I just published my first ever podcast! I don't aim to make something huge out of this... it's just something that I've been wanting to try for the longest time. When I was a kid, I used to go to my brother's room and lock it so as to record stuff on the cassette tape. I'd pretend that I was a dj or in a radio drama voicing out different characters. I remember I have several tapes as the result of this hobby of mine. Events have come in full circle now because here I am doing it again! I had fun doing this first episode and as long as I have the time (and content inspiration), I will publish a new episode again. Let's see. 😁

I'm attempting to disconnect myself from Netflix because Heaven knows how many hours I have devoted in that last drama that I followed there. I want to refocus now on my personal tasks and projects, but I'm continuing to see a lot of great shows in there (where do I even start?). I'm still in the process of negotiating with myself, and to just allow myself to watch movies and documentaries (no series for now, because I can't afford to devote that much time again for a show).

Knowledge is power, and so I am continuing to feed my brain with information. I'm taking two courses now at Coursera, one about Artificial Intelligence (by Andrew Ng again!) and another one about cats and dogs, because why not?

I have been following this content creator for the longest time (since her DBSK-piano-cover days) and through the past few weeks of quarantine she has been posting her soul-searching adventure of doing a road trip and hiking in nature miles and miles from her home. I followed her IG stories and even listened to a Spotify playlist, that has become the soundtrack of her adventures, that she linked in her post. When she were still based in LA, I attempted to go to one of her "shows" there (when I traveled there for work years ago), but unfortunately my plans didn't push through. I would want to meet her and see her play live.
In an alternate timeline I would want to live a life like her -- majoring on music and mastering the piano (although I think I'll take the classical route instead of jazz), then also move to a place on my own, become a  Starbucks barista, and do solo roadtrips and hiking too. I just love that through her stories online, I feel like I was also living that kind of life. Especially due to the lockdown, I have been craving for Nature more than ever. I miss the trees and the fresh air of the mountains. Unfortunately because of the condition of my knees, I won't be able to do some hard-core mountain climbing anymore, but still I'm thankful that I got to experience that. I just crave connecting with Nature again. 🌳🌳🌳 Maybe because of looking through her posts, I dreamt of driving along a long road with icy mountains in the horizon, similar to the mountains in Salt Lake, Utah.

Speaking of dreaming, I had one legit lucid dream recently. I was fully aware that I was dreaming and I even asked that person that I was talking to to reply immediately because I don't know how long this dream would last and the scene might change any time. I just found that really cool.

Really, this lockdown period is providing me some time to reflect. Now that it's confirmed that we're not going back to the office anytime soon, I just realized how our team has been so used to the work-from-home setting that this prolonged setup wouldn't really affect our productivity. I have proved that each of the members our team are all responsible adults and that they do what is needed to do without supervision. I am just so proud to be part of this team. Work-life-balance has been the center of our company values and so we respect our personal time, and on the other side, we expect each of us to execute our work tasks well. Despite of this "lenient" culture, I see people that still go above and beyond their responsibilities. It's all good when we do this in our own free will. It's the flip side if we are being forced to. With my years of experience in the corporate industry, every resource is replaceable. You don't need to feel like you owe something to your company. You have the free will to go to the exit door if you feel that things are affecting your physical and mental health in the negative way. You don't have to feel guilty because leaving is the most normal thing to happen in a company. Heck, there's a process in place to find someone who will fill your position. Your work is replaceable, your life isn't. These are things that I wanted to say to a dear friend, but I guess she already knows it and I respect her free will for making that decision. I don't want to push my opinions to anyone because at the end of the day, each of us is in our own journey and learnings should happen in our own paces. I hope she arrives in that mindset soon.

We are our own worst enemy. I've been relearning this now, especially because I am finding the answers to my questions from before, even more. Some articles I read online made me contemplate on a lot of things (most notably this one) and so I am learning the behavioral patterns that I have been executing all my life. Short story is -- I am locked from the inside. I'm afraid of myself so I am protecting myself from myself (lol wut 😵). So I guess the two possible outcome would be: either someone forcibly barges in or I just die alone inside.

Well there's still one way -- attempt to escape from myself. I'm learning to connect more with people and expressing my emotions. There will always be that fear for rejection, and it's very uncomfortable. But I also learned that the suffering is just temporary. When things don't go the way that I want it, I just need to process my emotions (💔), recognize the learnings that I get out of it, and move on. Eazy breezy. For sure, I would emerge stronger each time. And so I'm trying to convey my feelings beyond the use of emojis and quick reactions, and so far things have been very rewarding. 😊

Someone told me before that while we are still young, we should utilize our "youthful energy" while we still can. When we grow older and weak, there would be things that we won't be able to do like we used to. Well for me, one example is crossing my legs. That's seems to be a minor thing only right, but in the context of sitting down for hours (like what most of us working-from-home are doing), it's one of the little pleasures of life. Being able to fold one leg up on the chair after hours of just sitting down is so relaxing. Unfortunately, I learned that I should avoid doing that from now on because of my knee injury. I realized the underside of my kneecap hurts more after being in that pose. Those kinds of little things that we ignore, we only take notice and appreciate once they are taken away from us. So my lesson here is: do what you enjoy while you still can. Also, listen to your body and take care of it. Remember, you only have one to use in this lifetime.