I still remember it was Eason who first said “2023 新年快樂” to us audiences. This year, it was the people gathering outside who were cheering so loudly that made me aware — 2024 has arrived.
I feel too lazy to write something about the past year in some years. But this time, I mark it as the first thing to do on Jan 1. Guess I find this a meaningful way to look back and do a bit of reflection.
Promotion
After 3 years of marathon, I finally got promoted to product lead! 🏵️ I was hoping it’d come earlier in Q1, but it did come in Q3 like someone has promised. I treat it as an official certification of doing a good job here. Behind the scene, I deal with it with all the anxiety that came with it.
Coaching was not easy for me just like external communication was difficult six years ago. I perform awkwardly in 1on1, breathe deeply before asking for updates, and pick words carefully when providing feedbacks….. I feel grateful when my mentee starts to chit-chat with me about life, to become more patient when explaining the design, and to be able to shoulder bigger responsibility and become a key person in the projects. Besides mentees, I also coached other PMs whenever I see a potential risk or improvement. It wasn’t until then that I understand K’s word: you can coach without a title. The result is fulfilling: satisfactions derived from human nature come in a way different from those of making a successful feature release.
After the promotion, you get one step higher while others stay at the same level, does it change your relationship with them? I tried to convince myself that all relationships remain the same. But no, at least, the relationship between you and your new subordinates change. How to face and handle the change properly was the biggest challenge. The process made me uncomfortable. Once I thought to myself, I can do anything as an individual contributor (IC) with ease, the only matter that I feel stressful is dealing with such relationship. Slowly as the condition changed, we did make some cheerful progresses. But promotion symptoms didn’t stop there.
I struggled to balance hands-on and hands-off. A feeling of unsafety flooded. As an IC, I was crystal clear about everything, the business decisions, system logics…. everything in my domain. But as others joined, that clear sight degenerated gradually. At some point, you start to doubt: is it my mind that becomes blunt? It took me some time to learn that it’s not about the mind (though you have to frequently push it to the limit to keep it sharp), but I have to get along with the blurriness. “You can’t possibly be more clear about the details of the project than your peers if he’s the one who actually works on it.” My manager said, “The only thing you can do is to set up your expectations on the big principles and make sure they follow.”
GMAT
GMAT was my focus during the spare time. I took two tests in total but neither of them was good enough. Guess I’ll keep going until I score a good one. Though no good result yet, it feels rewarding to have one clear goal, spend effort, and sense the improvement. Journey is the destination. The preparation is like picking up any other skills: you’re the only one on the road. Whether there’s a shortcut, a solid but efficient (expensive) way, or just a normal path…. It’s up to you which approach to apply, how committed you are, and when to reevaluate the decision.
The first thing I did wrong on GMAT is resisting to learn from others. I didn’t respect the exam fully and prepared it mostly on my own. A friend of mine actually provided me her online course account with full range of courses. But I only logged in once to see if the account works. It was only after I finished the first exam when I realized it was a real challenge required serious preparation. Then I logged in to her account again but the purchases have been expired. Now that I’ve been in the prep for almost 10 months, I don’t think the first 3-month was in the right direction at all. I wasted my own time. Never, never, never walk your own arrogant way if there was people preceded you. Learn from their experience instead.
During September, I was rushing to take another exam. I made a compact plan of studying. And I encountered one teacher that taught you to choose the correct answer without fully understanding the provided information (he assumes that his students are really bad at English). I quickly hopped on this boat to try my luck. The score was nothing like his promise. It was only then that I realized how naive it was to believe that this ridiculous method could work. It basically says that you can use tricks to get high scores in National College Entrance Examination. If that’s true, Tsinghua would have become a school full of tricks instead of talents. Thence, I came back to take my time and work on the foundations.
While it’s easy for me to scan through a passage in Chinese and tell what it talks about, I cannot do the same for a passage in English. I thought it was the main reason that i cannot answer reading questions in time. I can’t understand a sentence after reading it once, or multiple times. It must be the vocabulary, the sentence’s structure, or the context that I’m not familiar with. Which ones should I improve? To learn subjects such as astronomy is difficult, and as GMAC published, you don’t need domain knowledge to get the correct answer. Although domain knowledge might help with solving the problem, I choose to leave it for now. Then my focus goes to the other two. I use app to remember thousands of new words and a book to recite a hundred long sentences. It’d help on my reading speed of English anyway, not limited to GMAT but English passages in general.
Trips
It was a fruitful year! I went to Thailand, Guilin, and Xizang (new name for Tibet).
