Tag: T_histZoom

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[20] my piano course

Posted on by tiger40490

decision on piano Term2. I told wife that we need to cut burn rate to support boy. How about one more semester?

— commitment
If I commit 1H/week excluding the face time, then it’s barely acceptable.

If I spend less time than that, I would consider the $cost too high.

— benefits, j4 :

  • brain aging
  • accu — muscle memory shows excellent accumulation, will outperform most other learning efforts.
  • level of joy, glow, self-satisfaction… is rare in 弹唱 (play-n-sing), comparable to jogging, probably better than coding drill.
  • self-esteem — likely to feel proud at this age
  • — my advantages compared to other people
  • facilities — make best use of the facilities at TPY and at home. I may not have these in the U.S.
  • sink — I have more free time than other people. Piano (comparable to jogging) is a great sink of my free time. Better use of my spare time and money than eating, movies,
  • low bar — I have set a very realistic target compared to other adults. I don’t aim at grades.
  • singing — I am not bad at singing

— t-budget: current 6H/wk. Unsustainable. Must allow myself to put in 3H/wk but progress would be much slower.
t-spend on workout is still more important than on piano, but piano has better accu 

tcost of finding/creating score .. is to be accepted.

! tcost@buying and moving piano was non-trivial. Now I can make use of that tcost.

— practical goal: Let’s hope the tcost/$cost matches up with the joy derived

— freelance teachers … could reduce my $cost
flexible frequency like 2/M

Now I feel the real-yoga schedule is best for me — no pressure

— Cristofori school term: 11W each. Between terms, teacher need to take 2-3 week break
— Cristofori fees
$32 registration fee is required again if you restart…. Acceptable cost.

half-hour fee is exactly half … good deal.

$100 deposit refund condition:
1) best to “communicate” termination 30D before term end.
2) If you communicate too late, then you need to buy four lessons in next term.. Fine 🙂
3) In both cases, you can only decide to terminate around term end

I thought: medical professionals confined to SG market

Posted on by tiger40490

background: I am now feeling blessed to enjoy the low-cost carefree comfortable[1] life in Singapore. However, for decades I felt superior to doctors who can’t make a living outside the tiny city of Singapore. Here’s my reconciliation, mostly related to livelihood:

  • both doctors and people like I can aim lower and choose stable income, not rising income
  • I no longer seek career growth or leadership
  • brbr, Fuller wealth .. are the foundations of my carefree ezlife. Inflation is addressed by my “portfolio”.

[1] I didn’t write “low-cost good life” because of conflicting connotations

— what if Singapore declines?
I’m not 30 any more, so if this starts to happen in my 50’s I can cope even without leaving Singapore.

 

[22]adapt2U.S.Part2 2007 xp #glassWindow

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The inequality of inside^outside  is also present in China, but somehow less so in Singapore??

k_soul_search

This blogpost has a /livelihood/ focus, unintended and naturally developed. I want lower /concentration/ of pff content in this blogpost. In contrast, the 2007-2009 blogposts below might have relevant pointers beyond livelihood:

Newark airport was not as convenient as Changi, but was soooo much better than outside the airport. Outside was like a third-world country, as my Singaporean colleague Shawn described. Convenience has a price in U.S., as I soon found out.

small adaptation: cCard needed everywhere. I had to work for a few months to get a cCard, but in hindsight, a debit card was probably sufficient for one or two people.

When I accepted the $67k Polaris offer, what I didn’t foresee was my BRBR drop, from my SG level (1.0~1.5) to below 0.5, calculated as monthly surplus/ spent. Half the everyday items were far more expensive than in SG [rental; taxi; any repair] but many imported goods were affordable, occasionally cheaper than in SG. It was a breakthrough when I discovered big discount stores, that support millions of lower-income Americans.

(I felt so much at home in those stores, and in 2007 I would spend hours there as a recreation. Walmart etc also give generous refunds.)

