Jan 1, 2024

The Will that Lives On

How do you cope when things are all moving all at once all at different pace and direction? To muster the strength not to be victorious, but to just unclenching the fist that all along has curled up tight, balled with fury and worry?


The mind shifts. It alternates from a blank state to a typhoon of thoughts mix-blending all the what-ifs and then-whats. At one time it feels monotonous, almost dronish-like as everyday life runs on a series of pre-programmed subroutines. Others, it feels like the command is corrupted; the circuit is broken, and I am left alone to ponder - what the hell is wrong this time?


Will I have to always worry for being not enough? 

But what enough is sufficient? 

Do I seek help? Do I need to stop? 


Should I ask for more?


Or am I just feeling the fear of missing out? That irrational thoughts of being left out, of being not the same as other people be it in terms of career, wealth, health or even family. That fear of leading my loved ones to a life that is worse than the life they had before.  That insecurity is aggravated even more in today's economy. 


But my love she is steadfast, and she is willing. To live a life together at last, away from she used to and away from family. To live a life with everything that is few, and comfort is shrewd. And when the time comes for her to join living with me, she won't come alone.


This will that lives on is the one I cherish the most. It has been a long time, and I have to wait a bit more, but the wait is almost over now. Welcome to the new year, sayangs, and welcome home.

Dec 28, 2023

The End of Things


With a very heavy heart I have to announce that there will discontinuity of my writings here on this blog. Already enough excuses have been uttered and chances have been given but the hiatus keeps getting longer and longer. Topics are scarce, diminishing in frequency; provoking thoughts are laughable in essence and clarity that it is increasingly embarrassing to write, let alone for readers to sully their eyes reading. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       




Sorry, did I say that it's only the end for things this year?




I will not promise to write more in the future, but as things stand, this blog is very much alive. To end this year, here's some updates about my life so far:

  • Successfully moved into my new home. I spent a bit on grills, lamps and fans, air--conditioner, window tints, and kitchen renovation.
  • As of now, my kitchen renovation I estimate to be 50% done. Considering I started hiring the damned contractors back in July, this is late. Very late.
  • I had changed my mentor for Public Health logbook twice - and until I have transferred to PKD and not working in KK, my logbook will remain empty until the true End of Things.
  • Naik pangkat to UD48 a few months back - now I feel old but still stupid at heart. 
  • My weight inceased again - I'm too tired to get upset about it. Hmmmm.
  • Will be having a very good news in two month's time, God willing. I will share more later.

Okay that's it for now bye bye!

Mar 20, 2023

HAPPPPPPPPPPPPPY BIRTHDAY, ME 😘



and damn, I feel old.


This year, let's play birthday number trivia (because I'm old, lame, and got nothing interesting to say hahah *cry*). So here are 33 things to know about me:

1. A southpaw (leftie)
2. Can't say the letter R and every word with R in it
3. I'm really touchy about #2 so if you make fun of me then we won't be friends 
4. A moderate motion sickness sufferer
5. 6'1" tall
6. 20 kg heavier than ideal BMI weight limit 😖
7. Short sighted with minimal astigmatism
8. Inherited gray hair from my maternal family that manifests waaaay early in life
9. Love spicy food but my gut can't tolerate it
10. Love coffee
11. Love durian, pineapples, mangoes
12. Love food with gravy
13. Love making Google sheets, PowerPoint presentations, and organizing work-related documentation in digital form

Damn.. another 20 things about me. I'm already tired. 


14. Hate deadline assignments
15. Hate when something technical or digital malfunctions
16. An occasional road rager
17. Have a propensity to get lost when driving even when assisted by GPS
18. Not a car person. It's nice to drive nice cars but as long as I can go from A to B any car will do
19. Love listening to the same songs over and over again everyday
20. Poor at reading music 
21. Inept at playing any musical instrument
22. Tone deaf
23. Hate listening to my own voice
24. Has never been to a karaoke after being ridiculed for my R and my voice
25. Avid day dreamer and a maker of far-fetched fantasies
26. Incoherent storyteller
27. Easily entertained by funny things
28. Avid, avid manga/manhwa reader since 16 years old
29. Love playing offline third person open world RPG games
30. Hate competitive online shooting/fighting/sport games
31. Love vanilla in ice-cream, chocolates in cakes, custards in pastries
32. Love being indoor during weekends by default
33. Since entering 30s, prefers slacks over jeans (don't you dare say a word)




That's it, folks. I'm gonna treat myself with some nice sugars after work today kbye

Mar 9, 2023

The Tai-tai Legacy Stratagem


I have this one obsession of getting rich without working hard in life. Essentially, I aim to be a male version of a tai tai. What's a tai tai you ask? It's a Chinese word to described "a privileged wife who married to a wealthy man". I know now that this obsession of mine would never become a reality. I was not born into a rich family, I don't have any flair in business, and I think I'm comfortable enough to remain as a working salary man in government sector until the day I retire. 


