Mini-Goals

Last week, I met up with a college friend for coffee.  He was recently laid off from his job at a hedge fund and spent some time abroad to reflect and is now in the thick of job hunting again.  He too is considering using this opportunity to do a career change.  Talking to him was very good for me.  I realized that I should be a bit more diligent and methodical than I have been. We agreed to set some milestones to accomplish and meet again in mid-June to stay accountable to hitting those mini-goals.  My mini-goal for mid-June is to have 3-5 clear jobs / careers identified that I want to pursue and then have identified 1-2 people in each of those paths that I need to talk with to learn more about it, and start talking with people in early June.  I was sharing that I've done some high level soul searching. And later on, I can execute on meeting people, sending out resumes and cover letters, and doing interviews.  But I'm having a hard time figuring out how to bridge the gap in between those two areas - b/t the high level soul searching and the tactical aspects of job searching - the part where I find out what I want to do. So, I think it's good to set some mini-goals to help me along and keep me productive.  Also, I think the process will not be in distinct and defined phases.  Sometimes, I'll be meeting people and sending out applications, but I'll still concurrently be brainstorming new ideas.  I'm sure as I meet more people, I'll discover new opportunities that I hadn't previously considered.  It'll be a more fluid process by necessity.

I had the good fortune to reconnect recently with an old co-worker from my time in consulting.  I told her I was looking for a new job. She forwarded me information about some new openings in city government which sound very interesting, so I plan to apply to these positions in the near future - hopefully in the next day or two.

On the SAHD front, this week is my first week being at home full-time on my own with my son without any help (as my mother-in-law returned home).  It's been harder than I thought, but still so much better than investment banking.  (I still have no regrets quitting my job.)  My wife created a schedule for me to follow in terms of feeding and naps.  At 9-mo old, my son requires constant attention.  Now, he can crawl around places, so I can't leave him out of my sight, because he'll hit his head on the hardwood floor or try to climb onto things and reach for anything.  Feedings are time consuming because he can't feed himself yet, so I have to sit there and feed him milk or cereal, etc. His naps are my free time to read or catch up on some TV.

So, I finally got around to reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.  I borrowed it from a friend and read it in 2 days. Overall, I thought it was really entertaining and definitely a memoir, not a how-to book. It made me think about how strict I will be as a parent and how much I will push my children.  My parents were strict by stereotypical Western standards, but I thought pretty easy-going by stereotypical Asian standards.  Academics were very important, but as long as I was getting As they didn't make me do extra stuff, like competitions.  And I played instruments growing up, but I started relatively later than others and they allowed me to quit the instruments one-by-one as I got older. My parents were well-rounded people who were not excellent at any particular thing and I think they raised me to be the same. When I think about my son, I think "In order for him to really be excellent at something, I need to expose him to it really early, and he has to enjoy it, and I need to push him to continue even when he doesn't want to sometimes."  And honestly, I haven't decided yet whether I want my son to have the chance to be excellent at something, or if it'd be fine for him to be generally well-rounded (like me). For him to be excellent at something, it has to not only be his dream and effort, but it probably requires my extreme effort and providing (money / time) as well.  Hmm...

Anyway, next, I'm looking forward to reading Bringing Up Bebe, One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.  This book was also featured in the WSJ a few months ago.  I really want a well-behaved child. Both my wife and I are stubborn people, so we need to focus on nurture where nature has failed.  We already see signs of our sons stubbornness in his refusal to let us feed him with a spoon, and refusal to eat baby food. Any tips?  We've tried holding his arms down and forcing it into his mouth, but that just made him cry a lot.  We also tried deception, showing him water, then giving him food, but that too doesn't work for very long.  We're trying patient encouragement now...

I'm enjoying the fact that I have time to do things like reading and running errands - something I wasn't able to do before because of my job. Right now my son is getting some rashes on his skin that come and go within an hour and we're systematically trying to figure out why. 2-3 times day, they appear and disappear, they look like large mosquito bites. (Regular Dr. appt scheduled for Monday). Is it something he's eating? Is it dust in our appt? Is it the carpet? Is it little bug bites?  If this happened several months ago while I was working, I would tell my wife, "I'm busy, can you figure out what it is?"  Now, it's my job to figure it out. So, now I'm conducting a mini-investigation, looking for clues. I'm taking this opportunity to really clean our place and shampoo the carpet. I think in the past, I was using my job as an excuse to be irresponsible in a lot of other areas of my life, but now I have no excuse.  So being more disciplined in things like reading the Bible, cleaning, etc. And of course, still really happy to be watching live soccer in the afternoon. (Liverpool 4-1 Chelsea today).

I've turned into one of these guys above. I spent part of today strollering my son around the city, going to the bank, buying stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond. I probably look like one of these guys. I notice the other guys with strollers sans woman. No judging from me.  I'm looking forward to watching this movie. Not in the theater, of course.  Because I'm one of those guys above - no way to go to the movie theater. Will wait until it comes out on Apple TV.