General – Eat, Play, Live

Here’s to a long rainy weekend

It wasn’t until Wednesday I learned there was going to be a winter storm in California. Is that why the air has been getting so cold? My coworker got a text from a friend who lives in Pasadena saying that it was hailing on her side in Los Angeles.

1 Class down, 11 more to go!

I am happy to say, I completed my first class in my grad school career with a bang! I got an “A” — I exceeded my own expectations. This is the first time I’ve been in school in ten years. So far, I enjoy the program, and I am learning a lot of things on a deeper level.

What has changed:

Well, I do get less sleep. To do well in an online graduate school program, you get out what you put in.
At work, I still work full-time. At my job, I am the most senior person in my team, aside from my supervisor. Before at my work, I use to take care of things for my subordinates, so it gets done. Nowadays, I do more coaching, so I am not left to pick up the pieces. My supervisor was pushing me to do this for years to more delegating and coaching with my colleagues. It’s definitely helped a lot with my workload.
I use to have that go, go, go mentality. Now I apply the brakes.
I take a more careful look at my planner to judge if I have enough bandwidth to do something whether it’s work-related, school-related, or life-related. In my first class, I had a midterm paper due on a Sunday I had a writing proficiency exam scheduled for the following day. I remembered during that same week building up to those exams was an unusually busy week at work where it involved a lot of driving and doing a large print job. During finals week, the events at work were back-to-back insanity of travel, training, focus groups, meetings, and even news crew interview. At the end of each day at work, I told myself, I need to get to writing that final paper. The lesson learned here: If I can control my own calendar, then take control of it otherwise it controls you. Instead of blindly saying “yes,” review your calendar first.
There’s a little less cooking. My diet has mostly been eggs, bread, potato, Noosa yogurt, and tofu.
Reaching for the sparkling water. There are times when I feel crunched, I crave something sweet. I could stuff myself with candy, chocolate, and ice cream but for some reason, drinking some sparkling water help curb my sugar cravings. The funny thing is, for as long as I remember, we never stock any sweet soda products.

This past week is our week off before we start another 8 weeks for the next class!

I am still getting a feel for my new schedule. For now, I think these random sporadic updates will do for the time being.

A couple of random things to share:

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Yesterday I went to Urban Plates in Thousand Oaks with my friends. It reminds me of a more expensive version of Lemonade, but you get fewer choices of sides. I do like the passionfruit coconut milk. If I find some passionfruit, I’ll attempt to make this drink. I believe there’s also a hint of lemon.

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I purchased a 23andMe kit for myself and my husband for Valentine’s Day last month. We did receive our results this week. Stay tuned. Our breakdown was interesting. For reference, I am Filipino, and my husband is Vietnamese.