Tag Archives: Things I learned

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Celebrating the beauty of life’s lasting connections

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Life’s intricate dance of connections—some waltz into your world gracefully and effortlessly, bringing a sense of familiarity as if you’ve known them for decades. Others, like fleeting shadows, fade away and disappear so quickly. As I grow older, I appreciate those who effortlessly create lasting connections—those who sit on the sidelines yet never hesitate to lend a hand when I need someone to pull me up and who value the connections we share.

Reflecting on this year, I cherish even more those who weave lasting bonds, appreciate the shared moments, and embrace the beauty of genuine connections. In life’s ups and downs, I remind myself again today to enjoy every moment I spend with those who appreciate my company and those I care about, because time passes so quickly, like sand slipping through your fingers.

As I wrap up another year, I hope you find the courage to build meaningful connections, the strength to let go of what doesn’t feel right anymore, and the wisdom to treasure the little moments that matter most. Life can be unpredictable, but it’s the people we hold close who make it all worthwhile.

Here’s to a new year filled with love, laughter, and meaningful connections that make life brighter. Thanks for being part of my journey, and cheers to what’s ahead!

Unicorn coloring book cover, Just like Unicorns, you can be magical!

My first baby animals abc coloring book cover

My first jungle animals abc coloring book

Earlier this year, I partnered with a friend to bring an exciting vision to life—creating vibrant and creative kids’ coloring books! They’re now available on Amazon, so take a look and let me know what you think! 🙂

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Embracing change with confidence and curiosity

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Changes happens every day regardless of whether we like it or not. Uncertainty and anxiety that comes with every change we face in life is expected and normal. What we can control though is how we deal with them. Do we ignore them? Do we let the doubt and fear stop us from facing changes? Do we face it with an open mind and explore possibilities that may come along with the changes?

To me, we can’t just ignore and avoid changes so why not have an open mind, wonder about the possibilities and potential that change may bring, and see where it takes us? If it helps us to move forward, great – we may even start adopting changes faster as uncertainty and anxiety starts melting away. If it sets us back, that’s fine too as there will be more opportunities.

Change is inevitable, and how we respond to it shapes our journey. So, I want to ask you, how do you approach changes in your life? Do you embrace them, resist them, or find a balance somewhere in between? I’d love to hear your thoughts or stories about a time when a change brought unexpected growth or lessons. 🙂

Life changed for the better when we adopted this sweet boy in June. I can’t imagine my days without him now—he’s brought so much joy and love into our home. 💕

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“How are you doing?”

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Hmm… *long pause* I didn’t realize how loaded this question can be to someone. I learned the hard way from my own experience that this casual greeting could trigger a whole lot of emotions to someone. It certainly did to me.

Unexpected and unfortunate events happened to me and my family one after the other since the beginning of last year, and along the way I lost my health to the point where I couldn’t walk. It all happened pretty quickly – from an active person to bedridden; not only having to deal with physical challenges but also facing mental struggles with myself, having difficulties accepting what has happened to me.

For years if someone said to me “How are you?” I would respond casually – “I am good. How are you?” with smiles on my face. Often it was like an automatic response – as if that’s the only way I knew how to respond to such question. That was no longer the case this time. I found myself struggling how to answer this question… Do I say ok so that I don’t need to explain anything? Should I be honest and say I am going through hell? But then what? It triggered all kind of emotions – sadness, frustrations, anger, feeling so vulnerable and helpless, confused…made me even feel speechless at times, simply not knowing what to say. With all these overwhelming emotions, I started shutting down and isolating myself more and more to avoid any kind of interaction.

But lately, I started feeling better and the feeling of wanting to respond came back. I wanted to respond and say thank you, thanks for just thinking of me and saying “Hello!”, and asking me how I am doing. I realized that my physical and mental struggles was overwhelming at times, and this question reminded me of the normalcy I was missing so I chose to flight and that’s what I did. However, it did also reminded me that you are there and show that you do care when I was feeling most vulnerable and helpless.

It’s been 9 months of countless hours spent in dr appointments and rehab trying to regain my health back. I am still dealing with pains everyday and unsure how long it will take for me to fully recover from this injury, but I want to believe that I am going to be ok. I can walk, able to work and slowly started doing things that I used to enjoy doing, so I know I will be ok.

So, I want to ask you “How are you doing today?” and that I really hope you are in good health and doing ok. If you are struggling, my thoughts are with you and I hope you feel better soon! ❤️🙏

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I am a complainer.

