so if for one is the client is uh preparing to do some uh, uh holidaying or planning to buy cars properties I'll just have to ask them uh based on maybe like a checklist that the company will give me


if that's, ya if that's the case like if I ask them already then I'll just uh see ah cause right now I don't really have that much experience so I don't know whether if uh this type of person would have this policy uh that he needs in the future


so rather than uh just, uh thinking about it I think I could ask like someone else like above me, to have uh maybe like a better, sort of uh opinion or ya for that kind of uh client


yes I would like take like uh some sort of training under another insurance agent first


nah I have uh some uh other places to go ah I don't think an insurance agency is for me to be honest


part three negative experience, I think I felt trapped or helpless many times


I mean if you think about it like if you're, I don't know if expectations upon expectations where you want like this sort of outcome if you don't get it you feel trapped and helpless and the thing is that


usually with the outcome it don't have like a endpoint point so you can't measure it it's always uh the endpoint is always in the future I had that about my relationships, where, everywhere I went it'll be a losing end for me like I'll have the short end of the stick so like not wanting to hurt people


that's a outcome that I wanted, which was not achievable and trying to like save it salvage the relationship at the same time, ya basically those were times where I just felt like that I could I could really do like nothing about it since it was like a two way problem and my problems were


uh solved most most most likely speaking so in a way I really couldn't do anything about it, so I ya I couldn't see any I couldn't see any outcomes and any path that would lead to like a desirable outcome so I had to take that one that would hurt in the end that's one of the times where I just


felt like a bird in a cage just one of those, ya I mean what do you often worry about


I've seen a lot of sad things in my life but, I don't know where to start from, if you ask me to pinpoint like the saddest I just know that I I've seen people like it just get torn away from their families in some sort of like horrific car accident where the child is the only one that's left or people uh


deciding to like end their lives uh by various means of suicide I ya uh then all the contacts for those uh types of imagery, like uh there's one where the man hanged himself for for the wife's infidelity and the son was there at the same time so he hung himself in front of his son


ah it's it's messed up ah no way you look at it would, would you as the father like continue it even though you know that she's been making rounds around your village as like a town bicycle or is it like her mother's fault and and what place does a child


have to be in the middle of all that turmoil so if you asking me and that's one of the saddest moments, that I've seen where people just act out in a, in a blind mess and they end it all right there


ya that's ya that's quite troubling that's quite sad, never felt like those same thing almost happen to you like no one cares about you


I mean in that equation I there'll be two parties to blame like, maybe on the end of the receiver and me on the end of like the sender, so when I'm not good enough like maybe in my studies I'd feel that maybe


I was wrong then second point was like maybe a teacher hasn't seen like this the more the more it's it's it's quite a compounding effect, because the more you think of it that way uh nothing is good enough in a sense right the steeper the decline


of the your feelings toward like that suck that sort of, action that you take each time so, I mean I've I've felt I felt that way because many times I wanted to make friends in secondary school but in the first few years


I tried to like socialise or actually just reach out to people when usually in the past I would wait for people to the like talk talk to me but the more I tried that the more people just didn't, uh want to like talk to me or just think that oh he just wants uh someone


to uh look at him he want heard he wants attention so over the years, I've had that soft mentality where nothing I do is like good enough, so ya if you're asking me ya there has there have been many times where I've never felt that I was adequate to fit into like societal sort of uh relationships in the sense ya


I don't really have that many things to stress about now but if I were to just say one thing it would be, like my relationship with like my family I guess because maybe at times ya it doesn't feel like I like contributing much because I see everyone


just like getting a job or whatever so I just feel like from the perspective of my parents I you know, I just I I just want like live up to their expectations or just make them unhappy in the future this is one of the things that keep me stress


I mean thinking about it uh pragmatically it'll be some sort of way to kind of like absolve oneself by


that I mean the child would would have like already have negative experience on that village, and all and most humans would want some sort of social status so a form of warmth from from the village is a form of social status if you weren't love then you can feel that


that bar of yours like slowly falling down, in a sense it's a quite accurate problem because many times on I've had, I've had like dreams where I will just end uh enact like acts of violence on like cousins of family members even when I was a little kid I had those dreams like maybe starting from around six but I never told anyone about that until now


ya I think people can be very destructive given the right circumstances opportunities and ya lack of warmth


, , do you ever have like uh traumatic experience like the one you remember like most fondly about


that's


saddest moment I think I'm having one now where, uh my memories is just fading bit by bit I I I just had to like reset my bank account password even though I had it reset a few days prior like


about a week the more these situations just started popping up where I will just forget some things like I I stopped like trying to, bond with uh other people where ya in the past where I will just hang use like most of my time


so it's started just trying to avoid them it's it's just like antithetical to me in a sense where, I it I used to be just I just wanted to be seen by other people or whatever and I just wanted to make friends but now I just feel that


if this is the way that I can foresee my life going in like ten or thirty-year period then might as well just stop trying, to fit in that's what I've been doing I think in my tertiary education where I just stopped trying to just hang out with people since


I just don't feel that kind of warmth in like my earlier years so, guess that's quite sad since and I just stop wanting to be around people when I normally would


I mean uh moment where things turned better than unexpected I don't think I have many I I usually just have like this moments where maybe someone uh just uh talks to me maybe in public


I I wouldn't know much but the moments where things turned better than expected was like it has to do with something very very trivial such as uh winning a video game like somehow by luck or


uh by sheer will or just finding like maybe two dollars in my pocket like after it's been in a dryer or just ten cents on the floor and I picked enough ten cents on the floor I can buy a drink downstairs at my vending machine that's that's that's the kind of like things that


uh I don't look forward to but it happens to me and it just feels better than what I uh would expect at that day ya, ya so I mean what's what's the happiest moment of your life like just asking


uh that I that I look cute when I was working at my uh Scoot job I don't know just just two ladies came up to me and said


uh you look you look cute today or something and then every and all of my coworkers just like notice that, then later say !wah! Zaki you very popular with the ladies ah that is just like two two random people coming at me when I was working my night shift so like ya ya ya I I know I handsome right that that sort of thing


so pretty much ya it was a compliment where I just like still remember it even though it was like a year ago, I think that just boosted my confidence by uh but a lot of time a lot, so I mean it with that being said uh ya what what you thankful for just asking


I don't know I think just have like a like well-tuned like body I think that's one thing but the second thing was probably my, don't like that ya


there's two things lah I mean first thing is that ya I mean I'm thankful for my body since it can still function well even though I had some sort of a growth that had to cut out myself on my uh middle uh left right hand middle finger but other than that


ya I think my dad has been like just holding the family from below and then he's sent me to places he's paid for those places at the same time, he's quite gentle but ya I wish I had like more support


that's something that I'm thankful for that I don't say often or don't have the chance to say that often


ya when , when people around me still support me from uh behind or just something I just don't take note of that's ya that's some of the moments I still treasure ya


I mean not a lot I mean I've thrown out when I went overseas so not not that many I mean, I I had like trips where I went with my primary school friends to I think malaysia I think the whole point was just to experience uh malaysia as school as a school trip but


I don't know I just had like more memories to spend at them cause once I left primary school I felt myself uh being less and less like attach to things cause I know one day they'll just like be gone I mean it's all sad at first but if you think about it it's a bit


I mean, do you have anything that you'd like to let others see about you like maybe what do you like most about yourself


so is it like at work at school or just anywhere in general


I mean if you're if you if you know what is your biggest blessing in disguise is it really a blessing in disguise I mean uh because blessing in disguise, would be, uh some somehow I will just


I'll just make it I think like the biggest the biggest blessing would be, that somehow like even though like my life has been like one sharp turn after the other I'm still I'm still in like a race that I'm not too far behind like where I see my goal where I can see I can make it in time


I don't I if if that comes down to luck, or uh religious belief I don't know ya but somehow ya I'm still in that race which is uh quite quite a big blessing ya that I would say


ya speaking of life I mean as a kid what do you really hate that like maybe now you love as an adult


oh ya same same


, what


I mean I have a bunch of them I mean from secondary school I mean, lot of people is to like uh try to send me like birthday gifts ah I don't know how but, I think it's cause of like maybe my friends from them but they somehow knew like my birthday was on this day and somehow they just


uh knew like maybe what to get him like instead of like maybe food I'll just want like words words that I can like read later on or like just pass them down to my


like not like, my future children when they see like all all the people that write stuff about me back then to maybe at uh inspire them to be myself at that age where


ya cause birthdays, birthday presents ya birthday presents I would say isn't just about you I think is about what you've done for people like for that year or the past years or what you do for them because if you think about birthday presents this is just a form of


ya it's it's like a form of appreciation and also like form of, gratitude gratitude acknowledgement, I mean you can also use like a birthday present uh in your favor like maybe you want something from the person type but it's it's not about that like if kind of defeats the purpose but if you're doing that then whatever I mean


all for you but ya my best birthday presents are when people like hand me up notes and stuff like maybe just food like memorabilia instead of cakes pastries whatever,


ya


I kind of like answer it before but ya cause, it it it sounds weird and when I say I'm thankful about my body but ya is not some in some sort of like egotistical manner where I would say I'm so good looking


or whatever but you know like ya ya I mean if if you if, if you study like biology or like whatever in my course you can see that there's a lot of disorders in the human genome it's it's quite it's quite like


terrifying if you know that a certain type of if if there's a different sequence in maybe like one or two nucleotides which is basically your DNA it would basically like


for lack of a better turn then turn you into someone who's disfigured very easily and most of the time there's no cure for that who can who can cure someone with cerebral


palsy like uh like a the a lot of genetic disorders basically so I mean ya that's one of the things I love about myself that I was just born without difficulty


very much you know I mean, you ever like do outside and then never go outside for something you enjoy maybe like a hobby then something like really nice happen to you like maybe you just went out skateboarding and hit that new trick


I think ya I think most of the time I don't know positive experience can be hard to come by or easy to come by if you're looking for it


like, I'm just I'm just I'm just trying to say that maybe positive experience if you go searching for it you'll make some if you don't want to look for it then you don't make any


some sometimes you look for and it doesn't happen


I don't know a day without worries there's there's nothing like more worrying than uh worrying about stuff , it it sounds it sounds odd ya it because if you worry about stuff I mean I used to do that a bunch but now I don't really do that and it's it's it's quite a shift like a paradigm shift in your thinking when you stop worrying so


the days like in the future I hope to have days where I just stop worrying, those are quite perfect days to me how about yours


you you ever wrote a song about like being positive or maybe just like cause you have a guitar I mean I just wondering if you like have any like good experiences like related to it


I mean after concerts everyone will just stand up and clap for me I mean but ya is pretty much it lah if if you ask me like preparing for concerts is so much hard work you just have to


you have to concentrate so much prior to the concert and when it's all done everyone claps for you ya


okay


like I guess you could say that but I will say unit trust is better lah like it's a bit more expensive but like, you have people who are firstly you have people who are investing for you and then secondly you also don't have you know you don't


like it's active management but you're not necessarily the one managing it per se it's like the investment managers who handle it who are investing for you plus it's like automated in general because they will invest for you like every month so you don't need to keep doing it like again and again lah so I think that would be easier in general


but I like say not necessarily cause like, it's also about how much knowledge you have about investing in general and like what's like what you wanna invest in so plus ETF is all like manual so you have to keep investing in the same like the stock again and again which like considering how busy everyone is who the hell has time for that


no I mean like in general like I don't really see the point in like I I would say it would be slightly better to spend a bit more time , like like spend less time on it and pay a little bit more because you because you know you can spend that time doing other things lah you can spend that time doing work and a lot of other things that you'll be busy with rather than researching what which of these you want to invest in and like physically having to do it


you can always follow the algorithm but at the same time, algorithms may not necessarily predict it very accurately like it may be okay ah but I feel like there's a certain amount of like you know you have to like experience in the field of investing, to better know what's how like the stocks will go like obviously there's always gonna be a risk cause people cannot predict it predict anything accurately like completely


but I'd say an algorithm, can like still has the tendency to be like a bit more like you know fallible than someone actively investing for you regardless of it cause, more like and some more with like with unit trust


you can invest in like what was it ah there's more range right there's is there more range when you can and when you invest in unit trust like you have more variety in terms of what you can invest in and just instead of one like specific area


ya lah and I think that like in terms of risk that reduces it as well lah cause you have more variety in general


like sorry, no lah like but I would say that like you brought a lot of points that would like support what I think cause in general, like there's a lot of things an algorithm cannot consider that someone of experience can consider and I would say that like more data isn't necessarily better because when it comes to trends like in the stock market it's not always consistent


and especially like with the times you I feel like there needs to be an understanding of like what, is important in terms of like what you're choosing to invest in lah and it may not necessarily be the general trends cause the way trends go even like over the years can change and that will affect like what the algorithm thinks like the ability to understand


the intrinsic value of what you're investing in I would say is like more important, than purely the ability to analyse trends cause, even as like investors they still have that capacity to analyse the trends from time to time lah and I and I I feel like not analysing like the trends from too long ago may actually be more effective than than


all the excess data that like using an algorithm may provide lah so I'd still say that like unit trust is better lah


okay yeah like , because when I say more data I don't necessarily mean like the problem with it is outliers and stuff like that because I know the algorithm can account for that what I mean is that like if you look at like how the stock market changes especially with like the internet and access to it


becoming so much easier lah I've like if you look out on YouTube and stuff there's so many videos about investing now that people wouldn't have access to like twenty years ago so obviously based on that the market will change and the trends in the market and what people decide to invest in, is going to drastically changed from like before the time where the internet was commonly used


to like invest in stocks lah so I would say that rather than the problem being outliers in the data that the algorithm makes use of it's more of like, the issue with how the stock market has changed and how


now at how algorithms cannot account for that and it cannot account for maybe like more of the like social aspect of what people think is valuable nowadays because maybe a company could have been very successful for many years in the past lah but the problem is that they grow irrelevant nowadays when there are you know other products that


people find more effective of and thus you know their stocks like will plummet lah so I don't think the algorithm can really account for that, ya anyway never mind lah we can move on to another topic I think, okay so like ya sure okay we can do like dollar cost averaging ah


so in general I would say dollar cost averaging like it it seems like a better strategy to use but it isn't really like it's more of like the problem is that, you think it's better because you're investing small amounts of money like at a time every single month lah but actually I feel like it's been proven that there's more risk in dollar cost averaging than in just investing one lump sum at the beginning because you actually earn more profit if you invest like one lump sum lah


yeah I guess like it's always it's also that sense of it's easier in general for people to do like dollar cost averaging because many people may not like have the like capacity to they may not have the lump sum in general lah so what they do is they take a small portion of their income and they do dollar cost averaging


with it lah because it's it's more accessible in general lah so I can understand why it's done and some more if you, need a lump sum to like if if you need like to you need to like generate like a lump sum right the problem with it is that, uh like what happens is that you you need to save up for that lah and the time you spent saving up for that it's time you can spend like investing small amounts of money instead of that lah which might actually be better in the long-run because that time wasted


is may have like the stock price may have increased and what happens is that like you pay more in the end lah and you have less profits,


ya like I will say dollar cost averaging generally gives people like more of a sense of security likes it like may be more ineffective at times but like you still have that like sense of okay I'm not I haven't spent all of my money on this all of my savings on this lah


but it also depends on like how much risk appetite like each person has for like investing cause if you have more of a risk appetite and you think it's and you regardless of what stocks you like invest in it's always gonna be a better option to like lump sum it lah so like


(mmhmm) yup


as someone who has applied to a US school and gotten in and has had to defer like like I know that like there's a lot of worse things that could happen because of COVID lah but considering it's not it's not purely the fact that


like the COVID situation is so bad it's combined with the fact that right now what they doing is a lot of schools like it it wasn't that long ago but a lot of schools are , , it's called sorry ah a lot of schools are, deporting international students if their courses aren't full time like or uh if they're they have no like in real life class in the US which is like absolutely ridiculous because a lot of the borders of the countries they come from are closed and so it's really unstable and very scary some like some more like a lot of


like in the US they're trying to they're also trying to reduce the amount of time that international students can stay like after their school to do training and other like practical work, and so it isn't purely the fact that like, I can't go this year and I I'm I'm very lucky to have the opportunity to still maybe potentially go next year but I'm just very scared that in general like how COVID is going to affect the education system lah and like how


like you know what's going to happen afterwards and how a lot of my plans and the a lot of the effort that has gone into researching everything and applying to schools not just effort but also money that has gone into that it's just gonna go to waste if I cannot go in the end and if you know the situation gets worse lah


and like at the same time post COVID, I feel like a lot there's a lot of problems with like what like you know how the job market is changing because you know so many more people are like working from home and stuff now so like when it comes to jobs that are more face-to-face and more social what's going to happen to that is it going to more turned online more is that gonna become more common


and like I don't necessarily know, how well I can adapt to something like that lah which is which worries me in general lah, so ya lah like, it's it's so it feels like really frivolous things to be worried about but at the same time it's what's like it's the stuff that I have to think about and I have to like rearrange my life around right now lah ya


sure like okay well I can talk about an event that made me very angry


but like okay, so in general and like an event that made me quite angry was it was a friend of mine lah someone who I had been quite close to for a very long time uh also in JC ah, and it was a very like weird friendship what I would consider very toxic now lah but like in general what happened was that


we had it was it was a consistent kind of like it it started out as, like we were very good friends and you know we were very chill with each other but what happened was that like as time went by it was more and more frustrating to deal with him like he will keep pestering me about work he would keep pestering me about like oh like you know like we'd be doing work and he asked me to like


