My 2019 Annual Review

Alright, I haven't seen James Clear's update on his annual review, I am going to do mine today.

As usual, things start with the history. My first annual review, the James Clear's way, was on 2015. My second was last year, 2018. And I am determined to continue to do this every year.

What went well this year?

Courses

I managed to get company to sponsor me to continue my RedHat journey. Well, it's not really sponsored by the company, it is utilising the HRDF fund. Anyway. I completed RedHat Open Stack 1. This course has no exam, I'll wait for the next course in 2020, to start my journey to become a RHCA. I also completed the Ansible Essentials: Simplicity in Automation Technical Overview (DO007) online.

Next is the SimplyPiano lessons. I manage to complete 5 courses this year. And all of them was done in first half of the year.

I also subscribed to Interaction Design Foundation this year, and completed 4 courses of the Usability Expert track. 3 courses are in slow progress. :P

My company learning platform is using inLearning. I am in progress to complete the full OWASP courses by Caroline Wong. Completed 1.5 of 6.

Looking at this, I think I did this quite well!

Readings

I read 24 books, 19 online novels. 9 of the books I read are from my own collection. 2 of them are in English! One of the book, about journalling, I read it twice in Popular!

Job

I am not sure if I should put this, in current section. Anyway, at least I managed to update my resume, sent it to my manager, and offer myself to do security testing to unblock the release. This is happened just recently. My manager told me there are changes in the team, and he think I am suitable to do resource/project planning after read my resume. I guess, it's a good sign for my 2020. Now, I think this can be included in this section. :)

Trips

I had 3 oversea trips, and 2 local trips this year. I went to Jeju Island, Chiangmai and Shanghai. Short trip to Penang and Perak. And, I did not overspent!

Drawings

I managed to fill up a book with my drawing, and successful complete the daily challenge in Inktober without any delay! I did at least 176 drawings in 2019! Did my drawing get better? I am not quite sure. Looking back at the Inktober challenge that I did in 2017 and 2018, I would say, I got improved! :D

Writing/Blogging

I combined these 2 into 1, as I don't blog some of the writing. Instead, I post as picture on Instagram. I wrote 289 blog post, 6 of them are my KDB; made 10 summary from the TED talks I watched. I also started another blog, thinking to write something inspired by "The Magical Adventures of A Single Life" by Kristen Mcquiness. I am in progress reading this book, in Chinese. No, I am not doing dates like she did in the book. I am dating myself, with the old me, the current me, or probably the future me. Yes, me and myself. Let's see how it goes.

Workouts

I must put this in this section. I manage to exercise 84 days through out the year. I also started swimming lesson with ET, which I mentioned what I am working towards to in 2018 review.

Meditation

I started to do meditation in June. I meditated 54 times. I am using guided meditation from Keep. I tried to meditate on my own, or listen to natural sound or meditating music, it doesn't calm me down. So, I decided to do guided meditation. It did help me finding peace. :D

Song writings

I posted 8 of my music/song on YouTube! I actually wrote more than that. :)

Diet

I cook more this year. Having overnight oats, salads. Tried to cut down sugar intake, and drink more water. Though according to my tracking, it is still way to go to get to the balanced/right status, but this has improved. So, I am putting this into my do-well category.

What didn't go so well this year?

Courses

I need to repeat this category here. My plan was complete the courses in SimplyPiano this year, and stop the subscription. I failed.

I also made very slow progress in the IDF courses. My aim was to complete a course in 2 months. I am giving myself another year to work this out. I don't plan to proceed with the subscription at the end of the year, as I probably can pick up something related in inLearning.

I also signed up for ISC2 membership, intend to get some CPEs done to maintain my CCSP associate title. However, I failed. Like what I got CEH last time, I also didn't really try to maintain my certification. So, at the end of the year, I have decided to stop paying for the ISC2 membership.

Photography

I did take more photos this year, but I didn't process them and put on my blog. I just had 35 posts in my photography blog!

Job

I must add this here as well. I thought I am the best person to bridge the gap between the delivery (ops team) and developer (dev team). I worked hard, and probably not smart enough, or it could be just the dev team is reluctant to admit their weakness? It became a big communication break down in the last sprint, where the product is not as expected. They could blame the requirement is not clear again. But, this round it is way too obvious that they just don't read the requirement, and do their own programming. A button to reset the status become a drop down to set to any status, this is way too much to blame the requirement is not clear. I put this in didn't-go-well category, for me not able to influence the developers to do things right.

What did I learn?

I am not sure why I didn't do this for my 2018, as this is the 3rd question of James Clear's annual review.

I learned to let go. 3 months earlier, my manager asked me if I enjoy doing this business consultant role. Is it aligned with my personal goal, which I'd like to be a solutionist/solution architect. I said yes, and I wanted to continue. When I do my year end review update, I found out I am way too far from the objective I have set. Especially after the last sprint end result. I had sleepless night, thinking of how can I continue, able to influence the developer to have the right mindset to do their job. I finally concluded that with a popular saying, You can't wake up a person who pretends to fall asleep. When I decided to let go (give up?) and move on, I found inner peace.

I enjoy hacks and get things done. It is sad to see the dev team lead, now manager, to put a bar for me to understand the platform architecture, or block me from attending any technical related meeting. She probably didn't like me making suggestions or do sharing. I actually still can't get how could a team lead/manager is so closed-minded. Anyway, that doesn't block me from learning about it. Based on the articles and information I could get, I still manage to learn it. I was so enjoyed and thrilled with my progress so far. :)

Sleep early, enough sleep helps. Currently, at this hour, I should be in my dreamland. I must continue with this sleep early habit. If I sleep late, I'll still make sure I slept for 7 hours by adjusting the alarm, so I get enough sleep.

What am I working towards?

I am continue this question, as a record what I will be working on in 2020, and for me to do review then.

My tech thoughts, my "The Magical Adventures of A Single Life", the yet to complete 有關愛情的故事手帳, swimming, Japanese, French, Security Testing related, Open Stack, new drawing/writing journal 2020心情雜記, another 25 books, 信情故事, Inktober, online courses, more TED talk summary... I hope this is not too much for me.