New month, new course. 

Actually, the course started last month. This is my first experience meeting classmates virtually from such diverse backgrounds, with a notable number hailing from the Middle East. I found that the perspectives shared are quite different from those I have encountered growing up in a small but developed country, Singapore.

It was also an eye-opening experience to enhance my leadership skills. I have been leading the innovation4good program for close to a year now. It is a program whereby people of different backgrounds come together to brainstorm ideas to aim for patents. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get patents so far but I definitely increase my outreach and more people are joining on a regular basis. I must say I have been feeling imposter syndrome but I managed to get past it after some time. It’s just like how I have this imposter syndrome when I first started work in PayPal. It’s been nearly 5 years now and I have received my promotion. It was my second job promotion ever since I have started work. 🙂

Looking back at my own career journey so far, it’s been quite a journey. All these have shaped me for who I am and how my leadership style will be.

I’m not sure where my next steps of my career will lead me to but I am open for more opportunities. Yes to potentially relocation. No to running away from relocating to US after so long. I even changed job back in 2017/2018 to avoid potentially relocating to San Francisco… Well, 8 years later, I’m finally ready for the decision. Can’t help to say that part of the ready-ness came from the peace I have living alone and also settled my first house.

Wow, I have been so busy that I haven’t blog for so long! I have been busy moving house and setting up my house and I think I have somewhat set up a rough routine for myself at my new place. I haven’t finish moving all my stuff over though but my clothes are like halfway here. Most of my accessories are moved over so that means I can really dress up when I am staying here instead of just using the same few accessories. Haha.

I have been cooking a lot more for myself and sometimes I lose motivation in cooking but my stomach will tells me otherwise. My fridge is full of food and my huge snacks cabinet is overflowing too. I’m not hungry when I am home for sure hahaha. Unfortunately for me, I think my skin is not used to the dishwashing soap so it gets dry quickly. 🙁 I’m thinking if I should get a dishwasher but I have ran out of countertop space after my air fryer is here.

I have to admit that my home is quite cosy and I do like staying at home. I have designed multiple nua spots (spots where I just go there and do nothing or surf the phone) and it is working out so well. I can see a good view of fireworks during NDP rehearsal days from my balcony and bedroom. My bedrooms are nice and cooling as I have one of the top brand solar films from Japan on my windows. Didn’t go for it for balcony door so living room is pretty hot.

The past month (April/May) has been pretty crazy. I’m like crazily busy as I am going back nearly on a daily basis to check out the renovations. My ID also somehow schedule something almost daily. Someone or something is will always be in my house somehow on a daily basis so it is either the ID contractors or I have to go back and bring my items into my unit. With the theft cases in my block, I don’t really dare to take risk in leaving my items outside my house.

I have been trying to bring some stuff to my new house on a daily basis so it is a lot of carrying to do. Just imagine me bringing multiple huge bags and take bus to my house on a daily basis. Haha. 🙂 I don’t know when I will finish carrying everything. However, I also don’t really dare to move all at a go because I still need to declutter and make sure no termites follow me to my new place. I have a lot of carpentry in my house so I really cannot take the risk…

The next few weeks will probably be intensive in packing, moving, unpacking and sorting. I’m feeling quite tired and sometimes I lose sleep at night because I was worried that I forgot something or didn’t consider some aspects. I also don’t want to end up buying stuff that I ended up not using because house stuff is not cheap and can take up quite a bit of space.

I got a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 to document the entire home journey too. Haha.

I’m now on my 7th flight for this trip and is in the middle of the journey to make my way back to Singapore. It has been a short but hectic trip for the past 8.5 days in US. I was in  Dallas for the first 5 days 4 nights for the Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) conference. I didn’t manage to attend most of the sessions since I still have work meetings to attend, as well as socialising with my colleagues. My manager and my director drove over 3hrs just to meet me so I had breakfast, lunch and dinner with them over the 2 days they were here. I also helped out in the career fair and met several graduating students who were looking for a job in my company. 

Then I flew to Chicago and met up with Gulabi for 4 days 3 nights for my personal vacation. It was my first time going to both Dallas and Chicago. They are very different from All other states/cities that I have visited. Grapevine (a place in Dallaswhere I was mostly in) feels almost like Scottsdale but more green than brown. There are more greenery than desert sand. Chicago, on the other hand, was a pleasant city full of city vibes. It is similar to Singapore in terms of the road structures and public transportation. New York City is the closest match to Singapore except for dirty streets and public transportation. Chicago is much cleaner than New York. Chicago is a city of midwestern vibes which is a different change from what I am used to. I am used to the California vibes.

This time I didn’t manage to go to San Francisco. I have been going there for every trip to US except for this trip. Well, it is also my shortest trip ever with only 9 days 8 nights in US in total. Just look at the sacrifices I made for my new home. Lololol. It will be too much of a stretch to to extend further given that I have pre-renovation work to do before my renovation can start. I tried to clear as much as I can just before the trip and also clear quite a bit while in US. Every morning spent on catching up on vendor updates and every evening is spent on making deposits for booking the various contractors’ services. Just imagine how crazy it will be if I don’t have an ID. Lol.

Every time I come to US, I will gained a deeper appreciation of Singapore and how lucky I am to be based in Singapore. It’s a bubble living in Singapore and coming to US so often is giving me frequent reminders of how lucky I am.

This is a delayed post as I am only posting much later after my flight.

I am blogging now while on my second flight. Just like the first flight, my seat got changed again this time round. This time they announced my name and seat number. They didn’t manage to pronounce my name correctly but I roughly can gauge from my seat number so I went up to the counter as per their instructions.

Turned out that I needed to switch seats because my allocated seat was a bit wet. I got moved to the seat opposite row of mine which is also an aisle seat. When I reached my new seat, I didn’t see any wetness in my original seat. I was dissatisfied cause I noticed there was no one next to me in my original seat. Turned out that my new seat has an empty seat next to me and my neighbouring passenger in the same row while my original seat will have someone next to me. Haha, it all turned out well in the end.

I woke up halfway while I was sleeping then I couldn’t go back to sleep again. Suddenly I had this realisation how this trip, or rather these flights, is like a breather for me in the middle of the house chaos. I have been running nonstop due to renovations and work and have not been giving myself sufficient rest. Maybe this trip is sent to me from the universe or God(s) as an opportunity to rest. Well, I can’t be disturbed or cannot continue my house stuff while I am right above the ocean with no internet connectivity for 12.5 hrs. All I can do is to rest or sleep. No wonder busy people fly business class as this is an opportunity for them to really properly rest. Well, my company don’t send me on business class so here I am on Premium Economy. Not too shabby haha.