My New Year Resolution...
I can't believe that we only have a week left until 2017. Yeah, 2016 was just like previous year. Many promises and resolutions made. And how many have I kept. Let's see... So here is the list of what I intended to do and how did I do on them.
Learning new languages
For this one, I was hoping to learn new human languages. I did actually learn few words in Chinese. But not enough to make a conversation with people. And certainly can not read it. I also didn't get to use any of my Japanese. I was hoping that I keep up my reading, but I keep forgetting to do that. My Thais is still ok, I actually wrote a letter in Thais. One whole letter, LOL.
As a side note, I did manage to start learning a couple of new computer languages. But not a lot of usage in daily works. The primary language is still "C" - not even "C++". Most of the work done were also functions and routines.
I did managed to use "R" for quarterly report. The report is actually easily done in Word and Excel, but it is such a manual workflow. Using R with a couple of simple Bash scripts helps tremendously when it is time to create figures and table. However, I am still using PowerPoint to create my presentations. I am hoping to automate creating presentation also. This will be something that I will try to figure out for Q1 2017.
New Knowledges
This year I have seen a lot of growth in automation. There have been many tools that I use at work. As such I had to learn them too. Using containers - docker and Linux containers - is something new that I learn and use in 2016. Currently, I have migrated all my VMs to containers. No more Ubuntu Server VMs for code testing. I am using Docker containers exclusively for that. The only case which I am still running VMs are when i am trying to simulate network topology and testing related tools.
Learning Docker containers has been a major productivity improvement for me. Now I can not only spin up servers and services much quicker, but also using much less resources. With VMs, previously I had a couple of VMs running on my laptop. They consumes quiet a bit of disk space - about 4G-8G bytes per VM, and if I am at my mom's house, it is impractical to import them over slow Internet connection. Comparing to containers, the one that I use usually takes about 100M bytes. This is much improvement for me.
Personal, Wellbeing and Relationships
I managed to make a few people on-line which I think I can really call them my friends. Let's no name names here, cuz I don't think it matters that much. However, the relationships is real, and I am grateful for that. No new boy friend, or girl friend of the lover kind. I think it is cool and I kind of like it that way. Right?
I also got promoted at work. LOL. Imagine that. But that means I am going to more meetings. Actually meetings now becomes 50% of how I spend my time at work. Interestingly, the amount of works that I have to do does not seem to reduce. This means that I have to manage to get time to work on projects some how. Now I know why a manager spends time in meetings and boss people around. OMG super annoying. Like seriously. I also got to play a manager a little bit during Summer. My boss had a couple of Interns during the summer and I had to babysit them - j/k. They are super cute. It is great that we got an opportunity to get them for Summer. I actually learn a number of things from them. Mentoring them probably is the best thing happening for me this year. They are very smart and energetic and full of questions. Not only I have to relearn about technologies that they asked, but also learning how to have a good personal relationships with younger generations. I think Internship program works out great not only for the interns but also the company. I hope we can continue this again this Summer.
As to my personal wellbeing... I still meditate everyday, at least 5 minutes. But mostly I mediate about 20 minutes. Once in awhile - like monthly - I did about an hour. I think meditation is the best thing that I had learned since I remember - really. I keep this up for sure. If you have not tried meditation, I really encourage you to learn. There are a number of resources that can help you get start. Usually, you have one weekly class and you come back and practice at home. I learn to meditate at a Buddhist temple. My classes led by Buddhist monks. The class is secular. These monks are Thais and are English learner. I got to practice my Thais with them. The temple also fed lunch. Highly recommended.
I managed to gain weight. Actually, I don't have to really spend effort. I gained 8lb during summer - to 135lb. Must be because of the lunch with the interns. I am still about 2lb off from normal and a little far for my goal of 120lb. LOL. One day I should get there.
I think that's it for now. I got to go pick up my dog from the grooming place. Later K. Much love.
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