like he ask me for help and I'd say I need to focus on my own stuff first cause we were like really busy with exams and he get very angry at me for like prioritising my own work, and like it was stuff like that and like like not letting me focus in class which you know like it's fun like for a little while but once you get down to like you know major exams and stuff like you need like everyone needs a break there's a limit and he kind of passed by that limit for me so it was like this


slow slow build-up of like like frustration, because you know he just he wouldn't respect my boundaries and like and he would just keep bothering me in this time where I was very already really stressed out about, like multiple things and I just it it wasn't like it was and there was like the conflicting okay is really really frustrating to deal with him and I just don't I don't wanna talk to this person anymore


but and the like the moments of friendship where you're like ya but this is why I'm friends with you this is why like this is like worth it lah, and so for a long time, though looking back now like I probably should have like cutoff that friendship a very long time ago for a long time like I just stayed with it and I dealt with it and like


it's something that caused me to like break down a lot because I was really stressed about it cause like there were times the way he like I I would like he would try to convince me that I was wrong for like doing stuff like that and I just, and like I as much as I argued back it was it always went in circles and I always got back from that point then I was and though I know he like didn't care much I was always stuck thinking about was this really my fault lah


so the last straw for me was basically before one of our exams when I like when I got a bit like, like passive aggressive and like frustrated at him for doing like for, for asking me for some like information last minute and then being really ungrateful about it lah cause like cause like he forgot about the exam I reminded him and then I was quite frustrated because of like the events that have been happening recently with the like like getting angry at me for reasons that obviously weren't my fault and my


so I was like you just finding yourself lah so when I made him find the info himself he got very pissed at me and then he was like, he was like just you know, then he like he made feel it was my fault lah so at that point I just ignored him like I just blue it was like a blue tick on a message and he ignored me for the next whole day and I was so so angry because like


like in that situation and in so many other situations like it obviously wasn't my fault and like that was like the last straw for me I was like I I was clearly like cannot already I I need to stop this I need to like get out of this and I just, I couldn't deal with it lah I was so so frustrated and I was so angry and I was so upset because like like you deal with so much nonsense from one person and then you realised that like they just don't like they don't bother to try as much as you've been like trying lah and so


I sent him one long long message because I was like okay maybe I did something wrong maybe I should at least be honest about why I have been so passive aggressive and he ignored me for three days and send me a cat meme after that and and did not say anything else


and that was like the absolute last straw for me cause that was the like that was like like bruh, I ah it was really really frustrating and I just, I don't know lah like it's it was it was like you know you you trust that your friends are gonna be there for you when you need them and that they whatever they say is you know not like for the best the best for you not necessarily themselves lah and so when something like this have liked it it was just really really like


like just terrible lah like I ah it's just not something I ever want to go through again lah I I don't get angry at people and like he was the first person I got angry at for doing something like this in a long long time lah, so like ya yup ya you want to continue


okay let me see, describe something like I read that gives me goosebumps, so a while ago, it was a fiction book that I read lah it was basically about okay spoilers basically


it was about it's about these two kids it's a dystopian kind of novel and it's about these two kids who are stuck on this who are who live on this alien planet in general with like a few other settlers and stuff who basically , who where where all the like all the men and like all the men and all the


boys like you can hear their thoughts like their thoughts are like you can hear them like clearly everywhere, so basically like


okay basically it was initially fine lah they were just travelling around they were learning about what like what the the they it was a long story lah but it ended up in a, war where like the, where the two of them were actually fighting alongside the you know the adults who were like leading the different troops there was a group of like bombers


uh led by the women primarily and there was there was basically a group of men who were like fighting at the front lah and they were both vying for power in terms of they were both they were fighting against the the race that initially lived on the planet that there there was previously a war while they were initially enslaved but what happened was that


the the the most like kind of terrifying part of this was that as I read like , it was about these two kids who were being like, used as like the mottos of war like the the boy was you know the boy was like alongside the men men who had betrayed him in the past and he was killing like he would he had he had to kill the like you know the native people as well


and it was very it was very scary seeing how like what war can do to people like it was just very, it was very hard to read like it was like I had read the first two book it was a trilogy I read the first two books of the series and I had like no problem like rushing through them like a thousand pages a night four days and I couldn't I had to keep stopping as I read this book because like it was just kind of terrifying to see like people who are so


like strong in their convictions about something in believing someone else was evil and their actions were terrible slowly like you know see these people as allies and you know work together with them in a war and change their value is in in a sense


it was kind of scary as they drifted apart and they believed these different ideologies and they participated in this because like these were characters who seem very innocent and very like like they were being attacked by the world and now they were part of this very kind of very intense war where they had very few choices


it just it felt it just, it was so uncomfortable to read it was really it was really like you just don't you don't you just don't want to see you know where the character what choices they're going to make and it's something you like never thought they would and


it's kind of like terrifying, how how your situation can influence your action, and the fact that like, just war is a lose-lose situation you can't you can't there's no there's nobody who there's no nobody who comes out of it innocent there's nobody who can like you cannot


you cannot you have to live with those choices like it it follows them after the war as well and it's, and it's just, it was scary lah it was scary and you know they hold onto those like feelings and as children being part of that


it was just just, really really hard to read, ya


so for me I want to talk about like describe a time when I got appreciated for my hard work so


like last year my school like had a like a drama night and essentially what we do is that like we all write plays like our club will write plays and like different people will write them and then we'll perform them, and it was so much work because like I was the president of my CCA and there was so much to do constantly because


we had to we had to write the plays we had to vet them we had to cast people there was always like there was always rehearsals going on and like people who like you know couldn't make it there was scheduling for when we could do certain rehearsals with which people there were props there were like


like I I was overall like managing the whole thing and like in essence like so I had to liase with our teachers I had to talk to the different directors of the play talk to the actors make sure everything was going on schedule and it was so so tiring


cause like there was I was I was really exhausted all the time cause like there was like a focus on like I had to focus on my studies and at the same time I had to work on planning this out and spending like a lot of time both like cause I was organising it I was acting and I was directing


and I was also helping the props team make props so I was literally running around from place to place constantly if I wasn't like, telling my juniors like you know this is what you should do at scene nine and stuff like that I was messaging people about oh maybe you can improve your play by doing this this this or doing this this this or I was talking to teachers about can we have like the LT our lecture theatres for rehearsals and is it okay if we do this and when is everyone free and


it just it was a lot of like long nights of staying up till like two AM trying to figure out how to fit everybody in into this really tight schedule and like how to like not fail my exams at the same time, and it was so tiring like I I spend so much time like falling asleep


like I would like knockout during all my breaks and it it was really difficult lah because there was this constant need to get stuff done and there was like I had to and to balance everything that was going on so I was very stressed out as much as I love my CCA and I enjoyed it


it was very very tiring and so then what happened on the day of the performance was obviously everything was super like rushed because we were all moving around from place to place I had to make sure the props were all where we needed them the actors were all available we had to sort out like food


so like buying food for like forty people, is not easy like when like half of them are already busy and the other half are like rehearsing and stuff like that, and basically what happened was like like


it was really like it was really nice because like before everyone like went on stage I managed to give like everyone a hug and make sure they were like like ready and prepared and like just gonna do their best and after after the whole thing happened we had like a whole curtain call


we had a curtain call involving all the actors like all our like all the people who are doing lighting and sounds and everybody in one big picture of that and like for a minute straight my drama instructor just hugged me , and just like was so so happy that everything had gone to plan and it was really really like satisfying to know that like all that hard work had paid off till that extent


and it was just it was just really sweet to know because she's usually such a like strict person and she's very like focused on getting her work done and that was one of like one of my most memorable parts of that event and like, even the teachers in charge like people who like I talked to a lot because I had to settle stuff with but I wasn't necessarily the closest to cause they weren't super involved in the whole process of acting and stuff


like one of them like went to my parents and was like just complementing me about like how I planned and I organised the whole thing and it was it was like it was really surprising and really sweet to hear because like, I don't know it was it just felt like like all that like effort really paid off in the end it was just very it was a it was a very heartwarming feeling lah I just it's something that like I I will always remember and that I will


hope to like experience again in the future regardless of like how little sleep I get in the planning process , ya


yes okay reading is okay okay , I guess like I'll talk about like, a moment where like things turned out better than expected for me which was project work in JC again !yay! okay so


basically for me what happened was initially honestly initially I, thought my project work was gonna go great like, we had like our class manager inside we had our like we had one of the most studious kids and we had like the top scorer in our class and then like started going downhill from when like the top scorer was like okay I'm going to change out of this group


and like our class's like resident slacker decided to like okay now I'm in your group I was like okay, fine maybe not great but like will do okay and then the project like the the group work actually started and I started to like slowly perish cause like


like our our class manager had like, no capacity to do any research or like make any sense of like long scientific journals that we had to like scour through to find out like


what we needed to like began our project our like most studious student kept arguing about the wrong points and just did not understand like anything that was asked of her and the questions the slacker did as he like usually does and just didn't, do anything and so I had a great time tanking the whole project for like the first first half of the year and like and my my efforts were combined with my constant CCA plus other extra curriculars and that just posed for me to be like exhausted for the whole of J one


