[Monthly Summaries] The last 3 months of 2023

We’re already in 2024, so let me start by saying Happy New Year! Life and laziness got the best of me these past few months so I wasn’t able to write as much as I wanted to. Today I’m going to finally write about some of the highs and lows from the last 3 months of 2023.

Personal

Taiwan

• We officially moved to our condo back in September, stayed here for about 2 weeks, and then headed back to Kaohsiung and then to the Philippines. Now that we’re back in Taipei, we’ve been able to stay longer at our condo and experience ~condo living~
• Condo improvements throughout these few months are: setting up our Christmas decor, setting up our sofa bed, installing our curtains, getting wifi, and then setting up our robot vacuum as well.
• Bought my 2024 planner and I’m excited to start planning for 2024!
• Went to SKM mall with T and his fam for lunch at Tim Ho Wan
• Met up with Betty and Konny and had HK food and then dessert at McDo. Then, towards the end of the year, we had one last dinner with them here at our condo. They’re leaving Taiwan to go on a Southeast Asia trip.
• Celebrated my birthday by having yakiniku for lunch (we went to OhMy), and then going to Kingstone bookstore where I bought The Silent Patient and some stickers. Happy birthday to me!
• Spent the last day of the year going to Gloria Outlets for window shopping, having dinner at Dubu House Korea, and then a video call with my family to ring in the new year!

Philippines

• Back to Manila! Checked out T’s new unit, had lunch with my parents before mom went to the hospital, T and I got a massage at Bluewater Day Spa and then we had dinner at Snooze Cafe and then bought birria from Birria MNL (not good!)
• Had a dice game with Abi and her friends. T and I won a few prizes but we didn’t win the grand or even the second prizes. Aww!
• Spent the time I was in the Philippines meeting and catching up with friends — lunch with Aileen at her house to celebrate her birthday, T going to Pasig City Golf with Ken and Aileen’s brothers, coffee and crepes with Jill at Hello Coffee, Borro with Novi, Spotted Pig with Abi and Codi, Txoko Asador with Codi and Dale, Cafe Guilt, Half Saints, Chingolo Deli, a.m. espresso, Charlie Wanton Special with ze Chinese kids, Tori Tori, Wild Plant Based Burger, Key Coffee Kissaten with AiKen, Randy’s Donuts, Llao Llao, Ohayo Japanese Comfort Food with Don, Gufo Bar, Gianetto Italian with Donna, a mano with Nic
• Also went on a Poblacion bar crawl with my grade school friend Ed, his brother, T, Abi, and Harrell. Our other friend MJ also made the time to drop by when we were at the last bar. We went to Agimat at Ugat, Buccaneers, and The Spirits Library. It was fun to meet up because Ed and I hadn’t seen each other for a few years (hello Covid!)
• Tried my first Stott Pilates private session. It was really good! I liked it but realized how weak I am 😦
• Went on a weekend trip to Vivere Azure with ze family. It’s a boutique resort in Anilao, Batangas. Mom shared some stories about her younger days, and then T and dad talked a lot about Taiwan politics. HAHAHA! Every time I see/hear T and dad chatting with each other, I feel happy because they’re bonding!
• Also had a weekend staycation at Grand Hyatt
• Finally created a personal Tiktok account!

Random thoughts

• Took the six human needs test — my top 2 are growth and certainty which I related with
• “When you tolerate an error, you rob yourself of learning. When you ruminate on an error, you rob yourself of happiness. Notice it, improve it, and move on from it.” – James Clear
• Brian Balfour lessons – inspect the work and not the person, look for sparring partners and not mentors (they’re in the arena with you)
• Commonplace book: book of quotes, thoughts, passages or knowledge that isn’t your own, but that you consume and strikes you as worthy of keeping
• What is love? It’s a question that I’ve been thinking about recently. When I think of why T and I are together, the only reason I can think of is because we click, not because we’re similar all throughout — in so many ways we’re different, but at our core, our core values are the same. We also have similar viewpoints on the more important topics in life.
• Had some insightful conversations with friends on: concept of being in different stages and phases of our lives, talking about our privilege, cognitive distortions
• T and I started talking about potential business ideas. I have a lot of friends telling me that we should start a biz but I just don’t know what. Hmm.
• Had an intro call with a company
• I can’t believe that the year is about to end. When I look back on 2023, I don’t think I’ve accomplished much because there’s not a lot of tangible stuff. There is a lot of intangible stuff though — soft skills, skill sets, and new mindsets.

Work

• Turnover of the Webflow pages
• Had our first big webinar event!
• Updated our social media banners (thank you Canva!)
• Played around with our HubSpot and created Custom List and Audience Group properties to better tag companies and leads
• Finally finished working on some website pages
• Created our other social media channels to try them out (YouTube and TikTok), and have been posting content there

Some thoughts throughout these few months are:

• The thing is, I don’t often know how to ask for help
• Don’t let others impose their urgency on you
• I’ve experienced a ton of microaggressions over these years
• Feeling of isolation esp when you’re one of the early hires
• You don’t have to agree with everything you see from the “influencers”/”experts”
• I saw a post from Elena Verna saying how she’s pushing her team to “fail” more, which builds up their experimentation muscles and mindset, and I feel like this is a good exercise for me as well. I need to change my mindset that you cannot fail. It isn’t failure if you learned something from it and failing means you tried.
• I feel like I’m unnecessarily hard on myself. Also, am I unknowingly holding myself back? And, it sometimes annoys me that I’m conflict-avoidant and a people pleaser. I wish I could speak up more and really tell people what’s on my mind without worrying if I’m coming on too strong, or if I’m being rude, etc. UGH.
• While I am thankful for the independence and freedom, sometimes it’s annoying when there’s no one to help you correct yourself or check for mistakes -_-
• Surprised myself with my thoughts on marketing. Didn’t know those existed within me haha but I got pissed off hearing someone talking as if he knows everything about it when he doesn’t. I mean none of us really do tbh, so don’t pretend like you do.
• Had a candid convo about potential career paths and about jumping around to be “senior”. One of my toxic traits is that I’m loyal to a fault. A company doesn’t reward you for that.
• A downside of self-awareness is always understanding the other person even if you know you shouldn’t?