Happy Lunar New Year — Year of the Horse!

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới! Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!

Today, February 17, 2026, marks the first day of Tết Bính Ngọ — the Year of the Horse. Fireworks lit up the skies across Vietnam last night, families gathered around the table, red envelopes were passed around, and the air smelled like bánh chưng and incense. Even if you are not celebrating Tết yourself, I hope you can feel some of that warmth and excitement through the screen.

The Horse is a wonderful zodiac to ring in — it carries the energy of freedom, strength, and forward momentum. In Eastern tradition, the Horse symbolizes endurance, optimism, and a restless drive to keep moving. Honestly, that sounds like exactly the right spirit for the year I have planned.

What I am working on this year

I have two big goals I want to share publicly so I stay accountable.

First, I am finally going to build that chatbot for this blog. The idea has been sitting in my head for months: a small AI-powered companion that can help you find articles, answer questions based on what I have written, and generally make navigating the content here a lot easier. I am genuinely excited to work on this one.

Second, I am going for two AWS certifications: the AWS Developer Associate and the AWS Data Engineer Associate. Cloud skills are something I want to sharpen this year, and having a clear certification target keeps me focused and honest about the gaps in my knowledge.

Wishing you a great year

To everyone reading this — whether you are celebrating Tết with family, working through the holiday, or just stumbling onto this post — I hope the Year of the Horse brings you excellent health, steady progress, and more wins than you expect.

May you ride into 2026 with the energy of the Horse. See you in the next post!