A Life Abroad

Passing fifty in age is a milestone, many people said.  Passing sixty is a much more significant milestone because our body ages much faster between fifty and sixty.  I passed sixty last year, and I just added another year to my age a few months ago.  These days I notice my body has reached a specific limitation, most notably its ability to recover from exhausting exercises.  Sufficient rest is an essential part of my training regime these days.  I realized that I could not have the correct output in sports unless I had enough rest.  I cycle, and I do weight lifting these days.  Cycling is a group sport, most of the time.  I have to keep up with the group and not get dropped in a group ride.  In a race, to stay with the group requires sustainability in strength.  These days I train mainly for sustainability.  If I can keep up at a good pace, I can sprint at the right moment to let me take the lead.  However, I look at exercise ...

We have been in this pandemic for too long.  For all the lockdown, it is as if our lives are not moving forward.  We lock ourselves into a regular daily routine like the movie "Groundhog Day."  Maybe this can be a movie sequel to Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt's film.  We can call it "Sleep, Wake, Work, Repeat."  This cycle has been repeating for seven days a week and for a total of 85 weeks for me.  It must be the most lasting "Sleep, Wake, Work" sequel in history.  Tonight, I am stopping this movie.  I am making a break out of this loop and having a real vacation.  With a vaccination certificate and a negative PCR test, I am taking off to enjoy some sun and feel the sand in a paradise.  I will fill the next seven days with none of the usual routines.  It will be a treat to decide what fun things I would like to do.  The possibilities just became enormous.  But first, I need to board the plane.  More later, after I lande...

I am not a genius. Not even close. I was not the brightest in the class. But I managed pretty good grades and got through both college and graduate school. I never considered myself pedigree until Ben Seiver told me in his email a couple of months before he died.  He was a boss that believed in me when I was not sure what I could become.  He lent a hand when I was about to be fired from GE Edison from the AIG acquisition.  For that, I was forever grateful.  I remember I met up with Ben about half a year before his death.  I was in New York City, and we were able to meet up for lunch.  We had a long good talk.  My heart was heavy, I knew he was not well until the moment we parted, and we hugged each other.  Then, I felt Ben was skin and bones.  I knew there was not a lot of time left for Ben.  My next visit to New York City would not be till another year.  I knew when I waved goodbye to Ben outside the restaurant; it was not farewell...

On Japanese TV today, there was a story about a con artist who tricked a woman out of $100,000.  The con artist met the woman on a dating site.  His profile said that he earns $200,000 a year as an entrepreneur running a foreign currency trading website.  The two exchanged texts for two weeks, and the guy started to ask the woman out.  He was handsome and sweet.  He told her that he was serious about the relationship and wanted to court her to marry her shortly.  A few weeks passed, the con artist told the woman that he would like to start planning their wedding and needed her support.  His trading website is doing well, but he has all his capital tied up with the venture.  However, he knows the foreign currency trading market well, and if she put $2,000 into his trading site, she can quickly turn a profit of $10,000 to fund their wedding.  Naturally, she trusted him and started trading with his site.  The lady is an amateur investor; co...

Retirement should not be a scary thing. I see it as a transition from one of the longest stages of life. An infant is the beginning stage of our life.  As we become adults, we go to school (second stage) and learn the skills we need before entering society.  When we join the adult community as part of the workforce, we do our share in building society (third stage). Our work-life period is probably the longest of any of the previous periods.  When we work, we enrich ourselves with personal relationships and wealth and add value to our companies. We also gain experience as a person, man, woman, husband, wife, etc. Our working lives are the longest stretch of our lifespan. But there comes the point where this stretch of our lives has to conclude. It does not mean it is the end; it is the next transition stage of our lives. It is a time for us to enjoy what we have achieved and take a slower pace to enjoy the fruits of our hard work. It is a time to get away from our daily r...

I am new to writing, and English is not my first language.  English is not even my second language.  But I think I have some exciting stories to tell after spending a significant part of my life outside of my country of birth, Singapore. I struggled a lot to get to a level where I could attend college in the US.  My freshman year was not fun as I had to learn my department's subject matter, and I had to improve the English language. Learning English is a task that never finishes - there is no time to even think about perfecting another language.  I am forever learning the language.  The driving force behind this continuous effort is that I want to tell stories.  I want to tell stories about my life, about the exciting things I have done and experienced in my forty years in the US and Japan.  Living abroad was not my final goal; it is an outcome of my other decisions in life that ended me in different countries outside of Singapore.  At some point ...