I went to Bangkok and Chiang Mai with mom. We experienced massages priced from HKD 50 to 1000 and I have to say that the 1K one was so lovely 😍. We waited a one-hour line to try some super spicy Tom yum crab noodles which made us diarrhea the other day 🥲. We went on a guided tour to Ayutthaya to view its out-dated luxury. We bought a durian and savor it on the street 😋. We bumped into a Jazz bar on a dark lane where the live music and vibe are impressive. We rode a motorbike all the way to the top of Doi Suthep while worrying about running out of oil. The winds were gentle, the weather was perfect…. the mood of flying on the smooth asphalt road to us own was beyond words. We joined cooking class to make our own Thai curry and mango sticky rice. We jumped on ziplines with courageous ❤️.
Guilin has been a famous city for its special mountain shapes — I call them potatoes in water. I knew Guilin from a textbook passage in secondary school. It takes 3 hours by high speed railway to get there from Hong Kong. When it was spring, me and Y, one of my besties, enjoyed our holidays in the city. To be precise, it was Yangshuo that took our breath away. The potatoes are right next to your hotels, trails you drive, or balcony of the bar. To me, I love the experience of riding an electric bike (again) on the trails… Yangshuo is a place for chilling.
Xizang! I went there myself with a group of strangers coming from places all over China. We had our local guide and a driver to lead us. The trip was amazing and thus I fell in love with solo trip in a group. We kicked off our trip in Nyingchi — a city full of outsiders came from Sichuan and other places. The altitude of the city is 2900 meters which is friendly enough for a first timer. We went to local homes for butter tea. We had different styles of hotpot, tried Chuan cuisine multiple times, and enjoyed a nice Zang cuisine. I’ve definitely enjoyed Chinese cuisines from this trip after way too much Hong Kong Mixian 🥹. We were lucky enough to catch the spectacular view of Namjagbarwa Peak 🏔️. I was shocked by the genuine of Tibetan Buddhism — we went to a temple with ourselves being the only tour group. There I peed in a restroom for monk because they don’t have one for female. We saw monks living there peacefully. For the first time, I visited a temple that was not commercial at all, not to mention there was a righty snow peak in a sight distance. We went to shoot stars at night because there was not much light pollution. We lived in a 5-star resort where you could hear the yak passing by your cottage ringing the bell on his neck “ding-ding”. Xizang is just a place without any makeup and hit you by the heart because of its unique. You just get attracted naturally, physically and mentally.
Although I kinda forced myself to go for these 3 trips, I did the right thing to move my ass. Or else my memory would be too plain when looking back. Do people good by taking them to travel. Love yourself by following your curiosity.
Social life
Social life was better than it was in 2022. I simply feel I care HK friends more than before, and we have deeper boundaries to each other. But still, I don’t have enough social lives. Like during Christmas, I wasn’t out celebrating. Is it a problem? Maybe, I think a good relationship takes time together. When the maturity isn’t there, forcing myself to spend more time feels like wasting time. So I’d rather to take my time. The true ones will stay.
I did make some important move throughout the year. I enjoyed inviting teammates to visit Shenzhen for horror-themed escape room 😈. I’m glad to have teamed up a 5-people swimming class. I bet it’ll become a long-lasting memory to all of us (if we can actually pick up swimming from these classes haha). It was so funny to bring float boards to the office and go to the public pool together after work 🩱. The freaking coldness after getting out of the water recorded our determined.
Relationship
I had one relationship in 2023. It was a beautiful but exhausting one. We are both ambitious. We work in the same industry. We share similar value of life. We enjoyed every moment when we were together. We departed because it wasn’t a balanced relationship and it was not going anywhere. Hurt as it did, we made the right decision. Now that it’s been ended for a couple months, I could be rationale to write down the reflections when the memory is still fresh.
Think it through. You can’t be blind just because you are in love. Although blindness happens all the time, some obvious facts such as time of accompany, can easily give you a hint whether it’s a healthy relationship or not. Don’t lie to yourself. Face it and deal with it.
Be yourself, and be aware of yourself. One tends to lose herself when she cares too much. She may start to say words she isn’t meant to say, take actions she doesn’t want to take…. these pretense doesn’t last. One gets tired sooner or later. What makes it worse is that one won’t love a person who’s pretending to be another person. If you need more time chilling together, say it. If you’re not satisfied with his attitude, say it.
Be brave to let go. It’s wise to give up in time. If nothing truly changed in the relationship after trying hard to fix it, have the guts to call off. I have a tendency to wait longer than needed but the fact is that the answer shows immediately if you’re sensitive enough. Most of the time, I was just afraid of change hence am not willing to admit it or make a move.
To me, the biggest problem with this relationship wasn’t at its foundation, but we didn’t treat it bravely. Not brave enough to say hi, or to say bye.
Start of 2024
I’m confident that I’ll have a great 2024!
And here comes my resolutions 😙: Have the toilet water leakage fixed. Get a good GMAT score, then a good IELTS score. Start a new relationship. Of course, I will keep up with my career in the company and give my best. Keep loving my parents and my cat. 🥰
一块海绵 