These days, I am into the books written by Park Wan-seo, a Korean novelist. I want to share a sentence I was impressed by from her book though I'm not sure if my translation is enough to give the same impression to other people. Anyhow here is the sentence. "No matter how dark the memory it is, the pain horned over the years will bring its brilliance."

For me, who takes a lot of overseas online classes, the rise in the exchange rate is a huge burden. I had wanted to buy a new car for many years, but I decided to give up on it and use the money to get more lessons.

I like Japanese novels, but Since I started learning English, I couldn't read them at all, Because I had to read only English books for my English. Yesterday, I found out there are lots of Japanese novels translated into English, unlike Korean books. How big news for me! They are even available on Kindle. I just picked up some. It looked interesting. 1. OUT, Natsuo Kirino 2. Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa 3. Strange Weather in Tokyo, Hiromi Kawakami 4. New Comer, Keigo Higashino 5. Before the coffee gets cold, Toshikazu Kawaguchi 6. Tales from the cafe, Toshikazu Kawaguchi 7. IQ84, Haruki Murakami If anyone is a big fan of Japanese novels, please recommend your favorites to me. I would appreciate your sharing. :)

The quote I like the most is, "Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth" by Mike Tyson. Even if you have tons of skills, you can never beat somebody with the strong basics in your field. I try to keep this in my mind every single day.

I met programming back in 2001. I even didn't know what a computer is. It's a funny story in some ways that me learning programming without any knowledge about computers. One thing for certain was I was eager to learn it. I finally became a software engineer after graduating from college, my dream came true. And I've been working as a software engineer for over 10 years. I would thank people who worked and work with me, I've been able to work as a software engineer because of them. I believe it's time to challenge something new for me like back when I met programming. Now yet I can't say what I plan to learn, but one thing for sure is, like 20 years ago, I'm now eager to learn it. I can feel everything is going to go well like 20 years ago. Once again I would thank my old and current colleagues, and people like a mentor for me. You made me a software engineer. And I would like you to support my new challenge. May we meet and work together again. :)

When you lead a team, the most important thing is the emotional connection between you and your members. For members to follow you, they need to feel you are in the same boat with them. You giving them something beneficial like an incentive or giving a pressure, insult, all of them are not that fundamental solution to make members follow you, it's just momentary. But if you open your vulnerability, your weakness to members, and empathize with members. They will start to follow you with all their heart. I realized that managing a project means it's actually managing project members, not the project itself. Building plans, strategies, documentation, everything a project manager does is to help project members work well in the project.

One idea came to me today that doing useless but enjoyable and considering something that makes it useful is better than doing something meaningful with stress against my will.

If I went back to my 20s, I would like to tell the past me you are doing well. I went through a hard time in my 20s, I remember no one encouraged me at the time, even people pushed me too hard with the saying like you're young, you can do everything. I made many mistakes, and I missed a lot of chances for my successful life. I have regretted my 20s for the reasons, but I realized that the regret at what I did or didn't in my 20s isn't helpful to love myself, my life. I believe Loving myself is the first step forward to a better future. and the meaning of loving myself includes loving my past as well. Think about this. If you were in a situation that everyone pushed you too hard, and the future you came to you and also pushed me too hard, it would be too sad. At least You from the future should encourage and appreciate you and your effort.

I watched 'The Two Popes' on Netflix yesterday. The movie is from a true story, and it's interesting in handling tension in a conflict of religious philosophy between two popes. The former pope Benedict is very traditional and conservative, but the current pope Francis is very open-minded. One thing I felt creepy while watching it was the story of how Francis became a priest. He wanted to become a priest, but he was not sure whether the path was in God's purpose. He had been waiting to hear God's voice for a long time, but he was not able to hear anything. He had a job, and somebody he loved. So he finally decided to marry his girlfriend and planned to propose to her. In the late-night of the day when he was on the way to her for his proposal, he coincidentally, saw his church with doors opened, and he entered the church and met a priest who he had never seen before in the church. The priest was suffering from cancer, and he said he was waiting for people to listen to their confession because that's what he heard he had to do from God that day morning. But nobody came all day long, but Francis. Francis told him he had been waiting for God's signal to become a priest, but he had been not able to get it. After his confession, the priest said the god's voice that sent him to the church was because God wanted to deliver the answer to Francis's question through him.