Cynthia Chin-Lee, Author and Speaker: Blur: a restrospective of 2015 and 2016

Blur: 2015 and 2016 speed by!

Joshua and me on New Years Eve 2015

National Harbor, MD, Joshua, Peter, Alan More, Diane Ching

Uncle Kenny and me, Washington DC 2015

Oracle Women's Leadership (OWL) friends at the Professional Business Women's of California Conference, March 2015

Now 2016 has come to an end. So here is my biannual blog post of 2015 and 2016. Maybe I will get back to an annual missive in late 2017? BLUR pretty much describes how life sometimes feels. What with working, commuting, cooking, cleaning, shopping, homeschooling, and even squeezing in some time for writing.

Fortunately, we've enjoyed many vacations, weddings, and family gatherings in the last two years. And I still find plenty of challenges and interesting events through my friends, family, neighbors, church, and maintaining an old house and work at Oracle.

Oracle co-workers in Santa Clara doing our fitness challenge

Joshua's first catch: a salmon at Bass Lake, California, April 2015

Yosemite, April 2015

Gray's Hall, my freshman dorm at Harvard, for 35th reunion

Quick snapshot of 2015 and 2016:

I'm still working at Oracle, but transferred from the Systems (hardware) business unit in Santa Clara to Human Capital Mgt software (applications) business unit and work from home 3 days a week and then go to headquarters in Redwood Shores one day and the Pleasanton campus one day. I'm still an information development manager but with a global team with writers in India, England, and the U.S. I like the change and the challenge and I enjoy not commuting three work days a week.

Peter is helping with the many home projects that an old house seems to have from roof leaks to electrical issues. He also drives Joshua to Foothill College where he's taking Japanese classes and participates in the Japanese and Anime clubs.

Joshua is a freshman in high school, doing online classes, a microschool class in biology, and Japanese at Foothill. He's now the tallest person in the house and with his curly mop of hair, he dwarfs me for sure. He's enjoying video gaming, video editing, and school.

Vanessa spent most of the last two years in Kunming, China, teaching English, singing in clubs and songwriting. She created a wonderful CD called Limbs with a crew of musicians through a Kickstarter campaign. She's temporarily came back to California but is now off again in Guadalajara, Mexico. She may be able to continue part-time with her current role as business development manager for goboxsfbay.com, an eco products company.

In November 2016, my dad passed away at 93. We miss him and I'm grateful for the legacy he left us. More photos of 2015 and 2016: