A 2023 Year End Review

It is the familiar holiday season again and I feel it’s time to look back at 2023, reflect and summarize what had happened as a result of this year’s hardwork.

To my delight, I did not let my kindle collect dust, and I read over 20 books in total, most of which are in English. I used to be less patient and could not get into the right rythm of reading in a second language, but after practice I’m getting better at it.

The beginning of the year was a somewhat bumpy journey with Google’s mass layoff. Although I was not laid off, I was still on work visa when it happened, and that was a quite a stressor. Gladly my green card arrived in April which solves that problem for me.

In July I took some time off and had a roadtrip all the way from California to Wisconsin. We drove along route 66 and crossed Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kandas, Nebraska, Iowa. The Arizona landscape was mesmerizing and beyond what can be captured by a camera. With my green card I also traveled to Switzerland for business, and Thailand for fun. I’m going to visit Japan briefly in Feb 2024, and hopefully for a longer time in April.

I did 75 hard while working a full time job and got a promotion, which was very empowering, although it gave me a painful ankle near the year end. I don’t think I’ll do it twice, but I don’t regret this one.

Tiger has been good and I feel proud of her 100% every day. Thank you for choosing me. I did some side gigs which gave me a couple of hundred dollars, and I have been donating between one third to half of the money to charity that help women, help stray or abandoned animals, or help poor kids get education. I did 3 blood donations too. Having the ability to give makes me feel good.

Overall 2023 has been good. In 2024 I want to make some new year resolutions but haven’t fully thought through. Adios, 2023!