2011 in one word: AWESOME

I have read a lot of posts lately that talk about accomplishment or things you didn’t do last year, or even summaries about the whole year, and they were all interesting to read.   Those blogs really made me play the 2011 year in my head.   You know, like those old movie projectors (remember those?  before the HD video out of youtube? I don’t personally, but I have seen old movies that reference them…)

Anyway, I’m going to just list those here.   Both.  Things I did, and I didn’t do and hope that I can be better this year.  Better on things I did, and actually accomplish things that I didn’t.

Without further ado, here goes, in no specific order:

•  Be more active, physically

Back in March when my health were improved, I made a vow to be more active, physically.   I started to hike more, and more and visit the gym more.   I gained more energy and actually able to chase my kiddos around.  I think I accomplished a lot on this front.  Note to self for this year is to be more active with my kiddos.   I want to engage them on different sports and the freedom for them to try variety of them.

• Lost weight

As a result of being active, I dropped 28lbs pound.   Yes people, I actually weigh 28lbs heavier last year.   There.  I said it out loud.   Note to self for this year is to maintain them, which I believe is as hard as losing them.

• Summit Mt. Rainier

I love the mountain.  I absolutely love it.  I love to be in the mountain.   Mt. Rainier hold a special place in my heart, not only because it absolutely gorgeous, but because I stood on it’s summit on August 2005.   Since then, I have many challenges in my life, health related and I always want to go back.   I tried, and gave it all, and more but I didn’t make it to the summit.   Note to self for this year is to try it again.   It’s the journey to get there that completely awesome.   Well, to be able to stand on its summit again won’t hurt either.

• Half-Marathon

After the climb, I was dare challenged by Karen Lopez (t) to also run a half-marathon.   Looking back, I wasn’t sure why I actually agreed to this because running was never been my thing.   I actually tried NOT to do any run on my cardiovascular activity.  I did pretty much any cardio, other than running.    Long story short, I agreed.   Then I had to open my mouth and tell the whole internet my twitter friends and even blog them, so now I have public accountability to actually do it.   I finished upright and smiling.   It was the best dare challenge.   I fell in love with running and even want to do it more, hence the next bullet point

• Run More

This is one of the goal that I made after I accomplished one.   Inspired by my half-marathon, I want to do more.  I want to run more so I decided to register myself to a full marathon.   Even though as I write this, I haven’t complete the race yet, I think I can proudly say that I did run more on 2011 than the rest of the previous years combine.  310 miles in 4 months.   I’m patting myself in the back with a cheek-to-cheek smile right now.  Note to self for this year is to run even more.  I am three days away from my first marathon.   That will put this year in a great start

• Healthy lifestyle

While are at on the fitness theme, one of the thing that I accomplished last year is also have a healthy lifestyle.   That included the choice of food that I eat.  Late night donut binge is no longer in the agenda (occasionally cupcakes are okay).    I didn’t feel we accomplished a lot as we still ate out quite a bit, so note to self for this year is to cook more at home (Yes, I’m talking to you, John)   I am at fault on this more than anything because well, it took an effort to actually do this.   I can come up with ‘I’m tired after all day of work and climb/marathon training’ excuse but I’m not the only working mother out there.   So let just say, I’m going to be better this year.

• Raising awareness about charity and fundraising

There are a few charities that have a special place in my heart and this year I did four different fundraising for them.   I was shameless and persistent and never hesitate to educate others about the organization that I believed in.   Some of my friends have no ideas on things they do.   I think I did an awesome job this year.   Total I raised on four different fundraising event were over $20,000.00 which was unbelievable.   I am surrounded by very, very generous friends and colleagues.  I even inspired others to start their first own fundraising for the charities they believe it and they did absolutely awesome!

• Attend Technical Conferences and Training

Last year, I attended SQL Skills Immersion Performance Tuning Class, SQL Cruise Alaska, SQL Saturday Vancouver, SQL Saturday Olympia, SQL Saturday Chicago, SQL Saturday Portland and SQL PASS.   This list actually surpassed my expectation for technical conferences and training for a year.   I learned tremendously, made absolutely valuable professional contact, fabulous friends and really hit a jackpot with the combination of all.  This year, I want to even do more.   I don’t have a list yet, but I have a few SQL Saturday in mind on top of SQL PASS and another Immersion training.

• Write More

When I was at SQL Saturday Chicago, I attended pre-conference hosted by Brent Ozar (t).  Since then, my blog went to a complete make-over and I vowed to write more.   Well, I kinda failed on this part.   I didn’t write a lot on the technical/technology front.   In fact, I was seriously lacking on this area.   I did, however, write more on my training, both before the climb and half-marathon (and now my marathon).   Those were more ‘notes’ for myself and I didn’t think anybody actually read them.  Note to myself for next year is to have more technical/technology content on my blog rather than just blabbering about my training

• Presenting

Yeah.  Totally failed on this one.   Other than being on the panel for WIT Luncheon at SQL PASS, which I was still in awe that I was asked to sit on that panel next to others that I respect so much, I did not submit any abstract to any event.   A complete blow on this one.   I’m not so happy with myself on this end, but am making an effort, a lot effort to actually do it this year, not just talk about it.   Watch me community, I’ll be speaking (somewhere) this year.   There.  I open my big mouth again, now you can hold me accountable on this.

• Be a mentor

I always considered myself to be a good teacher.  I have patience (yes, yes I know – some of you probably raised your eyebrow) when I shared my knowledge.   Early last year, I was asked to be a mentor to a group of young women in Indonesia.    I did a few talk with them remotely and they have full access to me for questions about technology, career, IT, etc.    It took me a while to made them comfortable to talk to me but I am proud to say that these young smart women are no longer in the dark when it comes to technology industry.   They have the awareness on what they can do and live up to their potential.  The hope is they will have enough confidence to go after their dream.   Note to self about this topic, I want to do the same locally here.   I have a few career day talk (almost) scheduled for this year at my neighborhood school district.   Just as Kendra Little (t) said during one of the WIT talk — We need smart people in this industry.  And women is as smart as men, and there are absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t be crowding the technology field.

• Get a “board of director”

During SQL Cruise last summer, Buck Woody (t) told each one of the attendee to get a board of directors.   A group of people that you trusts, the one that you are going to consult and go to and help you made the good decision for your career.   Without naming names, I managed to get a bunch of great people to be my board of directors.  You know who you are, thank you from the bottom of my heart.    Note to self for this year is to sit on someone’s board of director and help them with their career.   Paying it forward

• Read 12 books, and review them

I failed.   I did not read 12 books in 2011.   Let alone review them.   I did read 5 though but didn’t even write a review.   Note to self for this year is to actually write the review for the books I read and make an effort to read one book a month.

• Never miss my children’s play/performance

Work-Life balance is absolutely important to me.  I am fortunate that my employer is very supportive with it and believe of the work-life balance.   I’m proud to say that I did not miss any of my kiddos play/performance last year and able to attend every one of their school events.   Note to self this year is to maintain that and to volunteer on their school to help out with an event.    Just one.  One event for a year shouldn’t be that hard, right?

• Build at least one Lego set

I hate to even say it that I did not build any Lego set last year.   Yes.  365 days and not one set build.   I owned a lot of Lego Set.  Too many to count and some of them are still sealed and never open.   I absolutely love Lego and want to actually open those boxes and build something this year.

• Call my grandmother at least every other week

My grandma is getting older.   I need to call and talk to her more often.   I have not been back to Jakarta, Indonesia since 1997 and that is a long time not to see your grandmother.   I need to communicate with her more.   I need to introduce her to Google hangout or Skype so she’s able to see my children.   Internet should shorten out the distance between me and her and I failed to do so

• Meeting and (blasting) all my goals at work

I’m not going to list my work goals here, but I can proudly said that I met every single one of them, and more.   Note to self this year is to challenge myself more at work.   To think more outside the box and do everything that I can to ensure my team member will get what they need to be successful.   I want to be one of those ‘I wish my manager is like that’ kind of person.

There.   I could go on and on, but I think that’s a good list.   Here’s to a great start of 2012 and hope for a continuous success.

SQL Family in Action

ER Nurse:  ”Who are those people on your laptop?   They are on video”
Me: “They are my family.  My SQL Family”

Earlier today, I fainted, tripped on the stairs, fell and sprained my ankle.   Being 10 days away from my marathon, I didn’t want to take any chance and want the ankle to get looked at (on top of the excruciating pain I experienced), so off to the ER we went.     We got there around 9:30am and pretty much in the exam room within 5 minutes, had 3 nurses around me.

