2020 in Review

What a year!

Covid-19 changed the world. We in Vietnam are luckly not in the disaster as in many countries, and I feel grateful for that. Despite some upshots, I can say that I have quite a year to remember.

As usual, coding first.

In the beginning of the year, I continue to improvise my Java skill to take on a technical lead role for a development team. Although I did some kind of team lead before, this is the first time I pick up a new language, take on the challenges and pull myself up the ladders in a short time span, learn many useful things along the way and most importantly, having funs while doing that! My team was a fun team, I can joke around and everybody laugh, work my ass off and everybody clap. I will never forget those good memories I had with these people…

In the middle of the year, I changed my job. It was not just any arbitrary decision, but thoroughly I feel that the kind of work I want to do was not the work that I was doing at the time. I want something that can make me feel actual joyful, or, should I say, more meaningful to work with?

Emotions aside, the new job I took on was kind of the one I would like to be mine. Yeah, not that “aside” really, but I found many sparks that I thought I would never get it before. I learned more about front end development stuffs, UI/UX patterns, more on how to build and grow a software product, marketing shits, on and on. That was really awesome. This job would steer me in the career direction I would never think of before, but now it is more clearly to conceive.

In 2019, I thought that AI/ML would be my things this year, but it never was. This year I reckon that SaaS would be my best, but who knows?

Reading second.

Maybe the same as last year, but now I kept track of it, and know exactly the estimated number of books I have read in this year: 30 or so. Mostly technical, the one I liked most is “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big”. It inspires me a lot and makes me feel better about myself as well as the decisions that I made.

Running third.

Not so much this year. Only 200+ kilometers. Some lock-downs and the very bad air quality in Hanoi are to blame, but I gain nothing doing that. In January 1st I had very a breathtaking hiking trip to Ky Quan San mountain. I did not know it was so hard to climb up the mightly peak, but I did it! We will be doing this again next year, January 2nd, in another mountain, it would be more easy but I am more ready now anyway. Wish me luck!

Some more tiny things I want to jot down anyway…

I practiced some fasting this year, mostly 16/8 intermittent fasting and feel good about it. I mean I don’t feel anything bad about it, so it must be good, right? I will continue doing that next year to keep myself thin and my stomach rested.

I invested some. But I should be focus on bulding something more than to think about how make my money get bigger by moving it around. I will have to do that eventually, but maybe not in the right time right now.

I upgraded my iPhone SE 1st generation to 2nd generation, my macbook pro from 13" early 2015 to 16" 2019. They both served me for 5 years and became too old. I like the new ones more now, especially the 16, it rocks!

2021 starts tomorrow. Let’s welcome it!