and then halfway through we go our internal review we got our project back we scored the lowest in class six out of twenty-four !yay!, and, it came back !wah! I was like it came back before I went for like our schools like leadership camp and so it was like five days of like I didn't get the result five days of not


showering finally going home I go ask my group mates six out of twenty-four and I was like why man why , but for the second half of the year like though our classes


most studious person and the resident slacker continued to not really help with our project the class manager finally decided to step up with like what he could or at least tried to do which was photo editing, which he initially could not do but was very confident like in his skills of which like which meant I had to constantly hello I'm sorry ah can you like redo this maybe try changing


this how about this and like, obviously annoyed him because like you know if anybody does that and you think you're like you're like the photo editor is like the next next van gogh you will like struggle a lot with it like you'll struggle a lot with the knowledge that you have to keep changing it plus I'm like really nit picky so that didn't turn out great


ya so that happened but at least now I had somebody helping me and like checking through, my like like I will keep I was writing like the whole three like three thousand word essay like three thousand word like report by myself and I kept forgetting chunks because like I have the memory of like like a goldfish and so I would leave out giant sections of


like giant sections of text I'll be like nah just come back this lately because I cannot be bothered to spend another three hours researching this then he'd have to constantly pester me how about this part what happen to this part what happened to that part you forgot like five sentences here and I was like that was useful because


I would have like left out like probably like thirty percent of the written report if he didn't remind me and it was just nice having somebody to like stay up till three AM with you like going through like this three hundred word essay about something that you will never use in the rest of your life


yup but ya so hours and hours and hours of like extra time that honestly I wouldn't have spent on this project if people had help me in the half first half of the year, and finally finally we finished it we pulled the like an all-nighter like to like write everything down and


it was actually quite nice cause like it finally felt like my like despite it my group being so fragmented I finally felt like you know we were getting somewhere and we were like through our hours of consultation with our teachers and like the amount of time we spend together doing purely the project


like me and like the other groupmates all got like slightly closer which was really nice and by the end of it like you know as all JC students do we were like you know we were just sleeping in the classroom during all our breaks, trying to like you know have a good time and not like parish because of all the work we had and it was just overall it turned out a lot better than I expected because we not only got A but like I became quite close to like


at least two of my other PW groupmates and, as much as I would not like to relive the whole experience it's not something that I can forget or that I ever will lah because you know it was unexpected in the least but at least you know the grades turned out well I made some new friends and because like you know the


two guys were very close to our class like I made better friends with my class as well


finance related topic, okay so, we can start with the


the CD CDP or we can actually start with E ETFa or trade unit trust which investment instruments you prefer, so after reading about the ETS and unit trust I think


a better option would be, to go for ETF since they pretty much, follow like a algorithm, and, uh it's cheaper because they don't have to, uh


uh hire like a professional advisor, to help you, to do the investing and it just, uh pretty passive so you don't have to, pay someone to help you do it and it that really cause it reduces the cost of


okay but the thing is that, usually if you talk about the S and P five hundreds you are invest in those right then, it'll be it'll be it'll be quite counter-intuitive you are paying extra to, achieve the same effects because usually for those companies there would be an upward trend and due cause they know how to manage the funds then do proper investing so if you ah used ET if you choose to uh go for ETF instead then it will reduce the


uh, like the cost of investing , and at the same time you get you achieve the same effect of returns ah because, might be riskier because it's ETF but the fact that if you invest in, you know uh stocks of like companies that you know there are going to


increase in value over time, that way you the profit will be definitely larger ah greater if you, ah minus out the, fee to invest itself which is finding a third party to help you


there are usually I mean it follows a index what if it's ETF so, usually there are many uh algorithms that, follow the follow the the, indexes in the stock market especially for the


because the the reason the risk factor is that if you invest in, less uh, I guess less established companies, that aren't, that as in like startups startups ah so you invest in startups then the risk is high because uh you don't know whether that they'll succeed but at the same time if if if they do


the returns are high but I don't the but if you do ETF right you can choose to invest in those all you can choose to invest, in companies that are really established in the sense that, the as another top hundred companies for example in US and if you do that right, then there is


I mean if you follow the algorithm and do that, the algorithm help you invest and basically, you don't have to worry about what research that needs to be done


okay but the problem the the difference is that, if you, you know the difference you make is that if you ask someone to invest for you right you say that the algorithm may not like be as good as the person doing it ah you saying


as you remembering but, the only difference you make for be for human because, first things first if you read the trends right a human may not be as good as the algorithm at reading the trends because


first computer, learning can pretty much uh, generate uh predictions based on trends that last, like there has been there for like the past how many years yes they they have the database for that


but painstakingly investor who has been in the field for ten years that say would not have would not be as, uh how do I put it how, would not have as much data as a computer because, there's just so much data outside , but the risk the the the fact that you say that


the algorithm may not be as, uh, as err, good because his, is mostly because uh the algorithm, only see the see the prices on the stock market and they are unable to see uh


generally how, well the product is so like the intrinsic value of the of the products that selling instead of just the stock market because, the stock market isn't the only determining factor of how a product will do


it determines how the product okay is doing in the current moment but in the future it doesn't you don't know , and despite uh, besides like the trend in, the stock exchange right another uh other factors would just be


what they selling, and uh their financial management all this which is not included in the stock market exchange , and if you just based it on the values of course it'll be risky, but I don't think that computer and human brain right it's, you know them at at like them ah difference if you are talking about uh very uh experienced investor versus an algorithm


so for the points I brought up about how uh, investor can make a quick witted decisions on the spot and look at different factors besides the stock exchange and, a normal uh robot would cannot do, but that only applies if you're investing in a more risky investment for example partaking in investment whereby the company uh has not has not had many years in the


in the industry so first their stock, uh there's their stocks wouldn't be valued as high but with a good product right, they definitely might do well in the future so that one, if that's the case right it's a big risk to invest as and algorithms usually wouldn't do that they only invest which is why algorithms mostly invest in the bigger companies


where they know that the product the, sales the finance management are all already like, they really been good all long and trends, that, age back to many many years ago would, the algorithm the things the algorithm can


can obviously identify outliers in with the trend so for example if the trend suggests a sudden uh, dip in, general price ah levels and the stock, uh price, for certain companies actually maybe all five hundred companies


then in that case, it would it wouldn't treat it as like a part of the trend it'll be outlier because, especially like you know two thousand eight financial crisis if everything dropped then that would maybe because of a natural shift in the


uh demand supply of the stocks it'll be caused by an external factor, which is the financial crisis, so, I would think that uh, there there's no such thing as uh too much data and


as long as you can get more data it'll be useful and usually for companies that has been established the trend is quite consistent usually it's in it's goes up and goes down , quite consistently but and but it does it does uh stick to a certain range


uh and when it it usually doesn't exceed a range which is why it's quite predictable but uh the unpredictability comes when you're investing in, stocks whereby there is high volatility because let's say the company, is you know


uh not well established yet, and their financial statements are, are are or like , describes their more early years of establishment which is, which can you know you can


project into the future how well they do you know that's the decision for the for the finance social adviser to make ya


I think you're right that the profit , propensity for profit is definitely higher if you do, if you just invest everything one shot , but I feel that, dollar cost averaging


feel like it just gives people security because, uh no matter how well a stock is doing you no matter what the situation in the stock market is, a normal person would


be very very you know, hesitant to just dump every all like put all the eggs in one basket, and and like , I guess in terms of, uh speaking of like you know uh putting your eggs in different baskets


in a broad sense you can put it in different stocks and hope that you know most of them, rise but for this case it's, if you want to slowly pump you money into uh uh one stock at a time, if you put everything into, uh lump sum like that your whole lump sum of let's say ten K


into one stock on ya on one year let's say year one, you run the risk of losing everything in the next year, and, however we do dollar cost averaging you


wouldn't lose as much money, if let's say you lose money but, it depends on what kind of stock as as like usually depending on what kind of stock you are investing in


you're right , , you're right but but usually people, would , would be considering whether they should do lump sum uh


you know investment versus dollar cost if, it's usually at a state whereby they decide to invest, on, it's saving the that has been there for quite a long time which is why this is a decision you have to make, especially with the people who are who have uh


negligible uh experience with investing, and they have this sum of money that they save over the years , so for them, if you look into the perspective of these people, which is usually the case, definitely most people will go for you know dollar cost averaging because they want to test the waters


but I would say that , lump definitely lump sum would give a lot more money, but that will depend on how much risk you want to bear and based on different stocks and if you want to find


err certain people to help you you know financial advisors to help you, so , if a person has a, large saving and they want to invest in, stocks it would depend really on what they investing on


and if you're investing on the really safe stocks especially the big companies that the stocks are valued really high and they usually don't plummet, then obviously returns wouldn't be as high but if you, invest everything at one shot


then the returns might be, might you know, counterbalance the, uh decrease in I guess returns in because of the stocks nature itself, but, dollar cost dollar cost averaging I think would be safer if you want bet on uh


stocks whereby it is more volatile as I said like stocks whereby companies aren't, uh, that are new companies that are new lah basically you don't know what trajectory they're gonna go into but, you, but usually


if you do research and all this find a financial advisor you know, then you can decide on whether this ah stock is actually investment worthy, and if you should invest but dropping a lump sum onto a company that has just started, and you're not confident if


you will succeed , so that that depends on two two factors ah so, the, nature of the stock itself, and also the, , ya the company that you want to invest in


