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Today, Princess came to me asking me a question in Vietnamese – which she has the least exposure to. Noticing she started noticing who understood what language in my household of 3 different tongues delighted me so much. I also got to put her to sleep which involves an hour of winding down, brushing teeth, changing into pajamas, reading books, singing silly songs, etc. before she fell asleep wrapped around my left arm. The delight of seeing this cheeky monkey prancing around every night is priceless.

Today I went for an hourlong interval run which is part of my marathon training plan. It involves a 15-minute warm up and 6 intervals of fast sprint and recovery run until I reach 1 hour of run. I clocked in 10km at 58 minutes. A mediocre timing by any objective standard. But it’s my personal record. And it’s after I broke 10km-1-hour mark just last week. It’s a nice feeling to see I’ve improved, marginally yet consistently over the last 3 months since I started training.

Today – and in the last few days – I got to spend a lot of time with the Mrs. We took long walks along local trails, had uninterrupted conversations about our relationship (a not too dissimilar version of a performance review), enjoyed some fancy dining and couple time. It gave me such sweet feelings remembering our courtship days and thought about how far we’ve journeyed together – becoming the version of ourselves today and evolving into new roles as parents. It gave me tremendous confidence. Indeed, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Today, I’m very happy to connect with friends from all over the world who sent wishes over text messages, to have thoughtful colleagues who arranged gift, cake and wine for celebration. I count it as a blessing to have known many wonderful people in different circles — where I wish nothing more than to be able to continue making a positive contribution.

Today, I turned a year older and can’t help feeling lucky everyday, that life is precious and worth living with purpose. Time is running out so let us run!