I'm okay with what I have now, to be honest. I learned to be appreciative with what I still have and not lost. I learned to be grateful with whatever rizq that Allah give me. But to be really honest, I daydream of being filthy rich. HAHA. Who wouldn't? I often fantasize that some random old man who I rescue after getting into an accident while driving on the highway is actually a rich old tycoon who is so grateful of my timely intervention, he insists on giving me 10 million ringgit and won't say no for an answer. 


"Ahh, what a dream that was".


I fantasize so often on daily basis and it feels so good that I feel satisfied with just having that fantasy. It's as if I already am rich from having a lot of money. But no, I am not rich. I am, again, enough, but it doesn't hurt to be rich, does it?


So I decided that if I cannot be rich, I want my children to be rich. 

And their children to be rich as well.

And their children as well. On and on and beyond.



There's this term I read and I got inspired with it. It's called:

⭐⭐ GENERATIONAL WEALTH ⭐⭐

The wealth is not for me. It's for my generation that's to come. Is it sad that I won't live to see that money? Yes. Will I be happy on my deathbed or microseconds from dying that my children will get a sizeable chunk of wealth? I don't know, I'm already DEAD. But it fits the purpose of this train of thought.


So, how to do this generational wealth? What do I have to do?


Generational wealth is not something new. I've read that Chinese are doing it for a long time now with their life insurance. It's not something Malays are actively doing for the past 10 years because we are a bit apprehensive with life insurances. But now there's a lot of takaful products in the market. All takaful products are syariah compliant and therefore it's okay for us to take takaful.


Okay, first, a disclaimer. I am not a takaful agent or anything. I merely have a life coverage takaful that I want to talk about here. I am not going to promote anything.


What I aim to kickstart this generational wealth is essentially a hibah. A hibah is wealth that you dedicate specifically to someone when you're alive. It can be anyone. It bypasses the faraid (Islamic inheritance law). Faraid is not a bad thing. But with what I have now, the amount of wealth that I accumulated will not amount much. With how the inflation tanks up and the state of our economy currently, I am lucky if I'm able to leave behind wealth of more than 600k. 


For my future children who stumble upon this blog entry and still don't understand what I said in my will (Wow, me, making a will? This is so trippy time-travelly stuff):

  1. My active takaful plan right now ensures that upon my death, the hibah is divided between all of my children. At this time of writing this down, my takaful is just nice for only two of my children. If (or when) I have more than two children, I need to revise my takaful plan. 
  2. Why only for two children at the moment? Because the monthly takaful contribution I am giving right now is already 12% of my monthly pay slip. Remember this: Life and medical takaful should not be more than 15% of your monthy income. 
  3. How much hibah is enough for my children? At this moment, if I have two children, each will get 1.8 mil ringgit.
  4. You read that right. 1.8 mil each.
  5. But here's the kicker. With that hibah you got, it's still peanut money. 1.8 mil can be spent completely in less than 3 transactions. This hibah is not for you to spend. Not directly, no. 
  6. Ideally, by the time you read this you already had obeyed our instructions to transfer them into your main saving account. I've checked that Tabung Haji accepts unlimited amount of savings. I recommend you transfer the hibah here considering zakat simpanan will automatically be taken care of by them. 
  7. Do not touch this hibah. We would have made sure that you are already independent by the time you received this hibah in terms of education and career. Do not depend on this money. Continue your careers. If I have daughter(s), here's my advice - keep your hibah a secret from your husband. I don't make this plan for your husband to use this money. The best solution is to marry rich HAHAHA but hey, character and piety are more important in marriage. 
  8. Anyway, wait for one complete year of transferring the hibah you got into your main saving account. Your aim should be the dividend.
  9. I know dividend is decreasing year by year. But I hope that you will only use the dividend as added income. That way you will never be out of money. Let's say you only get 3% dividend (make sure to minus 2.5% for your zakat simpanan first!). 3% of 1.8 mil will get you 54k. Divide that by 12 months and you should have RM4,500 monthly for you to spend or save. 
  10. Imagine, 4-5k monthly. It should be enough to settle your car and house loans. You can spend on cosmetics or travelling. I recommend you use up to 1k of it to pay for YOUR takaful life hibah contribution.
  11. THIS IS THE NEXT EQUALLY IMPORTANT STEP that you have to do, which is to continue doing this generational wealth for your kids. Aim for total hibah that can give your children 1-2 mils EACH. Start choosing which takaful product for life coverage you want to take by the age of 30 to 35, BEFORE you get any chronic medical illness like diabetes mellitus or hypertension. 
  12. Now, your portion of hibah that you got from me can be passed down in two ways: faraid or hibah. Faraid is hukum Allah, so whatever injustice you might feel or if some of our relatives being cruel you cannot blame the system itself. Faraid is faraid. For hibah, you have to transfer the money before you pass away. Drill these instructions into their heads - only use dividend money and not the money itself. 
  13. Make sure to threaten them that unless they graduated from universities and having a job, they won't get any hibah wealth from you HAHAH okay kidding but please stress it out that they have to be independent from tai tai money. 


