I feel so much better after few days away from home in São Paulo, then a lovely weekend at home before going for 2 days trip for office retreat. Mentally I’ve came back to where I was before, calm, grateful, positive about the future (despite all the noise I heard over the last two days at the retreat, people VERY concern about the state of the world).
Look this sunrise color of most of my mornings. Brasilia is quite chill now and go out with the same outfit as usual, while people walking are with heavy jacket. I love start the day with chill and the slow first 10 min of jog to warm up and wake up.
Lizzy’s outfit after swimming as the pool was super cold. Every time I go out in the morning when it’s cold, I think about the girls who swim at this temperature. They don’t even complain.
I love seeing how the girls take advantage of even minutes to have fun, biking around the pool, before going to school. One funny thing I learned later was that Bubble came out, got scared by girls biking around, and jump to the pool. fortunately the cover was on and she jumped back quickly without falling into the pool. I bet it was a funny scene.
The office retreat happened at Pireanopolis, a colonial town that we went las year. The resort is big and set in a nice scene. I didn’t get to do anything at the resort as our agenda was packed. I had to present twice in 1.5 days so it was not as relaxing as I was expecting. But all is good, I didn’t prepare much and was ready.
The most interesting session was group activity, man and woman separately. Among woman we talked about being woman at work space. It was interesting to hear all the experience of other ladies, either being discriminated, patronized, put down, harassed, with pay gap and promotion delays due to maternity. Honestly, I couldn’t relate much with their experience but I felt empathy and hope to support younger female colleagues when possible. One thing that I learned is that: it’s not enough to show empathy, when we see something not right, we NEED to take action, or we are accomplice. Among man, they talked about care, how they need to care for themselves and woman. Later we mixed and shared key takeaways from each group discussion. It was really a nice and honest talk.
The group stayed up 2am dancing and partying. I went back to my room around 8:30pm as I was exhausted from waking up 3:30am and talking nonstop for the day. I was glad I chose sleep, I woke up 6am (rarely happens). I felt zero guilt too because this is my second retreat with this office and colleagues already know my routines and respect it.
They also stopped joking (almost) about my vegan food. One of them jokingly said: you run on grass. hahaha…
I skipped the group activity and came home early with 3 other colleagues. Got home 5pm and just on time to prepare a snack for Sofia and ordered her uber for her dinner party. Gosh… she put on an outfit, got her homemade gift, and left alone to a dinner with her friends. I was impressed.
I can feel summer approaching. Girls’ school ends next Thursday. Husband leaves for China on Wednesday. I have another short trip for 2 days, and then we will be on almost full summer mode. Oh.., I have my first trail race in Brasilia this Saturday. I am excited to run on the national park, getting to know trail run scene here. No time goal but to just enjoy.
Today’s holiday in Brasilia, so perfect day to catch up with the family, probably organize myself for the upcoming days, finalize the 2025 photo album to be print in China, and reading/nap?!
Our New Journey 