I guess ya I agree with you and, it it really depends on quite a few factors and, , the best way to work this out is do research and research or find a financial advisor ya


alright, err, uh I will start err, yes yes yes I will start, in the post COVID world what are some of the worries anxieties you face


so COVID has, uh, , ah has affected many people all walks of life in a very bad way, and, , caused massive panic with xenophobia racism


and deaths, and just a lot of bad things but as a student , what affects me , uh is that, uh right now the COVID has caused many uh


unrest especially in uh, other countries like the united states , so as a student uh I would before this I was planning to maybe go overseas to pursue my education but after COVID it kind of I just


really hesitant because of, the whole uh, especially in the US the, that the COVID rates are still rising as of right now and people are still debating on whether to wear masks or not and political systems are unstable trump is still doing what he does and


it just seems very uh pessimistic , for any student who wants to go to the united states to study and at other countries as well where COVID is still exists uh, and , it kind of disrupts many of many plans of


mine, because uh studying overseas is not easy decision and just as not as hard as it is to choose and to pursue, you know overseas education it's also as difficult to give up


that opportunity so, for many students like me uh we face the anxiety of, not being able to go overseas because, if it did probably like uh if you especially you ask if you did that the risk is way too much for us to bear and I guess the most important thing for us is our life and


yes we shouldn't put that on the line just to go overseas, ya ,


okay would you like to share another topic zara


thank you for sharing , I guess I will I will talk about this dude as well so, , so uh there's this there's this dude I've been friends with since secondary school


and, ya so so we we were friends in secondary school in sec one sec two, because we both had like really really bad grades, yeah like we're always we're we're always like runner-up or like first


in like the reverse order, in terms of like class position we're always the fortieth or the forty first we'll always like tap out on each other so this this this year I'll be the fortieth he'll be forty-first and then next year it'll be fortieth for him and I'll be the forty-first so our grades are pretty much the the shittiest in class and


it was like that since sec one and sec two and then we were friends because uh like you know, it feels good that you know you have someone who is as bad as you at studying is your friend so, and our friendship kind of continued through our secondary school but


as time pass uh kind of picked up myself especially since that sec three ah, overseas trip that I did in Hainan I was like uh maybe I should do something about my life and I did that so as time passed and sec three so then I started like studying more and picking up myself and actually doing things that make myself feel


better rather than just ah accepting like oh this is me can't change anything about it , so slowly I was kind of, just living the life of just, being, lazy and


thinking that it's okay to be lazy behind and, but I still friends with him because he's he's a pretty nice nice guy but I was telling him along the way !hey! can you study !hey! you know you should work on your life you know bit more, because you know he's also quite uh


ah affected by the fact that, you know when anyone who who has been , who has really shitty grades and all this ah and has a little bit of self-awareness would have a slightly, ah damaged I guess ah self-esteem because of all this so in our friendship kind of last until JC and then in JC I was studying with him time to time and kind of tutoring him on uh the various concepts and subjects and then after that


he has telling me that oh I just couldn't study, and , it's just and and the thing is that he tells me he just couldn't study but also see him going out a lot and I also see him buying a lot of stuff online, and just doing a lot of his I guess hobbies and also he he doesn't finish his homework and all this so


but it's okay you know I'll help you out then slowly , like just become very, ah uh toxic because it started , he started kind of just neglecting his his studies in general


and just kind of he's just being he just started to, kind of uh, uh, just, being you know like he he just started I don't know why maybe just like uh in his comfort but he just started


trying to get girls, the whole time and then the whole like kind of kind of like he'll should just, go like ask girls out, and, just keep going and trying and trying and trying again and I'm like bro you need to stop dude this is just like a momentary kind of coping mechanism dude then like


he I'm pretty sure he knows that but just continues and then after that he doesn't really like solve his own problems, and he also starts being more passive aggressive towards people his friends and I kind of feel that as the search for I guess uh you know uh company because


I'm, ya because he's was in that state of, feeling bad about himself and at the same time he doesn't want to do anything about it I guess easiest solution was to find a company and as he was searching for I guess a goal to fix fix that void inside of him he just kind of started like being ah


mean to his friends usually and he will just kind of like ditch them on, like ditch them on certain uh outings and stuff like that and ah yeah and he would just be very passive aggressive and


doesn't uh ya and and he doesn't reply to your text sometimes as well even though he replies to all the girls that exists and he DM all the girls on Instagram, and so and then after that in army ah surprisingly we got into same occasion ah like ya then after that I was in the same class as him in in in the in the school and then


I was like oh sup it's been long time since we've kind of studied together and so we kind of became we kind of talked and then after that because it was stay in so we have to stay in camp and we kind of stayed together, and on the on the bunks and then


yeah it was miserable staying with him because , he was ah very passive aggressive very very like to complain a lot and basically a very privileged uh kid who is who doesn't know how to solve his own problems


and so then after that he got angry at me for telling like because I always tell him to you know try something else try harder like don't, don't keep giving yourself the excuse you know then but, uh he got pissed off at me because of that, and so I texted him I was like !hey! you wanna talk about it because I'm willing to help you


and basically I was telling that it's fine you know then he didn't reply and then after I said well I guess the friendship is over good luck to you and that was the end of that so, ya it made me realised that some people just can't really be helped no matter how much we help them and they kind of just live wanna live in their own bubble


and, let the situation, take its ah course instead of actually doing something to change its trajectory and that was equivalent of my story, to


of that person yeah


K continue, shh <mandarin>等一下等一下:deng yi xia deng yi xia</mandarin> sorry continue


right, okay so I'm gonna start by talking about , , this the travelled one so like the what describe one of the your most memorable


travel experiences, so my most memorable travel experience was in uh sec three , when I went for this uh overseas voluntary trip with my school, and we went to Hainan which is in china


and it was a, it was we went to the rural side of it and we've started our first day off at, at like at I think it was a village and we stayed there for one night and when we first came went there it was like a very different ah environment and we're all kind of


kind of like shook and, a bit uncomfortable at the, at the living environment because, uh everywhere there's there's no proper like pavement and the houses are quite uh they're not they're not like they're all one storey usually and then like the toilets and everything aren't they don't have like the flushing system whatever like the proper


toilet seats and and then, ya and then the there aren't lots of shops there as well in the town that we were in, then we stay there for a night and then after that our whole purpose of the trip was to mainly uh teach local students english and


from its was from primary one to primary six so we went to this uh primary school china then, uh we kind of uh, randomly had to be assigned to different classes and unfortunately I got assigned to the primary one class which is the most hyperactive class ever and then uh I was teaching and the thing is that I was paired with uh


two people one of them is malay so they can't really talk to the kids in chinese and the kids barely understand any english, and the other person is like she's very quiet and she doesn't talk at all so I was pretty much teaching the whole time and then after that


honestly like teaching wasn't, that fun but, as time pass you kind of uh develop like a relationship with the kids and then the kids start to you know, ah play with you and then to show that you know they actually like you and then


that was that's I guess that's what makes makes teaching enjoyable and then I remember back then I was teaching them about I think fruits and animals and we were just , it was very hard to teach them because they had no like foundation at all but it was quite enjoyable and during recess breaks they will like chase me around the backyard I don't know why but they like to chase me and then one time I was just I think playing catching or something then and then


one of them just grabbed my pants and then I stopped because I didn't want to like fling the kid into the ground then another one kind of grabbed my other other pant pants and after that they start kind of just start climbing onto me


so I kind of just sat down and lay on the floor and then they started uh kind of, piling up on me and I had like five kids on top of me and the rest of them were just like clapping and laughing and then my my two assistants were just taking a video of it and I was like help me but they didn't help me they just


took a video of it and that was the highlight I guess of for the whole teaching experience which is really the warmth that the kids have showed me and also , I guess a insight to how living is like in different countries and to to really realise that you know your privilege in a first world country to a developed country in singapore whereby


living conditions are really good and, uh you have a lot of security and you have good education and all this and it kind of made me realised that I shall be grateful for I have and because most often than not you tend to your brain starts to the you know habituate and fall into


uh the trap of oh this is, just normal and you don't if you don't take your time to reflect and realise that what, that appears to be normal can be taken away from you anytime and


and it just taught me to be grateful for what I have and it kind of changed me as a person afterwards because I've started to, work harder because I realised that you know if these if these people from, poorer countries and from worse off backgrounds who don't have as good as the education as me are able to you know succeed in life and


and, uh do well as a person I felt that you know if I had, just being !huh! not, like working for what I have I'll just be wasting my life away so it kind of changed my life in in certain aspects and ya


your turn


thank you for sharing


uh I think I'll talk about uh the describe your perfect day but more so for me a perfect not really perfect but a very happy period or satisfying period of my life so in, so ya so in singapore you know stress everything everything everything is stress studies is stress life is stress and usually you don't have time uh to do things that you love or do things that you always wanted to do because stress and parents forcing you to do things to you know


your your studies and stuff so, I was from like, pretty much seventy percent or sixty percent of all singaporeans kind of first twenty years of their life just primary school secondary screening then go JC and then after that finish your A levels and you get to you get to university


and so most part of it I was just uh kind of floating through, through life until like JC made me realised that life is actually a game and it's hard to play and I need to work for it so


