July, For Me

Matt and Pauline wearing face masks.
Face masks are trending.

Main Highlights

Online

Personal

  • 🏑 Settled well in our new apartment. I’m still not over how awesome our balcony is! We’ve got our own little garden going on and it just makes me feel super happy.
  • 😷 Wore my face mask every time I left the apartment. It feels pretty normal now.
  • πŸ’ͺ🏼 Since getting my new pull-up mate, I’ve been practising pull-ups again after a bit of a break caused by everything going on recently. I’m a little annoyed at myself for losing the strength that I built over the past year or so, but trying to be less harsh on myself. It’s only up from here πŸ™ŒπŸ»
  • πŸ’Έ I got my new Monzo Plus card which I’m still raving about. πŸ˜‚
  • 🎨 I treated myself with a new iPad Air (2019) with an Apple Pencil. It’s been nice spending time creating digital artwork! I’ve also been using it a lot at work for random notes and sharing diagrams I created 😁
  • ❀️ My parents visited me this month after months of not seeing each other.

Community

  • πŸŽ™ I was featured on Michael Jolley’s Twitch stream, “The Late Night Build!Check it out here.

Work


3 Things that made me happy

1) Writing technical blog posts

I realised throughout the years of reading technical docs, a lot of them were just awfully confusing for no real reason. πŸ€¦πŸ»β€β™€οΈ Whenever I’ve been writing docs at work, I’ve tried to really be as explicit and for it to be written simple as possible.

This inspired me to write more blog posts on my own blog on some of the technical stuff I’ve done in the past. I’ve set myself a goal of at least some technical post every month or so, but I’m not going to be too precious over it. Afterall, there’s more to me than tech. πŸ˜‰

With that said, I’m so happy with how well the technical posts that I’ve written has been recieved. I’m glad that I’ve been able to spark some ideas to others to try something new!

2) Nomination for the Rising Star Award

Some of my colleagues had nominated me for this Rising Star Award. 😊

It was a pleasant surprise seeing it in my inbox! I always feel a mixture of emotions whenever someone nominates me for some award or recognition. Mostly overwhelming emotions that make me want to cry πŸ˜‚

The winners of the awards will be announced in November, so fingers crossed for then! But I’m thrilled to have even been nominated and being selected as a finalist. ✨

3) Getting a full-time permenant role

For those that don’t know, I’ve been on a graduate scheme with BT over the past two years and was in my final 6 months of the programme. With everything going on with COVID-19, I wasn’t sure if there would be jobs internally for me to apply to. But after a few interviews and a lot of stress over the uncertainty, I’ve finally secured a full-time position at BT as a Site Reliability Engineer.

To complete my blog posts on my learnings over the past two years, I’ll save everything I have to say until then but overall, I’m thankful and excited for the future πŸ˜„


July in Photos

Lots of selfies, Filipino food, plants and exercise! The usual.
Lots of selfies, Filipino food, plants and exercise! The usual.

July Favourites

  • 🎬 We finished watching the MCU for the second time! We also went down memory lane and re-watched Peter Pan (2003) After sharing it on social media, it looks like everyone had a crush on Peter growing up πŸ˜‚
  • πŸ“Ί I’ve been watching Friends again from the top. If a TV show could hug you, it would be this one for me.
  • πŸ“š Follow me on Goodreads for updates on what I’ve been reading this month! I’m currently reading “Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less -and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined” by Scott Sonenshein. So far, so good!
  • 🎨 I’ve loved using the app Procreate on my iPad Air for relaxing evenings of drawing 😊
  • 🌱 I bought a Lipstick plant this month to add to the collection, she’s so pretty.

Quote of the month


Next month

  • ❀️ I’m spending a week back in Sheffield with my family. I’ve missed them a lot!
  • πŸ’» Heads down learning again for me, I’m excited for the future in this career path that I’ve taken.
  • ✨ It’s my #PawGainz anniversary in August. 4 years since I began!

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