Best Wishes, R.

Hello! I'm R. I'm a nobody, but I can be your friend. I write things about my life here.

[letters-from-r]

Opening doors and widening my horizons

The past year and a half has been the most out of my comfort zone I've been in since I left my hometown for college. It's an eye-opener, and this is a reflection on what has happened with me since I last posted.

Top surgery remains to be my best decision yet, and the best purchase I've ever made (also the most expensive purchase I've ever made). Since getting top surgery I have learned that:

1. I actually do like to travel

2. I care about fashion more than I originally thought

3. I'm not as masculine as I thought I originally was

4. I like to go out of the house more often

Top surgery genuinely gave me a second chance at life. Three years ago I could not imagine being in this position—being this happy with who I am, being this comfortable with who I am—as I am now. I thought I would have to be unhappy for the rest of my life; move through the world hiding myself from everybody and everything.

But in the past year and a half, I was able to move out of my parents' house and have a two-bedroom apartment to myself (I'm renting, not owned). I traveled to two countries (my first time ever traveling outside the country). I was able to reconnect with my friends in a much more meaningful way than before. I was able to reconnect with my femininity and continue exploring my gender expression. I was confident enough to put myself out there and go on a date (they ended up ghosting me, which hurt but it was still an experience). I took swimming classes (I've never taken classes outside of the typical school setting before).

For the first time in my life I am actually living life the way I've always wanted to live it. I may have missed out on a lot of experiences in my teenage years that I could never get back, but I feel very lucky to be here today experiencing new things for the first time.

I honestly think I will never stop attributing all the good things I have and will have in my life to one single event—top surgery—at least in some capacity. Gender-affirming surgery is life-saving surgery.

[letters-from-r]

And then there was hope

Hey... It's been a while.

Things have changed, a lot.

I have joy. I feel happy. I am happy.

Three months ago, I was able to get life-saving gender affirming surgery (which I have talked about a lot in the past, I think). It is the best thing I've spent my money on ever since I started earning my own money.

For the first time in forever, things don't look so glum.

I want to start living for myself now.

There are still a lot of things that I have to work on, stuff that needs improvement, issues that need to be addressed, but now I am more willing to work through them. I want to live the life that I want now.

If anybody out there is reading this, don't lose hope.

I never thought I would ever be in this position. I genuinely thought I wouldn't be able to push through that struggle, and that I would have to live the rest of my life unhappy. But here I am.

Don't lose hope.

[letters-from-r]

Losing motivation

I've been so unmotivated to work lately--not that I love work, just that I don't usually hate it as much as I do in the past month or so.

And I think I kind of know now why I feel so... bleh.

I love to work when I know what I'm doing, when doing tasks are as easy as reading what needs to be done and then actually doing it. But recent development at work has put me in a situation where I have to work extra hard just to understand what is even happening. It's weird to not know the context of what I'm working on. It feels like I'm chasing and chasing but they just keep running and running and I can't catch up, you know what I mean?

Add to that the fact that I've been so distracted lately, and I sort of don't want to be un-distracted from this thing that is keeping me distracted. I don't know how to explain it. This thing is something that doesn't help me in any way whatsoever, but I am spending time and effort (and money) on it because I just want to and it makes me happy. At this point, the only thing keeping me from quitting work is money, I need it to finance this thing that is keeping me distracted.

I don't know, things are messy. I wish things weren't so difficult all the time. I wish I didn't have to work so hard to receive so little money that there's nothing left over once the next paycheck comes. I hate how things work in this world.

R.

[letters-from-r]

I don't feel okay

Hello.

I'm back again because I need to get something off my chest.

Hah. Get something off my chest. No pun intended but also I do want to get that off my chest actually.

Anyway, I've been thinking about my non-existent love life lately. A few years ago I started genuinely working on myself so that I can be something I love---so that I can look in the mirror and see somebody worth loving.

Well, when the pandemic hit all my progress went down the drain, and I haven't been able to pick myself up ever since. I kind of convinced myself that I don't care about any of it anymore, that somebody would love me for who I am eventually---which is not impossible, I know---but I know for a fact that that somebody would never be me. I would never love me for who I am right now, even if there's someone out there who will.

And that's kind of the problem. I don't want to get into a relationship when I know I don't love myself enough to love somebody else. Which is why I refuse to meet new people, I refuse to dress up nice, I refuse to socialize, I refuse everything that would lead me to meet people I could potentially like. Because then if I did like them, I would want to be with them, and then I would push them away instead of let them in because I don't want them to see what I see in myself.

So that. I don't know, I can't explain it properly. But that's the idea.

