Yaco

Sunday, July 20, 2008

After so long...

Wow... I can't believe it's already almost a year since i last blogged. Haha... not very likely that anyone is reading this blog anymore so it would be easier to blog now. There are so many issues and things that are going on in my mind and i have a feeling that i am gonna be here for quite a few hours.

I can't really understand myself why i stopped blogging. Perhaps it's because of laziness? Or a lack of desire to blog about unhappy events or perhaps that life just gets so boring that I don't feel like blogging anymore?

Anyway, quite alot has happened in that time period. After the A's ended, I experienced how difficult it is to find work again and after a long time, managed to find one that i had really wanted for a long time and worked at citibank for several months.

I was quite happy to realise that i enjoyed working, far more then studying or at the present, serving ns. It just sorta fits my character and beliefs cos i was able to finally totally depend on myself and my own income.

Some of my friends know that my family believes in financial independence. Not in the official sense of the word phrase though, which means that you are totally free from any debts and loan and have enough money and investment to not work anymore if you want to. My family usage of the word would be that your money is your money and i don't care what you do with your money as long as you don't ask me for any apart from the norm.

I guess that my family is a little unusual at this part. True, i think i had more allowance then the average kid when i was young if you exclude all the extreme examples of rich ppl but it was like 10-20% more. It came with some weird results though.

Since young, I was pretty much free to buy anything i wanted without having to ask for permission. How many p2-p3 kids do you know that can actually just go and buy a gameboy or those power ranger models themselves when they want it without asking? Though i liked to believe that i actually spent alot more on buying books cos i loved reading when i was young and still do.

There were also unpleasant things that came with that freedom though. I have to pay for just about everything that i wanted. Anyone of you have to pay your own share of the travel expense and accommodation like the cruise fare and the hotel room charge when you are travelling with your own family?

Some ppl think that i am actually rich from the way i spend money but that's kinda far from the truth. I was able to spend like I did back in sec sch was more cos i still had some of the money that my granddad gave me and that i had full access to my bank account unlike most ppl at that point so my bank account was more or less in a single digit state for much of the time since sec 2 or 3 till recently. And also because from around that time, i pretty much stop buying anything for myself apart from food and maybe clothes a couple of times a year.

Instead, i started to develop the habit of preferring to spend on others instead and gave treats now and then. I think it was because i somehow realised that it was easier making myself happy from seeing others happy then to spend on myself and trying to make myself happy. Though that has resulted in quite a few stupid or unpleasant incidents.

I think the habit developed from the first time i treated anyone to anything. It was during my birthday in sec 2 and i remember that it was on the way back from some school outing or the other. At that time, i really wanted people to celebrate my birthday because my birthday was pretty much not celebrated at all in the years before since my family don't really believe in celebrating birthday and my dad hasn't had any idea of when my birthday is for like more then 10 years.

I was desperate. And at that time, i also really wanted yinning to go along as well but couldn't think of anyway to ask unless there was a large number of ppl going along as well so i ended up treating part of the class to kfc because it wasn't likely that anyone would celebrate my birthday otherwise. No matter how it came about, it was really the first time that any group actually celebrated my birthday so i was really, really touched and happy.

To me, birthdays are really important since it's the day you came into this world and changed the lives of those around you so i really value birthdays. However, maybe it's also cause my family don't celebrate it and it's human nature that the more they can't or don't get something, the more they want it.

It's also for that reason that if you had read my blog in the past, you may remember that my birthdays after that were some of the most unhappy days of my life. I came to expect too much and i somehow ended up spending the actual day of my birthday alone at home for a few years after that feeling sorry for myself.

Anyway, on the subject of birthdays, yesterday was kobe'a 19th and one of my ex-collegue, guozheng's 21st birthday celebration. Kobe's was a k-box session and guozheng's was a bbq at his house. One thing really made an impact to me though and it was that guozheng actually requested to make a speech before blowing out the candles and cutting the cake. He thanked his parents for organizing the party for him and then proceeded to thank each of the different groups that came and how much he appreciated it and he was tearing by the end of his speech. Initially i was laughing and thinking that it was quite weird to be making a speech and then tearing by the end of it but when i thought about it, i think i may have ended up tearing more then him.

I really envy those ppl who have tight-knitted, happy families who feels comfortable hugging their parents and siblings as i saw guozheng doing every few minutes. Some ppl always seem to keep complaining about how their parents would forbid them from doing this and restrict them from doing that and how much they wanted freedom. But ppl will always just want what they don't get. I got freedom, as much freedom as anyone wants but sometimes i actually end up thinking that i would be quite happy if my parents sometimes ask where i am going and when i am coming back. My family is pretty a individualistic style and everyone just go about doing their own thing. It's not like I hate my family or anything. I believe that my parents are good ppl and it's not like they dun care about me or anything but we just don't know how to or feel uncomfortable about expressing our feelings, resulting in rather bad relationship. My mom and sis are quite close to each other, mom and dad can't stand each other and my sis positively dislike/hate my dad while i am pretty much in neutral grounds and ignores everything.

Mom and dad just don't get along with each other and my dad has been sleeping in the living room for like 8 years now. With me being the neutral party, they always complain about each other to me and I grew numb to it after a while. I tried to tell each of them what the other thinks at the start but both of them are too stubborn to listen. I think the main reason that we are still living together and they have not divorced is that it is too troublesome to get one with all the procedures and that neither have any kind of financial ability to do that or to move out. My sis, being close to my mom thus hates my dad and always express how useless she thinks he is.

The reason for that is because she still can't understand why my family is in such bad financial condition. My dad is a butcher and unknown to most ppl, most butcher actually do quite well financially and that was the case in the past when granddad was still alive and well and my uncle and dad was working under and listening to him. But as my granddad got cancer and then past away, the family's financial situation became worse and worse because my dad and my uncle both doesn't have any kind of financial sense and aren't exactly wise. When ppl move house, most change up or just change location but my family moved from a 2 floor hdb to a 4 room one then to a 3 room one and now my dad is talking abt selling it and i have no idea where's next. The problem initially was because of gambling but the cause for the recent ones doesn't seem to be cos of gambling. It's more like because they have no business sense because i have no idea how can they keep owing money when they are butchers.

Many of the ppl who knew me from the army often thinks that i am quite money-minded since i am always reading some books about finance and stocks and the likes. But i think it's pretty normal when i think about how much money affects my family's life. I think it's also the reason why I am so interested in banking, finance, stocks and the like.

There are many who grew up in pretty well to do family and often, they have no idea how hard it is to make money or suffer from a lack of it and results in them having mentality that makes me agitated when I hear them saying stuff like how unhappy they are cos they can't get that new/pretty whatever or stuff like uni fees are cheap while I am trying to think of ways to fund my uni education cos my parents would be unable to pay any of it.

On the other hand though, when I really think about it, I can't really complain too much when you know that there are many ppl who have it worse then you. There are those whose family have split up or have lost a kin. There are those who are in even more dire financial status. There are those who are unable to do anything about the situation they are in.

At least I still live with my family. At least I still have a home. At least whatever financial problems I have went through has matured my thinking and will drive me and give an edge in the future. At least I am born with reasonable intelligence and sense. At least I have an education. At least I am given the chance to fight back and change things.

Last Barking On|8:42 AM|