My spending was comparable to an immigrant couple earning 30~50k (I may have records of my cash flow figures) as I quickly established my cashflow ground rules to fortify my low-ground embarkment, and to inch up to higher ground:

  • rent [3] .. accept a level much lower than my peers or the standard “up to 40% of take-home income”
  • healthcare [3] .. See below
  • car costs [3] … see below
  • JustSayNo to many finer things in life like entertainment, gadgets, fancy foods. Dining out only at modest Chinese restaurants. I would often choose takeout of egg fried rice.
  • build up a cash reserve, a livelihood buffer (not for investment)

From the first weeks in the U.S., I had noticed many white-collar Asian immigrants (/predominantly/ East or South Asian). All car-owners, presumably college-educated, usually English-proficient (not always as good as Singaporeans who grew up speaking English).  In early 2007, during my difficult adjustment period, I looked at them and I though they had all accepted the high cost, /inadequate/ public service, inequality, in their adopted country, and they were working hard to increase income and keep their heads above water. In hindsight, I think a typical Asian immigrant family’s burn rate is 10k including mortgage, pTax, medBx, pre-college education. This burn rate is heavy burden for many of them, and much higher than the median household income… See Q3 below.

Either in 2007 or 2017, I often had a real feeling of being poor in a rich country, when I focused on what I didn’t have relative to the locals (beyond the Asian immigrants). I guess this is classic exclub complex?
* car .. not the biggest “wealth gap”, but the Biggest convenience gap.
* big house with landscaping, or SDXQ home
* medBx
* GC, citizenship
* double-income
* investment account

In Woodbridge Corporate Plaza, I noticed the huge difference in and outside the business park. In hindsight, it was a sign of inequality. I recall 三毛 (san1mao2) standing outside a restaurant window, admiring a well-groomed, well-fed boy enjoying a birthday cake with his wealthy parents. In the cold 2007 winter, I would feel, paradoxically, sometimes Outside sometimes Inside.

  1. Compared to the unskilled (Americans or immigrants) I felt like inside the warm business park buildings, surrounded by landscaping.. because I was a skilled SWE.
  2. Compared to those white-collar Asian immigrants, I felt like standing outside that restaurant window.

Many ethnic groups help each other get inside (inside anything), not only the new comers and the less educated. Without this kind of community help, you struggle for two year in the “third world” and get used to it. I think I heard it from Polaris colleagues (India) and Fiona. However, I was wary of overreliance on community help, which might restrict my mobility.

mid 2017 inflection point: I slowly passed more and more java interviews and realized I had a killer skill as a SWE Candidate, with a in-demand skill in a profitable and growing sector with depth of market. I felt even better than a young actress, or a freshman basketball sensation, upwardly mobile. I saw a clear path to get inside that restaurant window.

Conclusion: to adapt in such a challenging environment, I had to tighten our belt, let go many “finer things in life”, and learn new skills… A test of our /resourcefulness/ and adaptability. Implications for the next family relocation:

  1. choose average schools, similar to my other 2007 decisions.
  2. go without medBx for myself for a few years until one of us get a company insurance.
  3. live below the middle class Chinese American standard, since they have double-incomes and have big homes in top school districts.
  4. keep our focus on the burn rate big tickets — housing, medBx, car,
  5. Avoid using NNIA. Instead, save some salary every month. BTW, dividend stocks are unlikely to make a difference, not beyond $200/M NNIA

Q3: As of 2007, Median household income in NJ was around 50k/Y, so how did Americans cope with such price level, without my ground rules?
A: I think for a DINK couple, the median was higher, perhaps 70k
A: a large portion of the American households are not home-owners .. no mortgage or pTax. Some don’t have medBx
A: I think many Americans earning up to 67k/Y tended to spend beyond their means, had poor brbr, didn’t build a livelihood buffer as big as mine (I have a blogpost on contingency reserve levels in American households). They suffer [both xpSelf and rmSelf]

Q: how did my xpSelf fare during the adaptation? A: U-index was probably worse than SG-before-2007 but probably recovered fairly soon, even before GS. We were happy in Boston.
Q: how about racial discrimination during 2007? A: far smaller a livelihood challenge…. ranked outside my top 10 adjustments.