I started working and was very stressful, and because of the stress and everything I couldn't really cope and then after that it was just been a really shitty uh a JC experience, so then after that ah so after after the the preliminary exams prelims ya for JC two there is usually a three month gap between after the exam to all the way until the A level exams


and that is the gap for you to study on your own, and you wouldn't need to go to school you just do whatever you want also is so you can choose to study how many hours you want how many times where location any anything you can study however you want


and so, uh I I thought that that would be terrible because I have no self-control and always just go play games, , but it's surprisingly turn out a lot better than it actually one it's one of the more like zen times of my life honestly even though it's spent studying but basically I will just go to the library everyday and then I'll study


at first I couldn't concentrate so I'll just keep playing phone like keep constantly playing my phone but my friends do help me and asked me to stop playing my phone, but then ah slowly, as time passed I get more focused and because of the environment of the library I started actually checking out the books there and I started reading uh books uh in the library as like a break


and it turned out really well because books I've and and kind of books kind of like change my, personality a little bit more because, just books just reading in general uh gives you a lot of zen and it makes you reflect and kind of makes you figure what you want in life and moving through JC and just


like a mindless state of uh of of like a cycle of finishing your work and meeting deadlines and then more deadlines coming in and trying to meet those deadlines and it's it's there's reason there really isn't like space for you to, think about why you even doing all this for a lot of times you you forget yourself in the midst of ah busy times and


don't actually remember what you're doing what you're doing for and you're spending so much time on it so kind of err really I guess happy time of my life was spent in the library studying surprisingly but it made me really think about what I want in life and what I was studying for


and because of that three months I made massive progress in I guess my goals and my life my purpose and what I what I want to do and it feels really good to know why I'm doing something for rather than just going through life like a robot and just doing something for the sake of doing it


and ya that is that happy happy period of my life whereby I was spent studying in a library , from morning till the library closes usually around there till like eight and, nine yes nine and


and, yes uh ya if I were to if I want if eh I want to go back to those times man where I will just be studying and reading ya, reading is a good hobby to pick up


finance, okay Firdaus uh


how do you normally invest your money to accumulate wealth, or planning for your retirement


(mmhmm) oh savings insurance is it


oh so is it like after like like you said fifteen to twenty years then you can uh withdraw all the money that you saved up is it basically


oh let it snowball is it, (ppc) , (mmhmm)


uh okay okay okay for me , uh not really more of a


insurance it's either probably through CPF contributions or personal savings lah ya then for, because I got to know recently from my friend where CPF actually you can uh voluntarily contribute it yourself ya so when there's actually there's plans to maximise your CPF contributions lah so actually that's quite quite good for me lah ya


ya uh based because uh I researched it few days ago uh on because CPF got


OA and SA right ordinary loan and savings savings account if I am not wrong ya like special account special account ya ya then uh ordinary OA is only like two point five percent and SA is like four percent so they would recommend you to transfer


your OA to SA if you are not planning to get a house lah, ya, ya, so but but there's like conditions lah you have to be like below fifty five year old and uh you have less than the current full retirement sum in your SA


(mmhmm), yes yes correct and uh


by is uh transferring and you can also transfer then another way is you can uh what is it called, ya uh since every year we have to pay the tax income right actually you can uh sort of claim it ya uh because when you are


when you pay uh you can voluntarily contribute to your CPF or your parents CPF or you can even contribute to your own medisave, then from there you can uh offset I think ya offset from the tax income so basically like it's not like you're paying tax income you are uh contributing it to your CPF slash medisave instead lah


(mmhmm) (mmhmm) correct correct, ya I mean it's good to have multiple like uh what uh what do you call it passive income is it ya so it's good and there's also a risk but


from what I understand CPF basically it's risk free lah I mean I I'm not promoting CPF lah but to me it's uh it's a safe way to somehow save your money without uh with very very low risk basically no risk ah


ya so but ya sorry, ya it's it's quite low actually lah because ya there's no risk involved so that's why the interest is low low if you want a high uh high uh high interest high reward you will have to risk more


so what about your opinion


(mmhmm) (mmhmm)


considered uh ya


correct so really uh high risk high, reward the more you uh risk it the more you will earn you will get you will earn more lah basically


becoming an investor that's nice basically you just pop in money then if they earn a lot then you will also earn a lot lah oh the uh ya that's nice that's nice but you have to start off with a capital lah


oh ya because you are risking on uh on that small company not knowing if they will succeed or not lah


oh so basically it's like you're buying a branch from seven eleven itself lah, oh that's good oh ya ya ya it's like my workplace there's cheers but it's not really under cheers I think it's under alexandra hospital that's why the price is quite different from the normal cheers outside


oh I see that's a good investments then I mean at seven eleven would be we just need to know where the location to place it in to place it there lah


ya ya and both are always full also ya


there are there are there are there for quite some time already quite long


correct correct , but then since we're talking about , uh savings financials do you have any plans to get married


but then how would you how would you, save up for marriage like do you have any like steps or procedures to until that end point where it's marriage or anything


!wah! basically everything is from your own savings lah you pay for it everything, !woohoo! that's uh


oh that's nice that's nice uh for me there's no vision of getting married yet but actually I'm uh


uh already start saving uh ready for marriage lah so every ya it's it is quite similar to what you said every monthly just put aside, uh a sum of money and then slowly just building it up but there's no interest or anything lah unless I hit a certain amount then from there I can start investing and let's say if in the future I want to get married then I can start using that money for marriage or anything else lah or for for renovations or anything


to financial advice to give to myself five years ago uh I mean the first thing uh do not do not take any loans ya try your best to be debt free because uh having debt it may sound like


uh you don't uh it's just that you're just paying that uh money monthly that's all seems uh sound safe but actually, if you don't have any debts to pay you'll be you'll feel like you're a free man basically you can do anything with your money you don't feel like you are caged somewhere ya indeed and then I will just tell them


to, save up be debt free then uh if opportunity were to rise then invest in the opportunity uh but provided that he do uh you do some research on it first [loh] and make sure it's a good place to invest in


ya what about yourself


correct pay check to pay check ya, uh, so basically like I only use the money to pay for your living expenses and do not buy like


anything lavish like anything you don't really need it you just put it aside and in the future then you can start using it, oh oh that's nice that's nice, then since you're saying about doing that uh and and I say about being debt free uh do you think uh one should own a credit card


correct correct


ya


(mmhmm)


I understand it's like go uh going to a shopping mall you know like uh they say like oh uh food uh two hundred usual price is two hundred but now it's like a hundred dollar it's you are not saving hundred you're actually spending hundred, ya ya so I get I get I get it


credit card something I uh personally I don't own a credit card but to my knowledge isn't it credit card is like uh let's say for that month you use your credit card then at the end of the month you will have to pay for what you used correct


that isn't that to me is a bit of , doesn't make sense lah so you wouldn't it make you prone to, spend more without let's say like someone who likes to spend then doesn't really calculate their finances then they will actually spend more then from then they will suffer a lot


ya that, [orh] ya correct correct


ya that's why that's why that's the scary thing ya, ya that's why that's why I try my best to no credit card


and I'm afraid it might corrupt my mindset , ya say if like they they can spend their until tomorrow lah like today's the last date you just spend on everything


ya, then you can see their face very black oh no money to spend already, ya so it's a vicious cycle ah keep spending and paying spending and paying


so then ya sorry, based on one of the points uh what advice would you give to someone in order to reduce their income tax


so by paying your insurance you don't have to pay income tax is it


(mmhmm) (mmhmm)


ya I saw that on an article about the uh make it charity


ya ya ya, because uh one of the options I saw is to top up your CPF or top up your uh family member's CPF, ya so basically if you include both you can the top up relief you can make is like fourteen K so basically if that's the limit


your of your tax income relief for the option lah so that means if your tax income relief is fourteen K then basically you don't have to pay your tax income lah if you use that fourteen K to contribute to the CPF ya


okay, so describe something you watch or read that give you goose bumps


okay something that I watch or read that give me goose bump so, to me not all horror movies give me goose bump but this one particular movie that


really creeps me out is you know the movie insidious, ya the first one, !wah! that's that's a really really good horror movie to me so uh there's this uh you know uh there's this one


scene where they entered the demons lab where the kid is captured so they played all these weird songs and there's like weird objects all around the room, so when they I uh I think I remembered the song is like


you know like tiptoe through the wind that that song it's like really played in high pitch and, uh it's quite creepy so that moment when they showed the demon is like doing something then with that song playing in the background it's actually that give me a little goose bump then like for the whole week I've been thinking about it the actually until now ah I'm start to think about it already


ya , yup yup the government does exist


really oh is it is it legal to enter the dark web


because if I'm not wrong there are steps right to enter the dark web


so basically it's like all of us like accessing all the social media in the web it's like only the surface where actually there's some deeper darker stuff on the web oh that's scary so talking about


scary the uh can you describe a time where you feel that you have committed something wrong and there's no way you thought you can get back lah and start over


okay


oh actually it's like dug your own grave !huh!