It is my daily daydream, hope and wish that in just 2-3 generation, all of you will be able to comfortably living a tai tai life I never get to have. This may sound far-fetched to some of you, unrealistic or perhaps a case of 'thinking too far too soon', but this is my dream.  I am entitled to dream, even if it not meant for me.


I may also be wrong in some aspects, whether it to be technical or factual. To all of you who are reading this and find the steps to be incorrect, or if you have altogether a different way of achieving a tai tai life, please drop a comment here!

Mar 6, 2023

Second Start of Something Similar

I... can't believe I'm able to return here, blogging. It's been so long. I stopped writing when I missed the deadline to pay for the custom domain subscription. It was a cost that I initially thought is feasible but ended up being not worth to keep it going. I didn't change my URL back to my old one, hence not only I stopped writing, every single one of you also stopped reading this blog because you couldn't access it. 


It was boring, anyway. All these topics about COVID-19 and MCO and vaccines and whatnot it got old pretty quickly (it only robbed us all 2 years anyway but who's counting). It's time to go. It's high time for it to fuck off. It's time to talk about something else. Anything else. But everything else in my life at that time was nonsensical and chaotic. It was a turbulence. A period of time of uncertainties, bucketful of tears, and escalating uneasiness. Hence, I stopped writing. 

And I just had a quick glimpse at my blog. I wrote 13 posts in 2019. That's like on average one post per month. 

8 posts in 2020.
1 post in 2021.

No post in 2022. 

So much had happened in these past 2 years, to tell you the truth. Just thinking about those things, remembering them, bring a plethora of mixed emotions in me. Not all things that had happened are bad, some are good, but I can't help but to feel apprehensive as I write this down. Is the tone of this post too depressing? Melancholic? I have no direction at all. I write as I go along with minute resemblance of purpose.


I want to write it all down here. Post by post. It would take me months to retell everything, but I sense some life events shouldn't be shared here in the first place. Maybe with further passing of time, the restriction that I imposed on myself so harshly, I will be able to share it all here. But for now, a quick recap on what's what and when's when since the last time I blogged. 


Jan/Feb 2021
Adopted two stray cats - 3-month-old female black female kitten named Nala and a month later a 4-month-old white male kitten named Carlos.




March 2021
Bought an iPhone 12 Pro Max for my birthday using KWSP monehhh





May 2021
Was asking around at work about new housing projects nearby. A staff mentioned about a new place. Apparently, it's the largest housing project in this district. I waited for my wife to come over during the weekend, drove over to the place, had a quick tour at the rumah contoh (having a brain freeze - what's rumah contoh in English??) and securing the last available 2-storey terrace house at that time. Paid RM500 booking deposit on the spot. The agent said the house is estimated to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. Excited!




March 2022
Went for umrah pilgrimage. Started to cough uncontrollably on the day of departure back home, then confirmed with the RTK to be positive for COVID-19. Then my wife got it too as well.




12 April 2022
My father-in-law passed away while my wife was still in quarantine for COVID-19. If you are reading this sentence, please do stop for a moment and recite al-Fatihah for him. 


12 November 2022
My maternal grandmother had passed away. al-Fatihah. 





Upcoming life events:

March-April 2023
I'm expecting to get my house key anytime during this month and the next. My savings was cut into half due to other commitment and so I'm only planning to do basic renovation projects once I moved in. These include:
  • tinting all windows and sliding doors so that outsiders can't view the house interiors.
  • making mesh grills for the front door, sliding doors and the bedroom's sliding doors.
  • hiring home inspectors.
  • concrete kitchen tabletops with kitchen cabinets.
  • hiring movers with a 5-tonne lorry.

June 2023
Embryo transfer. Will talk more of this when all goes well.


Feb 28, 2023

I'M BACK BITCHES


Kindly expect a new post in about a week or two. HAHAHAHA