. Foodie, Photographer, Thinker, Traveller . , , , . 1 Comment

I am a complainer.
I don’t have a big dream.
I am unsure what I would like to do with my life.
I don’t have such ambitions or desire to be that “successful” person as how our society defines.

But how I am is what drives me to think hard and creatively to find solutions for my complains, to have an open mind and live life with a glass half full perspective, to try different things to figure out what I like, and to enjoy small things in life every day that matters to me and define success in my own term.

So I don’t think there is anything wrong for being a complainer, or not having a big dream, or not having a clear answer for what I would like to do with my life.

Remember, try not to make hasty judgments based on your own rules and how things appear on surface. When you have an open and curious mind, and try looking at things from different angles, you will always discover new insights and be able to learn different perspectives that you weren’t able to see before.

Sarah in Amsterdam, NetherlandSarah, exploring a cathedral in Bruges Sarah exploring Bruges, Belgium Sarah in Bruges, Belgium Sarah in the oldest pub in Bruges

These are some pictures from my recent trip to Bruges in Belgium. I enjoy traveling. You can see new things, experience different cultures, food, and learn about new way of living and human history that I never knew before. And at the same time, it reminds me how lucky I am to call Toronto home. ❤

#Toronto #Bruges #Belgium #Europe #Traveller #TravelBlogger

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Who, Why, What? Communicate clearly

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In order for an organization to be successful and achieve its mandate, what do you think are the fundamental things that everyone involved in an organization needs to clearly understand? Three questions initially came to my mind:

  • WHO we are?
  • WHY we exist?
  • WHAT we do?

There are few variations and opinions you will encounter when reading through articles on this topic. However, the following are the common themes in a simplified form and we needs a bird’s eye view of an organization to be able to answer these questions.

  • Motivation: WHY does the organization work the way it does?
  • Function: HOW does the organization carry out its work to deliver the value?
  • People: WHO does what?
  • Network: WHERE is the work conducted?
  • Data: WHAT things are needed – i.e., resources and information?
  • Time: WHEN does work need to happen?

The discipline of holistically looking at an organization and conducting it’s analysis, design, planning and development is called “Enterprise Architecture“. Refer to Zachman Framework and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) if you are interested in learning more about widely used Enterprise Architecture frameworks.

Enterprise Architecture Domains

Well defined Business Architecture Artifacts such as below can help providing answers and bringing clarity to those questions.

Please remember when creating artifacts:

  • Use simple language and diagrams as appropriate to convey the message.
    • Your goal should be to create things that can easily be understood by everyone at every level of the organization. If it’s complicated and hard to understand, no one will reference and use them.
  • Simplify Simplify Simplify… and Simplify!
    • Break down existing complexity – prioritize and focus on creating things that will help simplifying complexity, and support establishing a foundation to keep your organization moving efficiently, enable to respond quickly and adopt to ever changing environment.

Let’s keep things simple! Be logical, prioritize and focus on things that are important, communicate clearly using plain language to get everyone on the same page, foster collaboration to channel energy of your organization… and take your organization to the next level one step at a time!

Techie Princesa at Signiel Seoul.View of Seoul, Korea from Signiel, Seoul Hotel

View of Han River from 92nd floor at Signiel Seoul, October 2018

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Who am I…?

. Photographer, Thinker, Traveller . , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

I live and breath in diversity.
I respect my surroundings.
I practice minimalistic living.
I provide a place to rest, play and live to those in need.
I clean the air for living.
I cope with challenges that life brings with best of my ability.
I know when to let go things to prepare myself for what’s to come.
I change to grow and mature.
I nurture what’s holding me to stand tall when reaching for the sky.
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Who am I…?
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My name is Tree.
And I am proud to be part of life on earth.

– Sarah Chun

Photo taken in British Columbia, Canada

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My ideal workplace is…

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  • A place that treats people as its most valuable asset
  • A place that provides me opportunities to challenge myself, learn new things and grow not only professionally but personally
  • A place that allows me to have a work and life balance
  • A place that encourages open communications
  • A place that see failure as an opportunity for teams to learn and grow from
  • A place that recognize and appreciate good people and good work
  • A place where there is team spirit

What’s your ideal work environment? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below. 🙂

A photo taken in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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Leadership is NOT

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  • Leadership is NOT about holding a position with a fancy title in an organization.
  • Leadership is NOT about being in charge and telling people what to do.
  • Leadership is NOT about having a loud voice and being right all the time.
  • Leadership is NOT about finding weakness in others and shifting accountability.