Long story short, they wanted to make sure everything is in the up and up so on top of the foot xray, they ordered EKG and put a line on my arm so they can take blood and IV (if I needed one).   That really put me in a grouchy mood.   I have a race in 10 days and I was worry.   I need some company.   So I open my laptop and started Google Hangout and tweeted to others to join me and keep me company (Yes, I brought laptop to the ER, along with my iPad and my phone.  They have fabulous Wifi there, btw )

Before long, I have Karen Lopez (b|t), Rob Drysdale (b|t), Erin Stellato {b|t), Tamera Clark (b|t)  on the hangout!  We were all talking and laughing until the ER doctor came back with my xray result.   She started to show me the imaging and told me the medical term on what was going on, and pointed on the imaging on the same shaddy area that I have no idea what it was — that I fractured my ankle.   I got really quiet.   I was almost afraid to ask about the race, as I don’t really want to know the answer — but she went ahead and said it.   That the race is out of the question.   I started to feel my body shaken up, and my tear fell on my cheeks.   She went on and on about the detail, but I pretty much stop caring or even listen to her.   I broke down in tears.   Everybody got quiet.   I cried more.

When the doctor left the room, I looked at my laptop and I saw a handful concern faces.   I felt a huge comfort from this group of people almost immediately.   Then I realized that Tom LaRock (b|t) had joined the hangout while I was talking to the doctor.  He probably wondered what kind of hangout he entered, as I was on the hospital gown and probably cried my heart out!   I usually looked waaaay prettier on the hangout, Tom!  Thank you taking the time from your day for that!   We all chatted for a while, some of them even consult with Dr. Google as they heard the ER doctor talked to me (love technology!).

Allright – you probably ask what is so special about the whole thing right about now.

I’m telling you what.   These group of people – they are my professional peer.   They are not the friends I grew up, or my blood family.  We know each other because we have the same passion about the same technology and in this community, the SQL community, we took it to the next level.   We are not just ‘peer’.   We are family.   We helped each other in so many ways.   Today, a handful member of this community were there for me when I was told that I might not be able to run the marathon that I’ve been training for 4 months.   They were there when I broke down in tears, devastated and angry.    Yes, they were virtually there via my laptop – but they were there with me.   They took the time from their busy day, on this h0liday season to login to Google Hangout and be with me.

Now, THAT is what so special about it.

Since then, I’ve gotten many tweets, facebook message, emails, and texts from many of them, filled with encouraging message and prayer.   It really made my day.   I might not be able to run THIS race, but I have so many people that believe in me that I will get my 26.2 medal somehow.   If it’s not THIS race, it will be another one very soon.   Suddenly, things are not so sucks anymore.   It still is, but somehow, I managed to smiled, laughed and giggled.

Thank you.   For being there for me.   For being such an awesome bunch.

Meme Monday: #SQLFamily

Thomas LaRock (t) assignment for Meme Monday November is about SQL Family.   When I saw the topic, I knew that I had to jump on the bandwagon and write something about this because this topic holds a dear place in my heart.

As most of you already know, I have had some health challenges in the past few years.   Earlier last year, I was starting to get more involved in the SQL community.  I joined Twitter and started to get to know people in the community, both virtually and in person.    I was amazed at how generous people in this community are with their time on helping others and sharing their knowledge!   I got hooked with #sqlhelp hash tag where I can pick a lot of smart peoples brains whenever I stumbled into a challenge and the highlight for me, was during summer 2010, when I attended the maiden voyage of SQL Cruise.    Not only did I learn a lot from that event, I made some really great friendships with some of the attendees.

Shortly after the cruise, my health faced a new challenge and I had to undergo three weeks of hell difficult procedures. The support I received from this community was completely above and beyond any expectations.   I had constant emails, tweets and messages from many of people in the community that lifted my spirit, gave me hope, and helped me through some tough times.   They sent me jokes to cheer up my day, made me laugh and some of them (you know who you are) sent a broadcast of prayer requests on my behalf.   Please note – I never met some of these people, and some of them, I only met them once in person!

Earlier this year, I was blessed with good news in my health and I decided that I wanted to go back to my mountain.   I had a new goal and started to train for it.   I mentioned my goal of summiting Mt Rainier on Twitter and the support I had from the SQL community, again, was completely awesome and a little unexpected.   On the rough day that I just didn’t feel like doing my work out or hike, I had countless encouraging messages, tweets and even phone calls from people on this community!   They (again) lifted my spirit!   The day of my climb, I had so many people monitor my progress.   I carried a GPS that transmited my location on the mountain and marked the map so people can see where I was.   It was completely overwhelming the support that this community, this family gave me.

Then there’s my wedding.   I had special table (the Denali table) just for my SQL People during our reception.   Some of them flew across the country just to attend our wedding!  I was honored, and touched.

