It has been a hectic month with so much admin and physical manual labour for my house. Along with my day job and the major projects that I am running this year, it is basically close to “all hell break loose” moment these days. Well, at least the major defects are fixed now and my house didn’t have water seepage issues during the rainy season in the past few days. In fact, it is not super cold in my unit which I guess is a fortunate thing?

I still manage to meet my friends for dinner every week so my social self care is still there. Unfortunately, I am not getting much exercise other than my weekly personal training session. Time to really refocus my efforts back on my self care and make time to keep myself healthy.

I managed to get a new hand carry luggage from Lojel at 30% discount yesterday. 🙂 They have 10% discount for regular colours and 30% for white, yellow and red colours. Well, the red colour actually looks nice to me so I just decided to get that. 10 year warranty for Lojel and the ease of access for laptops for the hand carry luggage is a plus for sure. When my Echolac luggage warranty is over this October and when the zip spoilt again, I will probably buy another Echolac or Lojel luggage. I’m sticking to luggage with warranty for their parts going forward.

I got promoted to MTS2/T26 this year. It’s been a really long and tough journey but yes, I did it. Then my manager gave me a new tool to manage the next day. LOL. The workload immediately increased so I guess the bar is now higher and I am competing with other T26 now. Have to learn how to work with difficult people and avoid drama even more.

This is actually my second promotion in my life so far. My first promotion was back in Autodesk in 2016, then subsequently it is just changing of domains and jobs.

Difficult journey but at least I am paid more? Haha. Definitely helps when my expenses (cough mortgage cough) are going up.

I’m also going for my first business trip for this year in a few months’ time and maybe I can catch the cherry blossoms in Japan for a few hrs?

Gambatte, Sakura! Time to work towards the next promotion hahaha.

It’s my first day of work in 2025 and I am starting the work day right by waking up earlier than usual, reaching office earlier than usual and wearing brand new clothes (new top and jeans which I got from my US trip). Not to forget my new shoes from Sunny Steps and with my new perfume from Chanel (Les Exclusifs de Chanel Comete). Hehe. May this year be a great year and I hope I can get promoted this year. Fingers crossed!

1 person – Travelling alone can be both exciting and scary.
2 weeks – For both work and personal vacation.
3 climates – 3 different parts of US means 3 different climates to adapt to.
4 timezones – 3 parts of US and Japan.
5 bags – Basically my checkin and hand carry bags.
6 devices – All the gadgets I needed for the trip.
7 layovers – Oh, please don’t remind me of this.
8 flights – Setting a new personal record, yet again.

Fun, fun, fun!

Looking forward to the start of my journey and feeling blessed for the opportunities and ability to travel.

I’m counting my blessings at the work related opportunities that I receive.

Not everyone has a job and not worry about impending layoffs.

Not everyone gets to travel on business trips to other countries.

Not everyone gets budget to study/upskill themselves.

However, as much as I can get these opportunities, there will always be people who are jealous at what I get. I mean… If you don’t ask, you won’t get it, right? If you don’t deliver results, you won’t get it, right? This is a reminder to myself that there will always be jealous, negative and toxic people around.

“Yeah. We are our own person. If people are negative best to limit the interaction.

Cuz we are influenced by the top 5 people we hang out with.”

This is something that one of my mentors, Marie, told me. Not exactly linked to the jealousy I received from my colleagues but something where I asked for advice on.

Obviously people love to see and gossip about the good stuff that others receive, including myself. What others did not realise is the difficult times people have to go through. They also did not realise and did not want to see the amount of hard work people put in to receive these “good opportunities”.

As I grow older, I realised it is even harder to have people around you who truly appreciate what you have and are happy for your accomplishments.

I realised that as I become more self aware and mature, I am gaining more empathy and awareness on the effect of my words and actions. The world of the empathetic is tough.