Writing to deal with Disillusionment...

I had a very tumultuous night trying to snatch some sleep in anticipation of a tiring day today.

I have only myself to blame for today being a testing day: I gave in to temptation and committed one of the most cardinal sins of investing ~ 'Don't catch a falling knife'

Fortunately, the maximum amount I stand to lose is only slightly over 830 rinngit, including commissions.

But it still hurts.

Hurts that I caught the market bottom on 25th May so adroitly, and yet have to give TWICE my profits made during this past week away.

Which means that part of my tuition earnings have to be sacrificed if the company's stock falls to zero.

Since 2009, I have scrounged and saved assiduously,much like the way a squirrel gathers acorns for winter; since I lost my job of seven years in late 2008, I have scrimped, saved and sacrificed many things that ordinary people would deem necessities, in order to feel safe and secure again.

From a starting balance of 5 825 in January 2009, I have managed to grow this to almost 57 000, by teaching over 1 300 hours to my over 30 tutees.

One pupil, who has stayed with me since late February last year, has come for 99 lessons! And I have other pupils who have come for over 80, 72 and 65 lessons respectively.

It's a huge sacrifice of time and brain energy on my part, with the garnering of so many pupils over the passage of little over a year nothing short of miraculous to me.

Perhaps I've been seduced by this rather 'charmed' state of events to believe that I would only experience good things, with accidents and misfortunes kept to a minimum.

Sure, I've had a few untoward events affecting me: a bad leg abcess from an insect bite that left a huge grey scar on my left thigh,my first serious fever in over nine years and,of course, the predictable alienation by my 'parents' after I turned out not to be the child of their dreams after a promising childhood.


The prospect of this loss totally knocks the wind out of my sails in terms of the enthusiasm to invest, which may be a good thing given the volatility of the markets this year, or may be a bad thing if lots of profit opportunites present themselves in seizable twists and turns in the markets.

Shirking responsibility is an innate instinctive reflex in my 'parents',but blaming others is, conversely,equally instinctive in them.

My mother claims to love me, but she has a most imperfect idea of what true loving really means.

To her, 'love' is almost wholly materialistic, and a 'loving' relationship can exist which is totally bereft of emotional empathy.

Maybe her own mother treated her that way, but she can't force me to buy her version and foist it upon others in the same way as she's trying to foist it on me!

A nearly continuous downpour...and a death in the family.

Just about the time fearsome lightning and thunder descended amid a backdrop of darkening skies, or shortly after, the soul of my grandfather's second wife passed on to another realm. Hopefully, a more beautiful one.

I'm starting to recall her voice and even to miss it a little.

Not having been particularly close to her anyway, I still recall fondly the many times she prepared her specialty : oyster with special stuffing,cooked in a delicious sauce, during many Chinese New Years past.

Then, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, she would make her glutinous balls in slightly syrupy water, in two colours: white and red.


Today, I stared at her slightly garishly made-up face in the casket, but felt nothing.

No real sadness, no fond pining for the times she was alive.

Maybe because I never really had the opportunity to become close to her.

Or perhaps I'm just a cold-hearted person, and , although I'd like nothing more than to blame the people who callously gave me Life I never wanted for my rather unfavourable temper and disposition, I know for sure that I am the one who needs to snap out of it eventually.


Secretly, I'm hoping that my father foots the bulk of the $8180 bill(probably rounded up generously) for the funeral expenses.

I overhear that he's picking up at least $5000 of that tab, and grumbling a little that probably his elder brother will not be volunteering a cent towards that.

Ain't I just nasty? Haha.

But all these less-than-savoury thoughts are proxy to my continuing anger and bitterness about the unfairness of Life.

But like Bill Gates(the one who has the least right to complain about this) said recently to college kids : Get used to it!