Right now, I do want to start working on myself again. If I have the energy for it. I honestly don't know where to start. Everything is messed up right now. My body clock is messed up, I haven't been sleeping well, I've been eating too much, I've been too addicted to social media, I haven't been focusing on work. Everything feels wrong. I'm starting to hate work again, even though the people I work with are all really nice. I don't think I'm getting compensated enough, even though I'm getting paid much higher than majority of people my age. There are so many things I am mad/disappointed/frustrated about.

But I'll work through them. I can't live like this forever. I'm still determined to chase my happiness, however simple or complicated that may look like.

Give me strength.

[letters-from-r]

How things are going

It's been half a year since I last wrote.

I don't care much about money anymore--at least not as much as I used to. Earlier this year I read a book called Die With Zero which justifies why we should try to spend most of the money we have while we still have the time, energy, and health to do so. I agree with most of the ideas in the book, even though I'm hardly the type of person to have excess money anyway. (The book was catered more towards people who have more money than they know what to do with.)

Anyway, it doesn't mean I'm no longer saving up for stuff. In fact, I've saved up quite an amount to serve as emergency fund and I might be at that point where I should stop setting aside money monthly for my emergency fund. I've also saved up some amount for something I've been wanting to buy since last year. I might buy myself something nice this year for my birthday.

---

Aside from all of that, the real reason why I'm writing today is because I did a thing. A thing I've done a thousand times but I still haven't learned my lesson. I obsessed over something that I knew would break my heart, and then it did. So now I'm here looking for something that could distract me harder than the previous one did.

I know I'll eventually forget about it, but it just sucks that things don't go the way I want them to. It sounds selfish, I know haha.

Anyway, that's really it. There's not a lot going on in my life lately because I've been deliberately disconnecting myself from people and things and experiences even though I know I'll eventually regret those decisions. I have not exerted any effort at all into looking for a partner, or even new friends. I'm slightly convinced I'm destined to die alone.

[letters-from-r]

Thinking about money again

Sigh... Yes, I'm thinking about money again.

In the weeks following my last blog post, I started looking into personal finance. I was looking for a way to not feel like I'm not doing enough to earn money or that I'm not managing my money well (spoiler alert: I wasn't managing my money well, but I probably already knew that deep down).

Here's what I found: I need to build up my emergency fund before doing anything else.

So that's currently where I'm at right now. I did have some savings earlier this year, but I spent them on two major purchases: (1) a new phone to replace an older, lower range phone and (2) a new laptop to replace a 6-year old laptop I've had since I was a freshman in college. I still think they were pretty sensible purchases, and I don't regret them.

But now that I know better, I also know I should plan ahead for this kind of stuff. It's relatively easy to know whether I'll need a new phone or laptop or gadget in the next 3-5 months, so it's easy to intentionally save up for them instead of using up my emergency fund.

As for the emergency fund itself, based on my research the base savings should be about 3-6 months worth of monthly living expenses. In my case, I still live with my parents so my living expenses aren't really representative of what a living expense is supposed to look like: rent, bills, food, groceries, health & hygiene, etc. Right now I'm only paying for a portion of the bills and occasionally food and groceries.

So what I've decided to do is to just peg my base emergency fund at 3 months worth of my monthly salary. Right now I'm 8% into that amount. Based on my savings rate, I should be able to complete my base EF in a year. But in reality I may be able to complete that in less time, since I do have money left over after setting aside savings and fixed expenses.

---

After having done all the research, I feel a little better about money. I have a long way to go to achieve most of the goals I've set for myself but with careful planning and budgeting I'll get there.

Cheers, R.

[letters-from-r]

Getting older

It was my birthday last Friday.

It was alright, not that eventful. I just ordered takeout for the family and then we ate lunch together at home. Some of my high school friends greeted me on my birthday. My closest friends forgot about it I think. They greeted a day late when Facebook reminded them about their past posts.

Hmm, I guess that's the downside of being the person in the group who remembers everybody's birthdays. I remember the birthdays of people I haven't talked to for a decade, people I was friends with in elementary. But I can't always expect people to remember mine.

Anyway, the company gave me a gift. It's an essential oil diffuser and a small vial of lavender essential oil. I didn't really care about essential oils prior to this, but I guess I could use the diffuser from time to time. I've got to admit though, I dislike the smell of the lavender oil. I do want to try orange or lemon, I think I'll like those better.

---

My attention span has been shit lately. I can't keep my brain engaged or my eyes awake for longer than 10 minutes. When I watch YouTube videos I always pick something that's short or something that I know will be entertaining (lately it's been TommyInnit videos).

This doesn't happen when I'm working though, which is really weird. Maybe I just don't have anything I'm super interested in right now, that's why I can't focus on anything other than work which demands focus.

