It has been more than a year since I last wrote here. I am writing this at 11pm, fairly exhausted and still hustling. It is like having a number of tasks and to-do’s all concentrated in this one week.
Since my last entry, I have:
- Started working for a Swiss-based research firm specialising in private banking and wealth management.
- Been awarded, sat (then failed) a couple of finance-related examinations.
- Gained two national scholarships to attend two global conferences in Singapore and Seattle.
- Went to another international conference in a city that I have never been to.
- Finished my Masters.
- Moved continents (now my fourth), then moved to another city for better opportunities.
- Continue working on professional development in my tech focus/area of interest including recently signing up to extra training.
- Went house-hunting, found a house, managed to move my belongings across three cities now.
- Seeking more opportunities, this time with a tech and global focus, most importantly focus on North America.
- Made new friends and colleagues.
- Learning the work cultures of at least five new countries/regions.
- Decided that I should further work on my European languages portfolio, initially was focusing on Svenska (for reasons past) now looking at Norsk (for reasons present) although I should also further work on my Deutsch (have been attempting for several years now) and Español (listening is OK, reading/writing/speaking not so much).
- Repaid some accumulated debt built up since I left Australia for the UK.
- Saved up a lot in order to make the move and have that savings ‘buffer’ for all my travels and moving-to-a-new-country necessities (ranging from long-term insurance, to covering costs of living, and not so necessary like flights and other trips).
Some of the things that I have decided to scale back:
- Personal social media updates. I rid myself of personal Facebook and Instagram but rethinking this now. However, I find that even blogging and working on my own projects to be enough. Another somewhat related item is photos which I seemed to have scaled back. I need to remind myself to make a better effort at taking photos.
- Blogging. A number of blog entries date back to 2014. I am looking to scale forwards, or at least aim for 10-12 new posts per year (which is better than 0 per year).
- Digital art. Again, scaled back since early 2014. Probably won’t scale this forwards until 2016 largely since digital art requires a lot (ie weeks) dedicated to it in another type of attention-focus.
- Hackathons and online challenges. Decided to scale back since a lot since mid last year of the newer hackathons out there seems to just not ‘get it’. From seeing a $70 entry fee for a hackathon, to being treated like free scope work.
- Art fairs, various creative conventions. Largely due to new geolocation, fair fatigue and other commitments, I significantly scaled back in 2014. The next one that interest me is Frieze Art Fair New York.
- Personal projects. I scaled back a lot since mid 2014. I don’t imagine working on new personal projects (ie hardware, apps, etc) until 2016 though since the focus (this year especially) has been the acquisition of new knowledge shifting the focus away from projects.
There are some things that I want to continue working on but it seems to be more life-related goals rather than updates-related.
Otherwise, since this blog is one of the items I am scaling forwards, expect to read more!
Last but not least, I promise a far more better domain name.
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