something that I did no way to start over


ya basically uh I think I used to be a bad person, I'm not sure if I am right now but last time when during my younger days I feel like reflecting back I'm a


I used to be a really bad person I think I used to disturb a lot of people uh I mean some might even say I bully a lot of people so there's uh this there's this one, point where I was like disturbing uh this kid where uh I'm like I want to splash splash some water uh you know like tap water


to his face then it's like he doesn't want ah he's like trying to avoid it trying to evade it then at one point I tried to uh splash water to him then he didn't notice there's like a pillar on the left side of him so he just like


try to avoid it and then he accidentally hit his face on the, on the uh the pillar that broke his spectacles then uh his part of his face was actually bleeding because of the broken spectacles then from there I feel like I really really messed it up then I feel like okay I'm going to get into deep deep trouble


so ya so we went to our teacher then I really tried to apologise to him then !wah! he he really cried so , I felt like I really did something wrong I feel like everything is over okay my uh my school life is ruined so


ya then from there I apologise then , uh, luckily like I think he forgive me but I'm not really sure if he really said that he forgive me but actually now we are we are still contacting each other lah but


ya he seems he seems okay for it ever since like we talk about that experiences like right now he's still laughing about it lah he's okay with it but to me I still until now I still feel bad about it lah, but luckily we


we were able to start over again lah ya but that moment I feel like everything is going to be over but , luck was on my side so everything was okay after that ya, uh do you have any phobias Firdaus


was it because of a bad experience


[orh]


so her main objective is for you to overcome it lah


but right right now do you still afraid or do you like cats now


ah those wildcats ah me phobias uh oh I used to have uh I used to be afraid of heights ya I


really really used to be afraid of heights but then I I think it saved my mum's I'm not sure if it's my mom I don't know if she knows that I'm, afraid of heights but she keeps sending me to this when I was younger to this a lot of adventure camps where there's a lot of high elements you know like abseiling uh flying fox all that and rock climbing and to me


abseiling was the worst because I was really afraid of heights and then abseiling it's feels like, you are falling like making yourself to fall down the building but actually there's a rope lah but, since uh since young I was really scared of heights it it feels like I'm going to fall like anytime soon


but ya there was ya I was really afraid of heights back then but then during my sec four sec five ya secondary school when I was sec four or sec five , uh we had this PE teacher where actually we are quite uh me and my friends are quite close to the uh to him


so after school we he invited us to uh go rock climbing or abseiling or flying fox and we decided to do abseiling you know like every few weeks we will we will we will do it at least once or twice , and he will like invite us and we'll go and we'll do the abseiling the first few times I was really scared of it


but after the fifth or sixth try I tried it !wah! it's actually it feels nice, instead of slowly going down I started like slowly like jumping around I can play around with it it's like I'm not afraid of falling down I don't know if it's because I feel safe or I'm just like used to it already ya comfortable with it already so I can like just jump around but


uh the phobias uh every time I try something new that's related to heights actually I will still be , a bit scared ya unless I I did a few few tries lor


I feel upset, and I feel like the world needs to do more about it uh honestly to me I would say social media social media really destroyed a lot of people so


it to me my honest opinion my personal opinion I feel like it makes people uh shallow and a bit more superficial where everything is about uh you need to show that you have assets that means you are successful


you need to look good, and then you will be successful so everything is is on the surface there's nothing deeper and uh everything that because I rarely use social media I only use it to uh share stupid videos or anything like funny videos ya nothing personal much


so whenever it's like people sharing stuff I feel like it, judgments will always be there you know uh that whatever you post there there will there will be people, judging your post or anything I mean you don't even know it but there will be that thought comes to your head right oh this guy post this stuff oh this girl post this stuff oh she doesn't look that good


so okay then from there the judgments will stay in their head and let's say if you were to meet up with them then they will have the mindset of you just from that post from that picture or video, ya what about you


ya disease or anything lah ya


true and ya no not much people will go hungry lah if we were to share everything lah


describe the time when you were unable to help someone in need ya I think this one you can go first do you have anything in mind


so other than is there like any anything else that you can you were able to help him or her with other than financial ways


ya everything anything else is up to him or her lor me , uh it's it's really quite, I don't know I feel really bad about it lah but because I didn't even try to to do something about it it's uh it's not because I am unable I think maybe I'm I


I'm able to do something about it but I just didn't lah ya, there was one point where , uh I'm inside I was going somewhere I don't remember I was inside the bus inside the bus I was on uh it's a double decker bus I was on the second uh second level and I uh I was


we the bus stop at the traffic light then I saw like things uh someone was hit by a van, ya but doesn't it doesn't seem like a big impact but it still I saw someone was hit by a van then he was uh lying right in front of the van so knowing my experience in NS I was a medic in and during my uh national service so


I, uh I was sitting there just looked I looked at the event the incident oh I just saw that person was lying down then I saw like people were rushing to help him but, I'm ya I feel like I felt really bad lah because I didn't do anything I just I could have went down the bus and actually tried to uh help the casualty do something about it knowing I have a bit of


knowledge and experience but I just didn't do it and I just continued listen to my music and just, continue the bus journey lah, ya until right now I still feel bad about it lah and the thing is the incident happen


uh the junction is actually is, nearby my house so I if I walk there I will it will always be in my head lah I will always remember it, (mmhmm)


made me really angry , , uh do you have anything in mind you can say first


not even a single one from you


ya ya, oh that's really bad ah uh actually probably me but uh the same story but it's on the other side [loh] which is the bus incident where someone was hit for you you felt like no one was going to help then ya


no one even tried to help ah


okay positive experience okay, uh describe a moment when things turn out better than expected


so for my moment I think it's during on my workplace ya so cause I work in IT field so we, one uh one of this there was this printer issue so we just keep


for two hours straight we try to troubleshoot it to adjust the alignments and everything uh to when it prints out the scene is working it's photo shop wasn't working so we just keep trying to troubleshoot it and troubleshoot it for like everyone is getting on their nerves already it's not working why is it not working


so uh, the uh when then we decided to call our team lead then it's it's a bit stupid lah but then uh the my our team lead came down then he looked at it


then really just by a few clicks click here click here oh okay it's printing out normally already everything is fine so, all that stress was like actually for nothing you just didn't really know how to go about it then


I mean it's sort of a positive experience I guess ya but to me it's a funny experience lah it's like just a few clicks then everything's okay already ya so what about you Firdaus


uh describe a moment when things turn out better than expected, (mmhmm)


ya ya, ya easier


but they still you expected your A level results to be bad lah but all in all when the results came out it's better than you thought it would be lah


oh that's nice


, oh really show them the face ah oh I got you one


all right all right, biggest blessing in disguise uh ya I would say be my blessing in


disguise where how how would you how would you describe blessings in disguise


oh ya


oh actually I would say my current job because my current job is my first ever full time job so previously I was working as uh grab rider uh you know the freelance grab rider self employed grab rider where you work as you want


be your own boss that's what they say but I decided uh because the COVID hits then I decided to work full time instead so I thought it's like okay lah so I work this job just to earn some money so


right now I'm serving my ninth month ya I've been working nine for nine months here, so I feel like this job really really taught me a lot ya uh, taught me how to be a better person taught me a lot in uh the IT field so a lof of


stuff I learned uh I I learned from them ya so at first I thought it's like , uh okay I go there just to earn money just uh work nine to six then after that go home uh try not to talk to anyone and just work there just for the sake of the money but after the first month of working already seems like


all the people around me ah actually quite nice so I started moulding you know we slowly become become a team then we work together uh any issues that one of our face in uh work related lah so we try to help help each other out then from there I started growing then right now they


my team lead might even consider me to promote me to become an assistant team mate but there's no guarantee lah we will see how it goes in the future but right now I'm, quite comfortable and motivated to go to work lah compared to last time ya what about yours


so it's like tough love is it


like how how did you see it it's like I really couldn't see like people scolding someone actually they are they care for someone but I mean there's a certain to a certain extent of scolding where there's no longer care