[3] the Big-3 burn rate items

— After my reunion meet-up with Miles.Y in mid 2023, I felt he might be looking through a similar glass window, at the comfortable life in MLP.

  • generous medbx
  • comfortable salary
  • comfortable workload

A key feature in Miles’ case: He is fully aware that inside the glass window is not for him, so there’s no blind envy.

— shock/adaptation: healthcare was extremely costly for me (from SG) and for Americans without medBx.
(Adaptation) I had perhaps two dental checks and relied on my SG trips instead.
(Adaptation) Can’t remember what medBx I had before GS. Very costly so I decided to go uninsured at least for myself. Calculated risk-taking. Breakaway from peers.
(Adaptation) since healthcare is market-driven in this country, I decided (long after 2007) to seek alternative treatments available on the market. I found Chinatown TCM. I found OTC medication and the helpful  free advice of pharmacists.
(Adaptation) I also brought proven medicine from other countries.

— shock/adaptation: car-first nation. This one took a while to sink in. In hindsight, this might be the biggest baggage I carried during the adaptation.

Car costs [3] were too numerous too complicated.

(Adaptation) I probably tried learning to drive for a while and it was too hard for me, and felt like a handicap.
(Adaptation) So I decided to rent in well-connected locations and rely on railway.
(Adaptation) furniture? not “for now”. We would keep moving.

A related shock/adaptation: no Chinese food or grocery for my wife’s cooking. Without car, we couldn’t visit “nearby” Asian supermarkets every week.
(Adaptation) So in the end, we relied on MTA subways and a big shopping cart. But the lifts had horrible SLA, and weekends often had limited services.

70-mile/day≠role model

Posted on by tiger40490

k_semi_kai3mo2

See also my blotposts on coding drill, the wipe_out tag, yoga classes

The “role model” in the guy who ran 70 miles on his 70th birthday has a net negative impact on me. Not a helpful role model at all. It made me feel worthless, weak, guilty … even though (Reality X) I’m stronger, more determined than most people.

— case study: Stephen of Macq. He runs probably 3km each day a few times (4 or 5) a week. He deserves a pat on the back (plenty of self-reward, self-recognition, self-respect). However, when Macq formed a team to compete in some corporate challenge, Stephen didn’t make the team. I guess he wanted to.

Let’s assume that there were 5 other Macq guys fitter than him.  That’s the “reality Y”. Every one of us confronts such realities but what counts is how we react.  A lot of people are not sensitive or careful enough with the “self”, so they could easily pass hurtful remarks on the self … resulting in subtle , insidious self humiliation and self-mutilation.

In this context, there’s another (more important) Reality X — most folks in the world, in Singapore, or in Macq are way below Stephen in fitness or fitness habits.

We don’t need to benchmark with those 5 colleagues, but it’s possible that some of them actually lack Stephen’s fitness habits, but are younger or more talented.

(Between fitness condition (current) and a sustainable fitness habit, which is the bigger determinant of healthy longevity? )

So Stephen can choose to focus on Reality X and related positive facts, Or he can focus on the negative element and feel belittled, abused, down-cast…

And here’s a Reality Z — no one in Macq did abuse, belittle or down-cast him but his self2 judge. The pain is entirely self-inflicted.
— case study: my coding drill cf Rahul or the college students. Reality X: Most of them lack the stamina to maintain the drill over years.

— case study: my Macq bonus. It worked out to be the biggest annualized amount ever (Reality X) but I tend to brush it aside and focus on the negative facts.

