. 🙂 It definitely helps that I do have a small but extremely good (in my opinion lah…) collection of accessories. I do have the standard few accessories that I will wear when I am not in a mood to think what to wear/match.

I went to ACrysty Co new store opening today and Public Gardens. I wanted to get a pair of pearl hoop earrings from Stories in Jewellery (a Taiwanese handicraft jewellery shop) and is very glad that I found it. I actually saw it in an Instagram advertisement but forgot the name of the shop. I only know got the one “stories” in it. So I walked the entire Public Gardens to try to find it. So glad that I found it. It’s quite expensive though because it is made of real pearls. Most likely is freshwater pearls given the price lah… It costs S$75 and it was the last pair. So glad that I managed to get it. Pretty sure someone tried it on because I saw a hair strand stuck in the earring but I really like the design so I just took it.

I went to ACrysty Co and did their AYO (ACrysty Your Own). Basically I customised my own earrings. I picked silver rutile and a chinese knot as design. It’s quite pretty lah. Took me some time to decide which crystal to use though. It’s a dangling earrings which I know will look good on me. Hehe. It costs S$32.40 after opening day discount.

I also got a new pair of pearl ear studs for S$43.20 (after the opening day discount). Somehow all the costume earrings I got these days all have pearls (freshwater pearls or faux ones) in them. I’m definitely in my pearl era. LOL. 😀

Something happened this morning and I am very glad that I have supportive friends around. People like Zijian and Rui Yun agreeing with me and Alex and Jin Quan for hearing my morning rants. It lasted quite long lol. The grand award for gratitude goes to Gulabi who took the call and was advising on the spot while the entire thing unfolded. Thanks to her advice and reassuring that my gut feelings was correct and stuff, I was able to elegantly handle the situation while still holding back my power and at higher ethical/moral grounds.

I’m definitely improving my gut feeling. All these internal self work and healing is definitely helping! 🙂

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…

Sakura got a new sakura bag from Pleats Mama. Haha, I actually blogged about it in here. It finally arrived tonight. So now I got new set of clothes from Goelia, new earrings from Mimi33 and a new bag from Pleats Mama. 😀 Whee! Okay, I should stop shopping completely now. It feels like it is Chinese New Year all over again haha.

I am also preparing for my GCP Security exam followed by CISSP exam. I’m also heading to Hong Kong this year. I welcome all suggestions on what to eat, shop and sightsee for Hong Kong. 🙂 This is going to be my first trip to Hong Kong and same for my friends too. Feeling excited but also apprehensive because I broke my goal of not traveling this year. Oh well. Hopefully my finances are still okay after the trip. :/