Then there’s Portland Half-Marathon.   I wrote a post on its own about this here and Karen Lopez (t) wrote a beautiful recap here.    It’s beautiful.   It’s awesome.  It’s very real.

To summarize — this community, this SQL community is more than just a community for me.  They are my extended family.   They are there for me, not just during a good times, but through my challenging times.  Not just when I can’t figure out which index is slowing down the site, but when I am struggling to live life.  I love these people.

Thank you.   Thank you for being such an awesome bunch.

Week 12 and 13: Rest and High Mileage

Week 12:  Rest

I’m combining week 12 and 13  recap as I don’t have much to recap on week 12.   It was a week after Portland Half Marathon and I was attending 2011 SQL PASS Summit. I was too busy to squeeze in the time to do my run.  Um.  Yeah.  Who am I kidding.  Let me rephrase that.  I did not make the continuous training as a priority.   There I said it.

I did, however, managed to run 5 miles on Sunday with Jimmy May (t) who is currently training for Las Vegas Rock & Roll Half-Marathon at Bridle Trail.  We had an awesome run together!  It was cold and misty, lot of hills but I felt great!

Week 13: High Mileage

Monday:

I did my strength training at home.  Not as much as I should be or as intense as I would’ve done it if I were at the gym, but I did what I could in while doing the house chores and get my girls ready to go to bed.    I did hip strengthening exercise, squat, lunges and some core exercise.

Tuesday:

It was gorgeous day out and I decided to run during lunch time.   I walked towards the waterfront and ran 4 miles at Seattle Waterfront.   It was perfect fall weather.  Sunny, but crisp cold.   Overall, it was a great run

Wednesday:

Cross Training or Walk Day.   I opted for the walk instead and did 30 minutes walk around my office.   It was misty but I really enjoyed the walk and glad I took the time to do so

Thursday:

I did 3 miles loop at Centennial Fields Park.   It was another gorgeous fall day and I love that little park.   It was a loop around the community park that have a path towards outside it.   My girls played at the playground nearby while I ran.   I felt a bit sluggish during this run as I came down with a cold the night before.

Friday:

Rest day

Saturday:

Big day for me as my schedule called for 15 miles.  Yes, that’s FIFTEEN miles.  I was a bit overwhelmed the night before since I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the number fifteen.  It seems so… well.. a LOT of miles!   I know, I know – it’s only 2 more miles than the half-marathon and I did that one already.   I can do the math too, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was a bit overwhelmed with the number.

I was up early but really had a hard time to move.   I really, really didn’t want to go but I had promise Jimmy that I would meet him at the trail head so we can run together.  So I dragged my bum out of the bed, laced up my shoes and head out.   We went to Snoqualmie Valley Trail — my favorite trail which was so pretty with different shades of color on the trees.   It was cold and misty with very little of sunshine.    I did my usual 3-1 Galloway technique (3 minutes running, 1 minutes walking) and it was amazingly awesome.   I felt great the entire run and not even once I had to talk myself to keep running.   Jimmy ran for 11 miles and he stopped, but I continued running.   I hit 13.1 miles and realized that my time was 6 minutes faster than my half-marathon time!  I was sooo excited!  I broke my personal record!!    3 hours and 2 minutes later – I finished my 15 miles with a huge grin in my face.   That was the farthest I ever run and I felt awesome!

 

Sunday:

Rest

Fundraising:

New beginning on the fundraising front.  I have a new goal.  I plan to send out my fundraising letter this coming week and other than announcing my crazy adventures in my blog, I haven’t done much.   However, if you are reading my blog all the way to this point, please visit my fundraising page at :  http://tinyurl.com/RobelMarathon.   You can read on why I am running and while you are at it, pull your credit card from your wallet and skip a latte this week and join me in this adventures instead  <smile>.   Any amount is greatly appreciated!

 

My Next Crazy Adventure: Coast to Coast Challenge

I had so much fun with the Portland Half-Marathon and am so proud of my accomplishment that I want to take it to the next level.    I want to keep pushing my limit and see where it will take me.   After all, I did the unthinkable things like chemo and radiation treatment before, so I figured – no training or event can beat the pain and awful experiences that I already had, right?

Life is short, and being a survivor, I am being reminded every day to live life to the fullest and welcome any challenge ahead of me and to chase my dream.   I want to be able to look back and say, yep, did that, done that, oh did that one too, so did that one.   Is that too much?   Maybe, but I’m going all out.   I had a second chance to look at life differently and I want to encourage others to do the same.

