“A bend in the road is never fatal, unless you never turn”
So, in a blink of an eye, my 3 months sabbatical leave from work is coming to an end and I will be starting work later in the morning. I could probably expect a ton of work and tough projects waiting for me at work.
I looked back at my earlier blogs at the start of my sabbatical 3 months ago and realized what I had in mind and planned at that time turned out pretty accurate. The biggest miss was the development of covid19 which resulted in Singapore declaring ‘Circuiting Breaker’ and disrupted all my travel plans, in addition to not being able to continue my training at UP. I was actually really upset of the CB news, which lasted throughout most of my sabbatical.
As mentioned in the 1st blog at the start of my sabbatical, if there’s only one thing I want to do, it was to get back on my health. And that was what I did. With the CB situation, I, unfortunately, was not able to do any checkup. But I can still continue the UP routine to reduce my weight and body fat. I had initially set a target and thought I would be very happy to lose 8 kg during these 3 months. When I realized 8 kg is within reached, I upgraded my target to 10 kg and told myself if I can achieve that, I would make a video to document my journey. As of today, I lost a total of 12.3kg and as promised to myself, published a youtube video 2 days ago. The youtube video surprisingly took a really long time to plan for and make. But I was more surprised to receive an overwhelming number of wishes and congrats from my friends when I shared it on FB. It was really encouraging.
In addition to the goal of getting my health back and making the youtube video, I actually secretly had a 3rd optional target, which is to take a training and pass an advanced certification at work. I was clear from the beginning that I will only explore this if I was able to complete the first 2. I managed to squeeze in some time to take the 3 days training, and although failed the exam on first try, was able to pass the exam earlier this week. So, I am officially VMware Certified Advanced Professional now.
At the end of the day, I have to say that I am happy to have achieved the 3 goals I set for myself. The CB and covid19 situation, fortunately or unfortunately, may have helped this. Of course, there were many other stuffs which I did as well, like grassroot volunteering, redecorated some parts of my house, re-evaluated my finances and insurance, etc. I even spend a good amount of time looking at cars. But most importantly, spending lots of quality time with my family. To sum it up, these had been one of the most fruitful, enjoyable, and memorable 3 months I had. In my opinion, would say it was worth the 3 months of no-pay sabbatical leave taken.
