Little Thing 281 : January Highlights

The Taiwan Trip

Got back home from Taiwan in the first week of Jan and apparently left a part of my heart there.

The Birthday Month:

• Celebrated my birthday with the family
• Bought myself a bunch of yellow and white flowers - of hopes and dreams
• Did manicure for the first time - it was weird, but my nails were all clean and shiny, love it. 
• I finally bought my own sofa. I wanted a comfy sofa for the longest time but it is such a huge purchase kan. So, this year, I decided to just buy one, I make my own decision and bought one without asking for anyone's opinion. So proud of myself. My sofa's name is Mr Danny Sir. That's another present for myself. I also bought some furnitures and assembled them myself. 

Social Meetups (every social meetup is a small win for me, because I am not a social person and this is a very uncomfortable thing for me - but I assigned myself this challenge since last year to make an effort in connecting with more human):

• Met AP after more than 10 years - AP texted me, wished me a birthday wish and I think that was a sign that I might need to try to make more friends again, so, we finally met during one of the weekend. I thought AP would never meet me again after what I did post-uni (I was MIA forever)
• Met MC after our trips to update - we spent 3 hours at Flaaah, then we visited some lanes in Petaling Street, walked over to CM to checkout the booths and then spent another hour eating gelato. I don't know what I did to have this privilege. Tqiu MC - now that we can agree that I can call you my friend instead of my former English teacher kan. 
• Oh yes, and I also saw Aina at CM, that was exciting. She has this lovely vibe that I always love.
• The siblings meetup (but without Aja) - we talked about our plans, reflections, latest gossips, doubts and decisions. It's so good to be able to just faking adulthood together. 
• Siti's wedding - went to Seremban for their wedding. Sofi was sick so that was not so fun.
• Birthday teatime potluck party - with my dad :F , my other mom, my siblings, and family friends. 
• CNY gathering - with my mom and my siblings. I was rather socially exhausted to be honest, and spent the next day managing migraine and the pain. 

Run: 

• I did my first 10k of 2025 (MAIWP Run Putrajaya), it was slow - 1:31 but the important thing is I did it, it rained heavily halfway during the run and the wind blew hard. I was drenched and cold. Took the train back home and was shaking all the way. I had a nice loooooong hot shower and had a short nap afterwards. I was off running the whole week post 10k.

Work:

My probation is up, I was offered a full-time position and I accepted it! I told them to let me observe and join all the meetings because I need to learn to participate in human interaction practice as much as I could - that explains a lot of meetings and zoom call with clients. Hah hah hah. I even make a LOT of awkward conversations with the people from New Zealand and Australia team because they do really push me to make the 'connection' outside of work (this is a huge struggle - but I consider this as a part of my job that I was paid for). 

Books: Time to read is a privilege, I will forever miss you, time ❤︎

• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Random:

Since I've been working full-time, I really pushed myself to do a lot of uncomfortable stuffs, things that I rather not do, activities that I know will drain me, I make efforts to really put myself out there, within the society - just to get a hang out of it, as practice, as a skill that I might need to polish or will find useful. 

But, but, but, even though I am doing all these things out of my comfort zone (which sounded great - my IG is colourful with activities now), I still 50 times rather pursue my quiet, slow pace normal life. I rather bloom in the background, invisible to the public eyes, I rather have intimate close-knit people that I can be myself with, but I don't have that. So I had to play this game, just to push myself out there every week, as a challenge to myself. 

So I've been diligently making weekly activities that I could do to spend the time outside, than spending more time in front of the screen. I make an effort to meet people during my off days and do activities outside of work. It is a massive change for me.