so it's like what she absorbed from the environment that's what make her her lah basically so you cannot blame her on how she raise uh you or anyone lah


what I hated as a child but now I love it as adult, , I would say cleaning cleaning the house


uh that that's like something trivial but to me like you know when you were a kid you just like go into the room you change your shirt then put it on you throwing on one side or maybe even scatter it around ya then it's like you don't really have a, uh sense of


cleanliness I guess, uh it's like because you don't feel like the room is yours it's like you can just do it okay lor it's like I just do whatever I want with, this room so I just do here after after I've uh used it I just okay [loh] leave it there or like let's say I'm eating in the room then okay [loh] I just put the trash like one side I don't really clean up but now as an adult


where everytime I come home from work and I see like the room is a bit messy I would actually really clean up the whole room lah but that depends on my mood also lah it's not like everyday I will do that, ya so like when I get uh I get to my room after work then I see like uh there's a lot of laundry okay I will do it straight away ya I will not like wait for a few days


or wait until weekend I start doing it so ya cleanliness right now it's, uh I I like it more compared to when I was younger ya what about you


oh so is it like every morning you will need a cup of coffee to let's say if you are working that day you will need a cup of coffee lah


like a groggy you feel like something's off


this is, (mmhmm), who in my life do I looked up to most I will say my sister ya living in


the household I I think my sister have the highest discipline among all my siblings including me she have the, uh (mmhmm), go getter drive ya it's like she wants it she will work for it and she will discipline herself so


it's like she don't really care for what people say to her so she's like okay this is for me this is for myself she will get discipline she will have the mindset already then okay she will she will just work for it


and when, she always uh, speak out her opinions she doesn't she doesn't really cushion cushion it lah so when she want to say something she would say it straight to your face I even though if you don't like it it's a fact lah ya


then she will I mean she wouldn't just say it to your face she will actually still advice on anything lah but it sticks a little bit lah when she straight it say it straight to your face ya but I admire her for, her confidence lah confidence and her discipline she really works for a lot of stuff so I am trying my best to be like her if possible


ya what about you


principles lah


oh that's nice that's nice, so is is it like really close to you your uncle


oh you guys were lived in the same household is it, oh so basically can consider him like your brother lah


oh that's nice that's nice ya okay uh I think okay can you describe your perfect day


eh it's hard to describe but I try my best


but wouldn't wouldn't that be like tiring you have to move here and there first your family ya


(uh huh), ya I understand oh that's nice that's nice ya, for me my perfect day is to, naturally wake up in the morning without alarm uh without waking up too late you know like when you wake up like in the eight eight in the morning without an alarm so you wake up feeling refreshed


so ya that that's a that's a good sign to a good day so when I wake up just uh clean myself up clean the room, then probably make plans for the day so it's either


going out with my friends or my families ya but uh for really a good day to me actually that I spend the day to myself where I can sit in my room I can, ya it's peace and quiet ya where I can actually make venture and make my


own music you and explore uh on on audio stuff because uh my hobby is music actually ya so I can play around with instruments trying to make a piece you know like a a a a song ya trying my best so if


if it's nice then I'll be proud of it lah actually I uh most of the song I made I will be proud of it even though to some people it might not be really nice but to me it's I really like it ya that will describe my perfect day, yup yup


(uh huh) my songs actually I did share them to a platform called soundcloud but , I don't really promote it so like whoever stumbles upon it then uh there you go lah free songs for you what uh


so far most of my songs are actually all all of my songs are instrumental so there's no vocals yet so actually I'm trying to venture it into making a song with vocals like normal songs you know finding , uh no no not not my voice I'm not capable of singing so I'll try to find someone who can sings ya so


probably uh from then we can uh do a collaboration together then I'll do the music musical production audio production and they will do the singing then from there I will just edit it do some editing do some mixing and then ya can upload it then let let everyone hear it


uh, in my point of view, usually uh, I will put it my money uh inside my insurance


uh, there is a ya there's a certain savings plan, that uh my insurance agent actually, uh brought up to me but I don't really know much about the details but, they say within


ten to fifteen years after accumulation uh, there'll be a certain percentage that comes out of it lah


ya so actually you can withdraw the money or you can let it compound inside, but uh ya, but I'm not really because there are certain considered high risk uh, savings whereby it's an investment also at the same time


so, I'm not sure which one is mine, there's ya there's certain ones that uh, actually let you uh put money inside but you get a small return but it's a guaranteed return, ya ya


okay uh when when when you are talking about uh CPF, uh investments like you you mean you are getting the uh accrued interest, from the yearly, contribution is it


special account okay the the uh the ya special account ya correct


that's that's interesting, so basically, uh ya,


so so basically your investment or accumulation of wealth boils down to housing since you are investing within CPF lah


understand understand, so uh, uh what's your point of view whereby uh, when someone actually invest in only uh, uh considered a certain portfolio meaning


from what I know like people who actually do retire at an early age uh comfortably have uh multiple uh, lines of investment like uh in terms of insurance property, uh, maybe they do a bit of


uh investment in businesses elsewhere so (ppc) when they grow older they get the funds, and they're not not just what because ya you won't know what market like if the , property market falls falls down ya ya so


uh what do you think about that


ya but do you think the CPF interest rates are too low uh like ya


, I mean personally I don't feel comfortable lah, putting in more money into my CPF than I already do from, uh, the regular like from the job that I have so basically the employer contribute and you contribute a certain sum


uh slash savings which is actually not a guaranteed return but uh


the percentage is, it's quite lucrative lah so I it uh so if it, is money that you are willing to lose, uh in in in the long run and, you might either get uh a a bit of a lower sum than you expected or maybe more so I rather go into that


but I I mean uh as I said it's not to just keep it into one portfolio maybe I can invest in uh


different, uh a different kind of uh considered line of investment not just insurance, maybe if there is a business, you like they just open up maybe you can contribute some funds to


to it uh becoming one of the investors I get a certain percentage ya, uh but that's ya but that's also uh considered uh under a high risk high reward


ya, ya <B>, but uh ya talk ya you you you talking about businesses, uh one one of the things that (ppc), uh a lot of people that I know that have the capital that how do you want to accumulate more wealth or uh plan for the uh have


money for their retirement they will usually uh invest in businesses uh for example opening up a seven eleven franchise, uh ya so it's around uh three hundred thousand dollars, and you'll go through some uh certain trainings uh with them for a few months and they will uh help you set up a location and all that so you can hire your own employees


so basically, ya you have your own business after paying three hundred thousand dollars but everything is set up and you have a constant line of uh supplier whereby seven eleven will be sending you the goods


so basically there are uh there would be a guideline to, ya like tell you how to sell at what price itself but, ya


ya for example ya you can see Jurong point I mean it doesn't make sense, what and near the MRT station there's two seven eleven within, uh, uh five uh less than one minute walking distance, but both of them are can still operate


ya I think due to the lack lack of space, uh ya, but they still have the money to pay the rental for two shops so , but, ya to them ya why not


ya but uh, you you need to have make sure that your capital is enough lah, three hundred thousand dollars is not a small sum


actually yes, within uh two to three years I think


uh so basically what me and my girlfriend does is uh like we have a, shared account sort of, so for every dollar I contribute she contributes a dollar, so, ya what we want is to be debt free when we get married so we don't take any loan for renovation or


any miscellaneous uh, things that needs to be done in terms of house or holidays or wedding, ya a dollar for a dollar but uh I mean uh there needs to be a goal lah whereby you set a certain amount


and monthly, you when your salary comes in you set aside that amount first before thinking about spending


okay so uh okay ah on one on one of the points that I see here so what, what's one financial advice that you would give to, to yourself lah five years ago I'm interested to know that


uh so the only advice I would give myself five years ago is


uh suffer now so I can enjoy later, I guess, ya the difference in mindset is whereby I, uh, I mean in the generation we have nowadays is always like that where you where whereby you want uh, uh, you want the reward quick so you'll be you you'll do anything to get the reward like as in


you'll work part time to get a laptop, but the thing is, your money is gone just like that that like there's no accumulation of uh, wealth or whatever it is just, you get the money you spend it you get the money you spend it, ya so ya so suffer in the sense whereby


only spend that uh money you are willing to burn there is excess, ya


ya ya


a credit card okay uh, it depends, because uh, a lot of a lot of people who


have credit cards get into debt, ya because uh, it gives you a false sense of purpose whereby your spending or purchasing power is raised, to a certain extent where, whereby it this this technically it's just a loan


and when people spend beyond their their means, uh the, ya that's why the the debt accumulates and, when you don't pay ah, the money that you actually borrowed, ya you


ya the interest rates will kill you ah in a sense but I mean , uh there are certain times whereby people who do have self control that have a credit card they can utilise the like certain discounts they get or perks of having the credit card


ya because uh like you you get rebates through paying your bills with uh with certain cards or when you , uh spend money outside so (ppc), technically it's uh, whether you are smarter or the banks are smarter because