— case study: yoga classes .. See also https://btv-open.dreamhosters.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=12301&action=edit&classic-editor

##[20←07]factors underpinn changes{1st summer]U.S.

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k_tectonic

See also

The trigger — After revisiting my 2007 email/diary such as big cities more expensive @@ #LS, I wanted to write yet another review of the fundamental factors that Explain (or has Driven) all the  major changes in my life. Not to become yet-another review, let’s focus more on the factors, less on the changes.

Am I exaggerating anything? Any acute attachment to beware? Beware of othRisk. Avoid polishing.

My focus continues to be family livelihood, not FOMO, exclub, peerComparison, brank,,, A second focus in this blogpost is my own American dream as of summer 2007.

  • [j] #1 factor — my tech expertise and delivery skill — in the lucrative and prosperous tech (dev+) job market, esp. on age-friendly WallSt.
  • [f] #2 factor — my brbr /discipline/ — while witnessing my own income growing so much since 2007. I think this is similar to Singapore government’s discipline.
  • #3 factor — SG citizenship — relative decline of America’s appeal to me, and relative rise of Singapore’s advantages. I value my citizenship much more than between 2007 and 2016 !
  • factor — wellness — habits, health conditions (体质)…. The absense of health issues is like the absence of family problems, absence of investment woes, absence of career failures. An invisible dome surrounding Hogwarts in the final Harry Potter movie.
  • [j] fundamental but minor factor — WallSt trec as a passport through the moat
  • [f] minor factor — Beijing + Blk177 property appreciation, rental yield of overseas properties
  • fundamental but minor factor — my English skill — helps my job interviews and job performance, esp. compared to my Chinese and Indian peers. English writing skill is instrumental to my self-help while coping with challenges
  • fundamental but minor factor — my relatively low racial bias — I think my Indian colleagues like me a bit more than other China colleagues
  • fundamental but commonplace — my love[sacrifice] for wife and kids

Now let’s list the major changes since 2007 and try to explain them

  • change in my life — confidence in marriage — was untested in 2007, with pretty high inherent risk of failure based on statistics. We have worked on the problems and weak spots.
  • [f] measurable change — brbr — Despite my bigger family (with 2 noisy kids), my current brbr and Fuller wealth (ffree) are so much higher than in 2007, partly due to brbr discipline, salary, SG citizenship , nonwork income, ,
  • change in my life — livelihood resilience/security — stronger (and growing), with layers of defense, giving my much higher confidence than 2007. I was already healthy in 2007, but now I’m /buffered/ on many fronts such as career longevity, strong marriage, citizenship
  • specific change — Green Card dream — is a bit lower than 2007, mostly due to my new view of SG^US. Nowadays, I don’t feel as desperate about GC as my China/India colleagues.
  • [j] specific but minor change — c++ in my peers — is no longer 高不可及. Ditto low-latency java
  • [j] specific but minor change — WallSt moat — was seen as too deep and wide back in 2007
  • specific but minor change — car purchase — was widely known as inevitable back in 2007. Now I know better from experience.
  • internal change — target 95 as life expectancy — now I want to live longer. This is exactly where I want to be.
  • internal change — internally mellowing up — and more optimistic. Even though my position among my peers is much higher than in 2007, I now care more about family livelihood, less about FOMO, brank, income, net worth, OC-effective, exclub
  • [j] internal change — churn, accumulation of experience — I didn’t have solutions, cool confidence… as explained in risks remain high but am calmer
  • [j] change — long-horizon income security — was low for decades as everyone around me said developers must move up to management by some age 35, and struggle to keep the job and maintain the income until its eventual decline. Now I have 50% more confidence, primarily due to WallSt experience
  • [f] minor change in my life — balance sheet — I am now proud owner of Singapore, Beijing properties + some commercial properties, all in prime locations. We are on track to receive a reliable and high-yield annuity backed by a credit rating comparable to the most trusted insurer.
  • [d=detachment needed]
  • [f=personal finance]
  • [j=career]

hist ^soul-search ^selfEval ^t_intro ^t_tectonic[def]