No, I’m not going to sweet talk others to climb the mountain, or run a marathon.  However – I am challenging everybody to go after things that you always want to do.  Whatever that is.   I know we all have that one thing or two that we always want to do, but there’s always something prevent us from doing that.   My challenge to you — make the time to do that one thing while you still have the time, health and ability to do so because, well, you just never know.

Life is too short for you to not go after your dreams.

Allright.  Enough with being all wise and mature.   I want to go back to being crazy.

So without further ado, here’s my next crazy adventure — I’m going to run a full Marathon.   You would think that I would stop there, right?  No, not me.  I have to go a bit more.   To be exact — I’m going to do the Disney Coast To Coast Challenge.

Yes.  I mean exactly what that page said (assuming you clicked the link).   I’m going to run Walt Disney Marathon at Disneyworld on January 8, 2012 follow by TinkerBell Half-Marathon at Disneyland on January 29, 2012

Wait.  I’m not done.

I’m going to join Team in Training again and help them raise money to fight blood cancer.   I had absolutely an awesome time with the team, and the support from the coaches, staff and alumni during Portland Half-Marathon was incredible.    On top of that – I feel like I’m involved in something important because I will be part of an incredible team who works very hard to raise the money for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for their patient support and blood cancer research.     I am a living example of what this organization do.   Because of their cancer research support, ten years ago, the medicine that I currently take is available for the public.   This is the medicine that allows me to have a normal life.   As normal as you can be as a survivor.   I’m one of the lucky ones.   There are others that are not as lucky as I am.

The second half of this challenge is the fundraising.   This is where all of YOU can get involved since I will need a lot of help to reach my goal.   Details about the fundraising can be found here.

I know that some of you have been so generously supporting me in my previous fundraising efforts and I thank you very much from the bottom of my heart, however, I am going to shamelessly ask again for your help.    Why?   Because not only you are helping ME, you are giving me and the rest of the blood cancer survivors hope.   You are helping give the families of the survivors tremendous support because that’s what the money you are giving is for.    Leukemia & Lymphoma Society offered incredible support to a particular patient AND their family.   I know it because I was at the receiving end of that effort.

So there.  That’s my next crazy adventure.   Hop on and join me.   You won’t regret it.   You will save lifes.   You will save my life.

I’m a Big (SQL) Sister!

I have recently joined the Orientation Committee for SQL PASS Summit 2011 and become a ‘big sister’ f0r eight first-timer attendees.    This is one of many ways of mine to give back to this awesome community that we have.   I have many big brother/sister in the community that help me tremendously even with their busy schedule and I am excited about the opportunity to give back.

This program launched last year and I heard a lot of great stories about it.  I wasn’t able to participate last year since I wasn’t attending the conference myself, even though I attended ‘after-session’ events and was able to be around most of my ‘SQL friends’ and put face to their twitter-handles.    When I saw the invitation to join the OC, I immediately sent them an email and expressed my interest.

This year would be my 4th year of attending SQL PASS and I wanted to help all the first-timer attendees out there to get more than just the sessions during PASS.    I work only a couple blocks away from the convention center in downtown Seattle and know my way around and been living here since 2002.    On top of that, I’m in twitter quite often and know (virtually) and personally a lot of cool kids awesome SQL peeps and in most cases, know where the after-sessions events are going to be.

If you are a first-timer, I strongly recommend you to join this program.   Send an email to newcomer@sqlpass.org and they will assign you to one of the ‘big brother/sister’ to show you around or give you the insight on what’s going on.    Never underestimate the value of the networking with other SQL Professional and after-sessions events are the best way to do that.

If you are attending the summit this year, and this is not your first time – please consider to join the Orientation Committee and send an email to OC_DL@sqlpass.org.   You might think it’s not going to make a difference, but it is.   Arnie Rowland (b | t) has a great post about it and uses an awesome analogy for it.

What’s Next

Well, I have sent my first email to my group and got a reply from almost all of them.  I get to learn who they are, where are they coming from and what they do for living.    I will send another email in a week or two, and share some information, events as I know them as well as giving them tips for places to see/go (even though in most cases – I always start with sharing Kendra Little (b | t) awesome post about Seattle 101 – thank you, Kendra!), what to bring, and answering any other questions they have.   In a way – I’m their personal concierge for this SQL PASS Summit.

It’s an awesome program and I’m excited to be in it!