I will call you a leader if you stay relevant to the people you serve and work with, by engaging them regularly, listening and validating their needs carefully and creating a culture of collaboration by working on building trust and respect with everyone involved.

I will call you a leader if you work on empowering employees who have the needs, answers, knowledge and expertise in their field to make the decisions on how to get their job done, and done efficiently to best serve the need of our customers. You believe that best idea must always win regardless of your position, background and experiences.

sunrise

Watching Sunrise From 92nd floor at Signiel Seoul in October 2018

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Hug O’ War

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Shel Silverstein Poem

Check out timeless books by Shel Silverstein at http://www.shelsilverstein.com/books/.

Happy Family Day Weekend in Toronto!

#Toronto #FamilyDay #LongWeekend #HappyWeekend

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Know your business needs first!

. Enterprise Architect, Techie . , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Are you looking to retire your legacy applications or invest in new technology platforms to serve the need of your business better?

It’s important to remember that Technology is a Business Enabler. 

  • Buying a new technology will not fix your broken and/or inefficient business processes.
  • Do not choose and invest in new technologies unless you clearly understand the business problems you are trying to solve.
  • Technology will drive process improvements and transform the way business function if and only if it’s carefully chosen based on the business needs and used to support optimized business processes.

Here are some questions that will help you when formulating the migration strategy for your legacy applications:

  1. What are the purpose of your applications?
  2. What business processes do your applications support?
  3. If you have multiple applications in scope for the migration, are there any commonalities between them?
    • Important! Do you see an opportunity to consolidate them into a comprehensive, integrated enterprise system to reduce technology footprints and improve business processes?
  4. Are your applications integrated with each other? If so, what are the integration points?
  5. How large, complex your applications are?
    • # of forms, screens, menus, # of reports, complexity of reports…etc
    • # of databases and database tables, and its association to applications/forms/screen
    • Any plugins?
  6. Are they all internal applications (i.e. internal corporate use only)?
  7. Are they external facing applications (i.e. external users/stakeholders involved)
    • What are external users’ impact?
    • What are the risks involved?
  8. How authentication and authorization are handled?
  9. Is database migration also in scope along with the applications?
    • Is there a central database that your applications are currently interacting with?
    • If so, what are the integration points?
  10. Can each of the application be broken into individual modules (or group of functionalities) to migrate them in groups/phases?
    • You can use this as an indicator for determining how you can run the project in agile way.
  11. How well your applications are documented (i.e. business rules)?
    • Is there any tools that you can use to scan existing code to extract business rules?
  12. Are all functionalities exists currently being used and that they all need to be migrated over to new platform?
    • Any unused functionalities that you can retire?
  13. Can you determine the migration priorities?
    • If you have a limited resource capacity, priority must be determined.
    • Which application will provide the most business value when migrated over?
    • Which application will be most simple to migrate over?
    • Which business groups are most open for changes and new technology adoptions?
  14. Any enhancements that must be considered?
    • Are there any pain points raised by the stakeholders that you would like to address right away as part of the migration?

Once you define the strategy, a key to succeed in any migration project is planning, with an understanding that each migration project is different.

Remember:

  • Set a clear migration vision, goals, expectations
  • Not one approach fit all, spend adequate time on planning really goes a long way.
  • Use agile approach as appropriate for executing development work (see a diagram below for one of the potential agile approach you can take when migrating legacy application)

Database Application Migration

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Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in various digital transformation and migration projects as Applications Architect, Developer, Quality Assurance, Technical Team Lead, Business Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Project Manager and Scrum Master. To name a few:

  • Website platform migration
    • Oracle WebCenter Interaction > Oracle WebCenter Portal
    • Oracle WebCenter Portal > WordPress
  • Enterprise search platform migration
    • Oracle Secure Enterprise Search > ElasticSearch
  • Enterprise Identity Management platform migration
    • Oracle Identity Management > EmpowerID
  • Online collaboration spaces, Intranet & Records Management platform migration
    • Oracle WebCenter Spaces > Igloo Collaboration platform
    • Oracle Universal Content Management > Igloo Collaboration platform
  • Database Application migration
    • PostgreSQL/Java Application to > MariaDB/Custom PHP Application
  • Enterprise E-learning platform migration
    • WebCT/Blackboard > Moodle
  • Enterprise In-house Legacy Applications (analysis only)
    • Custom Visual Basic applications > Java application

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