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k_soul_search … k_tectonic

  • t_soulsearch .. is usually more broad, covers more than 2 domains (cf tectonic)
  • t_selfEval .. self-evaluation within a peer group or by a commona standard but not a competition, or https://btv-open.dreamhosters.com/15615/sweepingEval/
  • .. Most but not all sweepingEval bposts also qualify as soul_search, but let’s avoid overloading those bposts
  • t_intro — these blogposts are deeper and most focused and most personal.
  • T_histScan — non-trivial insights from history… with a well-defined timeframe, often referring to specific years, at least a few years ago rather than the recent past.
  • T_histZoom — zoom in on one point, or from one specific angle.
  • .. eg: compare now to one point in history

Q: what if a blogpost covers 2 or 3 domains and is somewhat deep?
A: overlapping between t_intro and t_soulSearch. Judgement call.

— t_tectonic — is the simplest, purest tag among these related tags. These blogposts always cover at least four super-high level big domains[subset listed below], not a random list of low-level items scattered across these big domains.

  1. marriage, family harmony
  2. bonding with kids
  3. edu
  4. immigration .. GC, sgCiti
  5. (pre) retirement planning .. purpose, meaningful occupation, mental health, financial
  6. hobbies, recreations, time mgmt

Should be capped below the stated number of bposts.

A tectonic bpost is often a soul-search , and often a historical review.

 

[21]ThankGod how early I started studying outside Chn #Eng++

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When my Chinese friends and non-Chinese friends notice my English (among other) advantages, they point out that I came to Singapore at an early age. I often play down my advantage, saying that many China students speak better than I do, even though they studied abroad only after college. (Let’s focus on the males.) Based on personal observations, only a small percentage (like 3-6%) of the above male China students speak better then I do. An even smaller percentage (like 1-3%) write better than I do, probably because they publish a lot. The overlap of these two groups is extremely small (like 1%).

I took longer than my sister to master English listening and speaking. However, I continue to make progress 30Y after, which is rare and a growing strategic advantage over the long run. My critical mass and self-sustaining growth was built up at an early age.

Starting age does matter, esp. on speaking fluency among male students.

There’s some percentage of China professionals disadvantaged/handicapped by late starting age, and hit an invisible ceiling in their English speaking fluency. I may be one of them, and must count myself lucky to have left China early. See other blogposts like which handicap/weaknessES limit LifeChances

— There are other advantages beside English. I have the HJC and NUS branding I became comfortable with the Singapore way of life (too many aspects to enumerate).

[19]BGC:pull`ahead @the pack: personal (!!leadership) effectiveness

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k_mellow

living with a few guys for the past few days in BGC (also including the 2015 trip), my advantages, my achievements, my margin ahead of the pack became evident

  • BMI, belly
  • diet control, diet habit
  • exercise
  • burn rate
  • time mgmt
  • job strain (not “stress” or “effort”)
  • income and stability thereof
  • continuous, self-driven, joyful learning with plenty of DRAM-refresh and reinforcement and note-taking
  • career security 20Y out

In a bold extension, I would also include my Wall St friends — My SG burn rate is much lower partly due to Melvin3. As a hands-on developer, my income security is stronger than half the VPs.

At a glance, most of my relative (not absolute) advantages lie in self-mgmt, and I didn’t say “self-restraint” or brute force willpower.

This advantage is only relative because am not perfect … there are some individuals with stronger willpower though they each has weaknesses in self-mgmt. When I find myself in a moment of weakness, I need to forgive and then accept myself, recognize this weakness as part of the human condition, and fight a bao3shan1 battle, refusing to give up.

