Cindy's addendum: more thoughts on 2025

'Twas a busy, busy year. The highlights are much the same as last year (friends! family! travel! weddings!) and well outlined in our shared recap, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much.

My job

At the beginning of the year at Flex, we redesigned the whole app. It was cathartic to "fix" a lot of the things I'd wanted to fix for a long time, and it was amazing to play such a large role in the redesign. But it also felt like the perfect closing of a chapter, and I was itching for something new. When I was leaving the office for the last time, I filled up a white bankers box and it looked like I had gotten fired (haha).

I started as a Product Designer at Gusto (who makes HR/Payroll software) in July to work on their consumer banking product. It's been super exciting to work on a bigger design team at a bigger company, learning a new product space. I work Tuesdays and Wednesdays from the New York office on top of Penn Station, and visited Gusto's Denver and San Francisco offices too! The office in New York has amazing 360 degree views of the city, and I feel lucky every time I look out the windows.

Our apartment

You might have noticed our mailing address has changed! We moved at the end of August, right after I joined Gusto. We hosted a back-to-back double housewarming with Annie (Soups) and Zac, who just moved back to the city this fall. Here's a pic from our housewarming party:

I've noticed a pattern of me starting a new job and moving apartments around the same time. When I moved to the city, I worked at NextJump and lived in our Crown Heights apartment for about a year before moving and joining FactSet. I stayed there for about 2 years, then moved and joined Flex. I was ~3 years into this apartment and job in the middle of 2025! I guess I just like to shake up my life all at once when I get too comfortable.

Some hobbies

Two activities I picked up this year: skiing and softball. It's hard picking up sports as an adult; it feels a lot harder to learn new things. But it's been a fun challenge!

I've only skied about 3 times, but I was so enthused after the second time that I bought a whole outfit, ski boots, a helmet, and goggles. I am so ready for this season. Hoping I wipe out less.

As for softball, our friend Ziwei recruited Ian and a few friends to join his co-ed recreational softball team. Originally I wasn't very interested, but they needed more girls on the field, so I subbed in one week. Then I was all in. I had a surprising amount of fun even though we didn't win a single game—we've been going out to the park on Sundays to practice our swings so we're ready for next season.

Hair

Less serious, but still important: a pretty drastic hair transformation. Bangs! New color! Annie (Soups) keeps comparing me to this meme of "every asian girl ever" with the bangs.

Friends & family

It wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t give a shout out to my friends and family. A number of my college friends moved back to the city this year, and it’s been a blast having them around. And so much of my family is on the east coast that it’s as easy to see them as ever! I also managed to squeeze in two quick trips back home to Phoenix and a couple to see Ian’s family in Chicago, so this year was action-packed when it comes to seeing people I love.

Jetsetting

Here's a crazy Cindy travel stat: July was the only month this year I spent entirely in NYC. Every other month I was somewhere else for one reason or another!

Our international travel destinations were mostly repeat visits for me. In 2015 my high school class embarked on a London-Paris-Barcelona trip at the end of March, which was a nice parallel to our London-Paris trip at the same time this year. And I also repeat visited Taipei (I love Taiwan) after I spent a couple weeks in Taiwan with my parents last year. So Hong Kong was the only new international city I visited this year, which is pretty interesting.

There was also an extremely busy stretch of time between August and September where I was constantly on the move. We moved apartments just a couple weeks before I attended three (3) weddings in 10 days, jetting from Oregon to China to Pennsylvania. Back just in time for my birthday :)

A notable outfit

And finally one last less serious, still notable recurring theme of the year was this astronaut outfit (and Kaylon's Patrick Bateman costume). Would you believe we got to wear these twice?

All in all, I'm looking back fondly on 2025 and looking forward to a number of things in 2026. I have some travel destinations in mind, some ambitious plans to do more cardio (which I say every year), and want to do more journaling. (I think penning a reflection for the past few years has helped my memory as well as my writing.) But for now—for the rest of 2025—I'm going to chill out, slow down, and get some gooooood sleep. Goodnight!

♥️ cindy