 |
| Photo by Sang Huynh on Unsplash |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
I hope you are enjoying the festivals and holidays.
Even if you are the chosen few to solider on, I hope the work is more relaxing than usual!
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a fantastic festival season and an awesome break!
 |
| Photo by Visual Stories || Micheile on Unsplash |
We are officially ending 2021.
And this will be the last update for 2021.
Our net-worth increased, but investment hit a new low. As a result, our net-worth increased less than 2020 during most of which I was not even working.
Ok. I have now witnessed the power of Capital from my own experience…
Below is the usual summary.
The increase was due to “non-routine” income:
Luckily, the income was sufficient to off-set the drop in my portfolio, to at least end the year with a “positive” note.
The avg monthly increment of Net-Worth for 2021 is 13.6k SGD.
This is not only far from my 40/40 goal, but also lower than 2020, thanks to the huge loss of my portfolio.
My portfolio hit a new low this month in the absolute value. And the annualized return rate was almost reaching the lowest point as well…
The loss pretty much eliminated my income from hard work for this whole year.
So be careful with stocks.
Happy holidays! And till next time!
 |
| Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
Happy Holidays!
Nothing for the past week. Enjoy the break!
Till next time!
 |
| Photo by Lee Jeffs on Unsplash |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
Christmas is a little more than one day away.
I am sure you are geared up for the festival and break!
I would like to wish you and your family Merry Christmas!
Also a quick update from me. Read on only if you are interested.
Christmas is expected to be short for me, so is New Year as well as Chinese New Year.
My current commitment stretches beyond Chinese New Year till Mid/Late Feb 2022.
The work is going to be heavy, challenging and time-sensitive.
Good thing is that I am working in a good team and they cut me some slack because I am new.
So it is stressful, but manageable.
I will try to switch off when it is family time and festival time. The sky wont fall anyway.
But the stress would stay in the background nevertheless.
This is the trade-off, stress and time for growth and future.
I longed for the opportunities and complained upon being rejected to them.
So I will make the best out of this one.
And I have to say this blog is a helpful place for me to drag myself out of work and have some private time to reflect, recollect and recover.
Thank you very much for staying with me. Otherwise, I might have stopped long ago.
Thank you and again Merry Christmas!
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
I got myself into a wrong commitment and I am not happy.
It is wrong because
A friend asked for the favor to build an automation model in excel using VBA.
She asked me because I had done it before. That was my star project more than 10 years back.
I spent so much time building that model to make it robust and widely applicable.
What she asked was really just the basic features that could easily be taken care of.
The problem was I no longer had that model. I did not take it with me when I left the company…
So save your work always guys.
So I had to build a new one to help her.
Another problem was that once the automation model was built and shared, people would always ask for new features and VBA is not a particularly robust tool.
This would be a problem for her if she does not know enough about the coding and the model.
I felt it was probably a wrong idea when she asked.
But I did not really get this out to her.
We were quite close as colleagues and she did help me before.
I wanted to return the favor and maybe secretly wanted her gratitude as well.
Hands down, I do not want her in my team.
She just asked and waited, without showing any initiative.
She did not really want to acknowledge that she needed help even though she asked for it.
So when I asked for her raw file so that I could build the model that she could straightaway use, she refused and insisted to adjust the model herself.
She did not get back to me until last minute after I sent her the model. Sometimes, it took her months to get back to me. And when she came back with problems, I pretty much forgot about the code and had to spend time reading through again.
When we got on virtual discussions, she came unprepared and most time was spent on things she should have prepared beforehand. I had to constantly remind her to focus on the problems too.
She did not spend the time to populate the input table. So I could only test with a sample. New problems and requirements kept coming out when she added more sample in.
….
I did not mind helping her. But the whole process could have been so much more efficient.
I noticed her behavior above and was annoyed by it.
But I did not give her the feedback.
She was not going to build a new career and achieve some new heights or anything like that. She just needed to get by.
But I do think I could have helped her more by e.g. pushing her to respond earlier and checking her preparation…
She asked in Aug and I was working 1–2 hour a day. I thought we could fix everything in a week. So no big deal.
It has been 4 months…
With the extra commitment and recent changes, I have been working 14 hours a day since Oct.
Now her behavior just seems more annoying…
And it has not ended.
She has problems all the time because she changes code but cannot even do the most basic debugging…
A few leanings from this wrong commitment:
Till next time!
|
| Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
No transactions for the past week.
Still observing my portfolio dropping even further without any actions.
Till next time!
 |
| Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
It has been about a month since I received the VR headset.
I was playing it daily until the battery ran out for the first few days.
While the experience was largely positive, things like clarity and motion sickness did bother me.
After a few days, I found myself having to make a conscious effort to put it on.
And that made me almost return it.
But I did not, because I procrastinated.
And I started to get busy.
I did not touch the headset for like a week.
And then when I put it on again, the immersion pleasantly surprised me for the 2nd time.
And I started to feel lucky that I had not returned it.
So I started to get really casual about it, playing one or two times a week, depending on my schedule and what I want to do.
And every single time, I loved the emersion, despite all the problems, like clarity, moisture after like half an hour, etc.
And the little moments that jumped in now and then were particularly satisfying.
For example, I was struggling with different ways of holding the gun (controller) for better aiming and suddenly I got into a position I felt comfortable and familiar with.
And then it came to me that that was exactly how I held a real rifle in the live-fire range in Canada.
At that time, I was struggling with different awkward positions trying to look through the iron sight and line up the target.
A veteran saw that and came to me, telling me to put the rifle stock against my shoulder and move my head forward along the stock until I could see through the sight, instead of trying to bend my neck sideways like an idiot to press my cheek against the gun.
That worked and I had a good time.
That moment was particularly satisfying for me, not only because it brought back fond memories, but also because this VR thing was so much closer to how things really worked.
I would have never got that experience no matter how much I play flat-screen shooters.
Furthermore, I am also exploring new things, like videos and social interactions.
They are all largely fun and the experiences are remarkable.
I am happy that I did not return the headset and I think I have found a proper way to use it.
Play when I feel like playing it and focus on the immersion and ignore the problems, and meanwhile, wait for the next-gen headsets.
Till next time!