— reconciliation: leadership, brank:

However strong my self-mgmt is, am not “effective” at achieving organizational goals. Those effective managers are often overweight, unfit, over-spending, failing in marriage, feeling insecure about retirement, or over-dependent on the current employer and therefore lack portable skills,,,,

I feel leadership and persuasion powers are overrated as all the employer put these skills at center stage. Like the Cultural revolution, I have been brainwashed in countless corporate training (eg: OC) to believe that personal-effectiveness is secondary to effectiveness through other people (see effectiveness: OCBC motto).

Q: why am I always apologetic and modest saying “ok I’m good at self-mgmt but I lack leadership, influencing, interpersonal,,,,”. All of THOSE yardsticks are secondary to my life now (and more so as I age) and I actually have basic competency levels on those fronts to do my professional job.

Those skills are not the “内力” as in kongfu novels.

This realization might be the beginning of an end to my lifelong self-pity, self-degrading, self-contempt about my leadership/ladder-climbing weaknesses.

##[19]deeply felt Priorities b4U.S.→SG@45

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k_tectonic

  1. — priorities over the next 2-10Y horizon
  2. Career[a] longevity till 70, probably on wall st, not in Singapore or West Coast. A related keyword is “relevance” to the geek economy.
    1. On Wall St, I continue to keep a keen focus on robust technologies like core Java, cpp, SQL?, sockets?, core threading, common data structures,,, Outside Wall st, jxee (and possibly web stacks) offers good market depth and demand.
    2. Compared to Wall St, West coast is possibly low priority for now as I don’t see long term visibility.
  3. wellness — protect: PIP-hell, trapped… A “stability factor” , arguably more impactful than GCard, housing, schooling… One of the key signs of wellness is BMI and calorie count.
  4. I now have a deep desire but limited hope to keep up my 细水长流 motivation for coding drill and QQ learning. Burning pleasure; self-esteem; satisfaction; absorbency. I have had some deep-learning episodes every quarter.
  5. (G3 as of 2019) boy’s education .. I don’t know if U.S. system is better for him
  6. (G4 as of 2019) GCard .. a G9 priority in my current plan as of 2024, primarily on the back of the longevity factor.
  7. (G6 as of 2019) prepare for war at new job — short-term, immediate but actionable item.
  8. — 2nd tier
  9. (G5 as of 2019) increase precious face time with grandparents in my 3rd U.S. era — fly business class to NY.
  10. more passive income to reduce the cash flow stress in the U.S. when I return.
  11. Saving up for U.S. housing .. not much I can do now.
  12. (G7 as of 2019) wife’s and daughter’s life-chances in U.S. .. important but not much I can do now

[a] I didn’t say “income”. I think more important to me is my marketability (+ relevance, in-demand ..). Career longevity is the basis of entire family’s well-being for 15Y until kids start working.

Salary .. kinda secondary, because the room for improvement is negligible. That’s basically my (biased) mental picture.

[19]feel`lucky+satisfied as bachelor,now again as married man

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As a bachelor, I often felt lucky and satisfied due to my [income+savings]->ffree, and freedom from family burden — no kids no wife to worry about. I did sometimes envy those with a beautiful wife or girlfriend, but I never envied those with kids.

Among my peers in our early 30’s, it was rare to feel lucky so often. I’m amazed, in hind sight.

Cornerstone (more than a keystone) — somehow in my early 30’s I was rational, cool-headed enough to withstand the hazard/rampage of widespread but irrational peer comparison (keeping up with the Jones’s).

Fast forward to 2019. Now As a father, I frequently feel lucky and satisfied due to

  1. beautiful wife and kids — my #1 reason to feel lucky at this age. So after I got married, my perspective has changed completely.
  2. long-term prospect of a satisfying or good-enough career — on Wall St till 65
  3. ffree with multiple investment assets
  5. — other factors
  6. competence and relevance on job market
  7. vitality in body and mind
  8. … See the longer list in ##[19] living%%dream life,here-n-now #Detach, and remember to detach !