Bismillah,
I have a habit of doing a yearly review on the last day of the year but somehow I missed it last year – perhaps due to the anxiety and unknowns of moving to a new country. Alhamdulillah, it’s getting better this year. It’s time for me to sit and jot down the reviews.
What did 2018 bring?
Adjusting well to my current job
Coincidentally, I joined my current company in the first week of 2018 so this month marks my first year since then. I struggled a bit when I started simply because I wasn’t familiar with replying to customers directly. With my previous company, everything was communicated internally first due to the size of our clients and their heavy marketing budget. Working in a start-up definitely has its perks. You gotta define your own set of rules and you have a chance to shape how your team works (at least). It has been challenging so far but I enjoy it. The work-life balance has been great and my boss has been supportive with each one of us in her team I can’t complain.
Kids are adapting well at the childcare
This is another feat, alhamdulillah. My biggest fear of moving to Germany is actually how I could leave my kids under the care of an institution for the whole day. When we were in Singapore, they were taken care of my helper so basically, they only had one person that’s taking care of them for the whole day while we were at the office. The trust they had with my helper is just like trusting a family member. Well, Z had 2-3 hours of schools every day, but it’s just a school, not a full daycare.
In Germany, there’s no way we can afford a live-in helper and the thought of getting another live-in helper frightens me. Our previous helper was great but it took me months to fully accepted her into our family.
We were lucky to get spots for both boys at the same childcare in two months while the situation in Berlin is beyond bad. The adjustment period for Z was short since he was bigger and he’s social by nature. M, on the other hand, took more time. He started his adjustment period in August and it took him two whole months until he can finally stay in the childcare full time. Now that both of them settled well in the childcare and trust their caretakers, we can finally have a working schedule as a family.
Transitioning to taking care of the house by ourselves
Oof.
I knew that it was going to be challenging to maintain the whole household while being a full time working mom – but I didn’t realize that it was going to be THAT challenging to the point that I needed a strategy – if that’s what you want to call it haha.
I wrote more on that in another post – so I am just gonna leave it there. I am glad to say that the order in this house has been maintained well.
Read more: Supaya Tetap “Waras” Menjadi Working Mom
A trip to Paris and Hamburg
I won’t lie – one of the reasons (or benefits?) of moving to Europe is to be able to see European countries with our own eyes.
Read more: Why you should move to Berlin
Bringing two kids under 5 traveling with us has been a challenge but that’s not impossible. Of course, a backpacking trip is out of question hence why we could only manage two trips last year. They were fulfilling though – they provided good breaks in between our busy schedules.
Bullet journaling
I started bullet journaling back in September 2017. At that time it was thanks to Synta and her Instagram accounts. Her bullet journal is so clean and inspiring. Soon I discovered Amanda Rach Lee and other bullet journalists – mainly from Instagram. It was intimidating at first since I have no art background at all – but by trial and error, I think I finally found joy in bullet journaling. I wrote a lot when I was a kid because that’s my main outlet when I was happy or sad and all – and now I am doing this on my journal as well along with other things such as my tasks and to-do lists.
Shameless plug – I have an Instagram account that is dedicated to my journaling journey – if you are interested 📖
Reading Challenge 2018 achieved
I set a target of 20 books at the beginning of 2018. I admit I cheated a bit by re-reading all 7 Harry Potter books (and I finished them all in one month) – and some of the rest of the books is really short, but hey, a target is still a target right? I am glad that I found comfort in reading again – just like what I had when I was a kid.
If anyone is interested, here’s my Goodreads account – it has been very very useful to track my progress and more importantly, to get a book recommendation from others. I admit that I am still very much deciding my to-be-read list on ratings, but hey, baby steps 🐾
What’s in store for 2019?
Passed JLPT
This has been on my list EVERY SINGLE YEAR since 2015 – but I never got around to complete it. Not even attempting it. It’s gonna be even more challenging to take a test in Germany because I will need to travel outside Berlin. Luckily this summer’s JLPT will (hopefully) fall at the same week with our holiday in Jakarta. I am planning to sneak one day to get into the test. But first, of course, I need to study hard.
Getting at least one degree from Udacity
I registered for one of their nanodegree programs last year – and I haven’t even finished that one yet. Their courses are quite demanding in terms of projects and I am still struggling to find times to do them. I am aiming to get at least one degree from Udacity this year – wish me luck 🍀
More traveling
It’s more because we have school holidays lined up in April, July, October, and December this year. So far we already have trips planned for April and July. Let’s see what we can afford for October and December – our holiday budget seems to be running out fast 💸
More reading
Since I managed to finish my 2018 Reading Challenge, I am setting up a new challenge for me this year – 25 books, yay! By the time this post is published, I had finished one book. It’s a super popular book and truly a page-turner. I am planning to do a book review on this blog as well. We’ll see how that one goes since I can barely maintain a weekly post 😶
Oh – and this is actually also a good resource for reading recommendations. Recently I followed an Instagram account focused on motivating mothers to read more – it’s a brainchild of my lovely friend, Puty. If you are interested, you can follow the account and see recommendations from others too. I found it to be really encouraging and I love the book recommendations that are in Indonesian as well – I am building a list of books to be bought when we are going home for holiday this summer!
Networking
This sounds so professional, but actually.. it’s not. For the past year, I have been holing up in the house. In my defense, there is so many to be done over the weekend. Laundry, groceries, ironing, etc. Until I realized that I hadn’t made any real human connection and it kinda dampens my spirit. I will be the first one to admit that I am totally an introvert – interacting with other human beings requires great effort and energy for me. But I still need them on regular basis and nothing will change if I don’t make the first move.
For a start, I am planning to come to the mosque more often and perhaps I will be able to meet more people there. I have been neglecting that for the past year – maybe it’s a good time to start coming there again.
Connected to Him
It’s related to the point before. I felt like losing my connection to Him – to be honest, this has been plaguing me for more than a year and I hadn’t made any real effort to revive this. Thousand of excuses, I admit. I still don’t know how can I achieve this. But this is definitely one of my important goals. ☪️
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To close this post, I wanted to say Alhamdulillah for a blessed 2018. Hopefully, 2019 will bring us greater things and most importantly, getting us closer to whatever gives you comfort.
Chilly Berlin,
