Thoughts on my 46th Birthday.

 

I'm 46 years old today so that means its nine years before I get access to my CPF money!

Before I talk about the upcoming year, I took a glimpse of what I said a year ago. As it turns out, having low expectations helps in case you wind in a pandemic. I was able to sustain most of my habits throughout the year.

a) No Phd attempt, but what a big year for skills development!

There was no Phd application even though it's something I am happy to KIV for the moment. 

This is a huge year. I picked up Python, which led to major developments in my course materials. Then I tried web development and even built a web-app for my students to crowdsource qualitative research. Now I am trying reinforcement and deep learning technologies on financial data-sets. 

With Datacamp, Coursera, and my own personal projects, I doubt I have much time to work on some pet project of an ivory-towered academic. That being said, the stuff I am learning is getting really hard. If I plateau ( Like why must it be a sigmoid function? ), furthering my studies might be inevitable. 

b) Need to get back intermittent fasting and exercise

I've lost some momentum over the holiday and need some time to get things back online. Hopefully, phase 3 will also see me go back to my physical trainer. It's much harder without someone to push you to do better. 

c) Keeping my business afloat

I will need a dedicated post to talk about my business and in spite of a great 2020, I am very concerned about 2021. We're heading towards higher unemployment and with a vaccine, folks will want to prioritise travel and not investment training. I'm bracing for my worst year ever in business with numbers down 50% from 2020, but I am confident that my portfolio will make up the shortfall.

Maybe with lighter class load, I can focus on another web project and maybe even authoring a new book this year. 

d) Vaccine and Travel

Like many of you guys, I do want to travel again. After my dad passed away, I was hoping 2020 be the year I can bring my mum travelling. Sadly, thanks to Covid, the most interesting trip I made with my mum is a visit to Canberra Plaza three MRT stops away. 

To allow that to happen, I need to convince my mum to get vaccinated. I will go for the vaccine the moment I can do so. 

As I don't like to follow the crowds, I expect to occur very late in 2021 in the best case!

 

Nevertheless, I think I've had an unusually good year, relatively decent revenue with no avenue to spend it. The excess was farmed with leverage into a stock market at super cheap prices all thanks to the arrival of IBKR. It should be a decent setup for the next two years.