The Tales of Carmensakura

  I just started watching the queen gambit on Netflix and it's about a girl who's a prodigy in chess. It makes me think a little because when I was younger, I was "good" at chess. I was nowhere as good as Elizabeth Harmon but I think I was above average. I could defeat some players but once I hit a more serious player or a better player, I'd probably be stumped.  This game was taught to me by someone at school. At that time, in my school, one of the parents was an international chess master. He was obviously obsessed with chess. He volunteer out of his own time to coach the chess club in my school. My school saw that this was something we could be good at, made every kid play chess and those were "good" would have to join the chess club. So I joined the chess club. I didn't particularly love it but I didn't hate it either. My parents knew I was playing chess at the time. They didn't encourage nor did they discourage. They just let me be....

I attended a virtual financial festival of sorts last weekend.  I was expecting to learn things.  But in the end, it was the same old thing being said. The reason for these sorts of things is to increase financial literacy. But what is financial literacy? To understand your money better? To handle your finances better? One of the main things that was said in the financial festival and everywhere else was that young  people should start saving for retirement or just saving for a rainy day.  I do admit that, yes, financial literacy is important. You should know how to handle your finances.  But I find it a little tone deaf sometimes to generalise an entire generation by s aying things like, you young people need to start saving. While some young people might need to learn to save, not everyone is in the same boat. Did it ever occur to some people that, there might be a reason why young people or people in general can't save? Maybe because we earn to...

There was a financial virtual learning festival thing done in my country. So I signed up with a financial planner.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. I had meet financial planners before from bank and it generally wasn't a great experience. The ones I met generally focused on how we wouldn't have enough for retirement or whatever your financial goal is if you only save.  So they'll always recommend investing. Investing isn't a bad thing. But the thing that always annoys me is that they'll try to sell their unit trust funds.  It annoys me because  1) their sales charge is high (but they won't tell you this because this is their commission) 2) they don't know which fund would do well so they can be recommending me a fund that tanks I'll be honest. I'm a little hard to handle for financial planners. I'm generally pessimistic. So when people ask me when do I intend to retire, I always answer, I don't intend to retire. I'm realistic enoug...

  The iPhone 12 was just announced. So what did I think of it? Although technically, 5G is a great deal right now because well, most of us aren't even on it yet. But it's something neat to have so that in the future, when that's out, you have it and will be able to use it. As new phones go, we all expect a new chip for better processing power, better battery life and better camera.  This is just the norm now for having a new generation of phones.  For the iPhone 12, the new chip and better camera is ticked off that list. I'm not sure about the battery life though.  Honestly, Apple upped the camera again on their latest iPhones. Nightmode on all cameras. That's actually pretty neat. But if you aren't someone who's picky with cameras, these little things don't matter. As someone with an iPhone 11, I only have nightmode on one camera. But honestly, due to the lockdown, thanks to covid19, I haven't been out much taking pictures so it's not r...

  I just finished watching Emily in Paris lately. Honestly, it wasn't a great show. It started out okay. It had the whole Parisian dream vibe going for it and for a while, that was nice. But after a while, you'll realise the characters are a little shallow.  Not only that, the everything always turns out fine for her. I guess after a while, it gets abit boring that nothing terrible happens to her. Nothing is at stake for her. However, I totally lost interest in the show when she said that, back at her home country, she knew everything that's going to happen.  This is where it's a little nonsense. Any twenty something never says that. If anything, twenty somethings always say, help me? I don't know what I'm doing and most of all, I don't know where I'm going with my life. Either way, the show became increasingly frustrating in the end that even the Parisian dream charm couldn't save it. But enough of the show. As I watched that show, it made me go, oh...