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The Costs of Being A Woman: Why I’m Choosing Not To Pay Them
This post comes after a lot of thought. Thoughts that I’ve mulled over for most of my twenties. Thoughts that have led to purchasing decisions, that have led to where I am today. The day after International Women’s Day, I was at a baby shower thrown for a heavily pregnant woman, who was a literal stranger to me. There I was, no idea who anyone was. To make the situation more awkward, I sat across a chatty young mom holding her 9-month-old girl precariously in her arms. “Only have children when you’re really ready for children,” she warned me. That struck me as odd coming from a new mom. In…
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Month in Review: February 2019
Hello, readers! Hope you’re all well. I took a bit of a hiatus (unintentional) in February, mostly to deal with a stressful workload. Truthfully, I was also feeling uninspired, having a dreadful writer’s block. Consistency has always been a struggle for me, especially when my attention is spread very thin at the moment. How do some of y’all do it? Like, how do you juggle a job, all these side-hustles, write blog posts, exercise, meal prep, read, and have a social life without having a fucking burnout from doing too much? Please message me your secrets, I’ll pay good money for ’em. I apologize for the social media absence as…
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2018 Portfolio Recap
January is almost coming to a close and I’m finally getting around to doing a summary of my portfolio for 2018. Better late to the party than never, right? Believe it or not, my portfolio is still relatively new. I started my long-term investing approach sometime in August 2017. Throughout 2018, I slowly built a modest equity portfolio comprising of five stocks. If you’re an avid reader of this blog (hah, it’s probably just me), you might be familiar with said stocks by now from my monthly(-ish) portfolio snapshots. I’m going to share the actual numbers from my portfolio. In the past, I hesitate to reveal them because I felt…
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My 2018 Expenses and Income
Some days ago I read a blog post from Suraya of Ringgit Oh Ringgit in which she reveals her annual income and expenses for the last year. I thought, “Hey, I’ll do that too!” Naive, little ol’ me thought that this was going to be an easy breezy fun post to write. I was sorely mistaken. I spent the whole weekend confronting the numbers that my year essentially boiled down to. The more I looked at them, the more anxious and afraid I became about sharing it with the world. It’s one thing to hold those numbers close to yourself but it’s a completely different thing to let other…
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4 Ways To Be A Better Human Being To Others
Author’s Note: This post is both a cheat and a self-reflection throwback kind of thing. December tends to be a hectic month for me every year because of Christmas, but now, added on top of it is trying to settle down in a new country and a new job. So, having space and time to write these past weeks haven’t been easy. To those still coming back here to read, thank you and I apologize for the lack of updates. Anyways, during my last days in KL while packing, I went through an old hard disk and found some really cringy pieces of writing that I’ve done in the past. Needless…
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Author’s Note #2
These past weeks, I’ve contemplated my little corner here on the Internet. I’m always interested to analyze data and with the modest growth of readers here, I wanted to figure out who you are and what you like to read. From what I’ve gathered, so far my readers fall into two very separate demographics. One; investment kakis who know what I’m talking about without needing much explanation. Two; I also have readers who don’t share that same background, who are drawn by the more casual, relatable content. In a conversation today with one of my editors, we had a disagreement over my writing style for certain topics, mainly the…
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Author’s Note #1
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Costs of Mental Health Treatment in Malaysia
Scrolling through my social media feed during World Mental Health Day last week, I saw an outpouring of support, articles, stories, and messages being broadcasted to the world. It got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside to see us come a long way as a society. Just a few days ago, our Youth and Sports Minister brought up the importance of addressing mental health. Lately, I talk pretty candidly about my mental health. I get two opposing reactions when I do that. On one hand, there are those who resonate with me because they’ve gone through the same struggles. On the other, talking about mental health still makes people…
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Reflecting on My Gap Year
Today marks the one year anniversary of the day I left my corporate job and entered into self-employment. Recently, I’ve started calling this period a gap year instead. Sure, I did some independent work during my time off but I wasn’t exactly self-employed by the textbook definition. While I spent half the year working myself to the bone only to realize I’ve put myself in a worse position than when I had a full-time job and the other half, well, I didn’t work much. At exactly the one year mark, I’m back at a crossroads again. One Year Ago I vividly remember the months leading up to my resignation. I told my…
