New clothes for BullyTheBear

It's time to change a new template for bullythebear. It had been 5 years since I've last changed a new template, so I guess the time is ripe for another change. This change will make the 3rd major change since I started since blog. As always, it'll be dark themed. So if you're waiting for Bullythebear to have a white based theme, haha, wait longer! I think darker themes is easier on the eyes when reading, at least to me. Since the current template...

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Tightening my belt in December

As December approaches, I'll be careful to monitor my mental health for signs of depression. Why? I think I'm sort of a workaholic. Work fulfills me, not just in terms of the obvious financial gains that I will get, but also it's therapeutic to me. I cannot recall the countless times that doing my work (tutoring) makes me feel better. As year end approaches, I get 'retrenched'. Whatever amount of salary that I accumulated from the start of the year...

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Desktop productivity tools

I'm always very interested in improving my workflow. I don't own a laptop and most of my work is done on a desktop pc. For me, a non-cluttered pc desktop, a non-cluttered physical desktop, a clean and aesthetic software and stationery that boosts my productivity are paramount before I start something heavy (and possibly dreary). Take it as a planned procrastination, but that's how I gear up my momentum before I dive into something big. I'll...

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The relative size of your problems

"To be successful in life is to continuously be defeated by bigger and bigger things". I was just showering when I suddenly remembered that phrase I've read it from somewhere. I tried googling it but couldn't find anything remotely close to it. Doesn't matter. I think this phrase ties in with two blog posts that I've written many years ago here and here, about growing bigger than your problems so that the problems that you had seems like flies...

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My plan for my wife when I pass away

While having lunch in a subway outlet, me and my wife started talking about something morbid. It's about our plans for each other when we pass away prematurely, like within the next few years. It wasn't a morbid topic for me though. I thought that we should talk about such issues so that we have a feel for each other's plan. In the eventuality that we pass away, we can do so in peace with the knowledge that the other party is well taken care off....

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The advice from an economist lecturer

This is an interesting story that I heard, the source of which I will not mention to protect the people involved. There is an economics lecturer in a university, and we shall call him John. He is middle age, with adult kids. The kids had migrated over to Australia for reasons unknown to me, but he's still staying here in Singapore, earning a more than decent living working part time as a lecturer. The other part time work that he's doing is that...

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Paying down your debts or invest the cash?

If you have spare cash, would you dump it to make a partial payment of your mortgage loans or would you invest it so that you can generate more returns? Sooner or later, I think that's the question that you will have to face in your life. The philosophy and the baggage that you carry with you will determine which decision you'll make. Let's put in the context. I used HDB's loans with interest of 2.6% pa, spanning over 30 yrs. My monthly mortgage,...

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