2016 Highs and lows
Baby #2, it’s a girl
Shera, our little daughter, was born this year. She has been happy, healthy, and an absolute source of joy. Almost hard to believe that we somehow sustained the pregnancy period of my wife, while also running after our active toddler son, Shopoth. Such a pleasure to see the two already reaching for one another, cuddling, giggling, and occasionally fighting.
Canadian Citizenship, eh!
I’m very glad and proud to be a Canadian citizen starting this year. I just realized that I spent 21% of my life in Canada already! For those of you that haven’t been to Canada yet, you should visit some time for it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth with people of good heart.
Life & Work, well balanced
Mostly doing 40-hour work weeks and working from home once / week. The team I’m managing has built up on solid foundations now. This is super exciting to see motivated people working on challenging projects and consistently delivering quality outcome.
Personal finances, thumbs-down
While the return on my experimental investing portfolio has been great, I didn’t make good on the car-buying decision. Ended up getting into a 4-year lease on a car that has more seats than our living room, and we only really needed it for the summer while we had family with us.
Health, got lazy
Honestly, it was a tough year to dedicate time for health. I know you’re thinking “it’s a lame excuse.” On the bright side, our team won the friendly soccer tournament this summer, and played soccer almost each of the Friday nights starting October. However, I got lazy otherwise. Probably also just too tired from the kids and housework at times.
Relationships, so-so
Met some friends and had a few phone calls with friends throughout the year. But, I failed to connect with relatives outside my first family. This is likely a result of being so far physically, but also something that only gets worse unless actively taken care of.
Remote work, didn’t work too well
We spent the first month of 2016 in Bangladesh with family. It was my first time experiment working remotely with a 12 hour timezone difference. It was fun to start. But I could feel the stress of having to stay up till 2-3AM each night and dealing with Internet latency issues. While I had a decent accommodation and a makeshift office arrangement, it got harder to get enough sleep. Next time if I work remotely, I will limit my commitment to midnight.
Misc. things
- Continued our charity program financing to support education in Bangladesh.
- I didn’t have any public speaking session in the whole year for the first time in past 10 years.
- Ended up spending too much time on social media for little gain.
- While made some progress towards my PhD thesis, didn’t submit any paper.
There’s a 2nd post coming about the new year’s resolution. Come back in a few days.