Anyway, I think exercising might solve this problem, but the gym that I go to is still not allowed to operate. And I for some reason just can't force myself to exercise at home. Hope the gym gets sorted out soon, or I might just have to find another gym.

R.

[letters-from-r]

Small wins

Something nice happened this week. I sort of got a raise. It's not much, and it's only sort of a raise because it didn't come from a performance evaluation but from the sole reason that we had to re-sign some contracts and the director was satisfied with my efforts the past couple months.

So, some days it isn't that bad, I gotta admit. I'm still aiming to get an even higher pay within the next year, but I'm also looking forward to working on other projects and becoming an actual employee and receiving benefits that I never had before from my previous contractual job. Pretty neat.

(At the end of the day, I still do hate working 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but I realize there's really no point being so negative about it.)

---

Anyway, the dual monitor mount that I ordered came in yesterday. So now I have a whole new setup that I'm actually satisfied with (as long as we don't talk about the cable management). It feels much nicer now. I know it probably won't affect my productivity in any way whatsoever, but it feels nice when my workspace is clean and all the clutter is gone. It's like I'm de-cluttering my mind as well.

Hmm, what else? I've been investing some of my money into cryptocurrency lately. Even though there's a lot of hate surrounding blockchain and cryptocurrencies and NFTs because of how badly they affect the environment, I still have to admit it is one of the easiest ways to just earn money passively. It's not an excuse nor a justification, but I guess this is something not a lot of people will understand. It's hard to earn money. It's especially hard when there's a whole system fighting against you and doing its best to keep you from moving up the ladder.

I would gladly welcome any alternative, but right now the crypto space remains to be the most profitable market you can invest your money into and earn passively.

[letters-from-r]

Hints of discord

Hey, the past week was pretty rough.

I think I got too comfortable too quickly, I thought I knew for sure that the people I work with are different from the people I hear about on social media. But it turns out, they're all quite the same. I mean, I don't blame them. Work is hard. Work makes people angry and mad and frustrated. Work makes people act passive aggressive even when they don't have to.

It wasn't that bad, actually. I think I asked a few questions too many and basically the answer I got was that don't ask stupid questions. So for the rest of the week I didn't.

I realize that when people say they want to help you grow and improve, what they really mean is that they want you to want to work with them so that the project can be finished and the money can be had. At the end of the day the only person who really cares about your growth and your improvement is yourself.

I'm just glad I learned that early.

---

Anyway, I've been making content lately. Not written content, but still content. I've been streaming games on Twitch (nobody watches them, but I still stream anyway) and then I download my streams and upload them to YouTube.

I don't really expect any sort of big thing to come out of this. I think I just want to be able to look back at these streams and see how far I've come in the games that I play, you know what I mean? Like a documentation of some sort. I've got a couple games in mind where I would wanna see my progression in its entirety.

The only reason why I decide to put them on the internet instead of keep them to myself is that maybe some other people might find it interesting too or something. But I don't mind if nobody will ever watch them.

---

That's all that I have really. I rarely go out anymore, since the situation here is still bad (maybe even worse, just that less people are panicking) and I don't really have a reason to go out except when my friends invite me to hang out (which is rare, because we talk all the time via The Internet™ anyway).

I do need to go back to working out at the gym and re-establish a routine though, but I can't do so because the gym I work out at is still unavailable for public use. Sad.

R.

[letters-from-r]

Waxing and waning

I'm writing this in the middle of work hours.

It's been slow the past few days. We're on a state of calm, and I assume it's because the storm is pretty much about to come. (Or maybe not, I hope not.)

I've been having too much time to obsess over video games, and now that I have a laptop that can bear the load of video games I'm actually starting to get back into gaming. The only games I've ever played when I was younger were The Sims, GTA San Andreas, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Starcraft: Brood War as far as I can remember. I missed playing a lot of them. I'm glad I can play again.

Anyway, the downside of it all is that maybe I'm getting a bit distracted. It's not bad, I don't care about work that much, but I just feel guilty for not improving like I said I would. I don't know, maybe I'm just taking things too seriously and I need to relax.

I think as long as I can deliver I'd be fine. In this industry it's especially hard to replace employees, so I plan to exploit that fact just a tiny bit.

R.

[letters-from-r]

Retail and other forms of therapy

It really is a thing, huh?

The past few weeks I've been purchasing things I don't really need, just nice to haves and stuff that fuels my hobbies. I think it might have something to do with the fact that the only things I've been spending my money on lately are food, bills, and K-pop. All the rest I lend to my relatives (which my parents don't think is a good thing to do, and to some degree I agree).

But anyway, I've been trying to expand my financial portfolio recently, looking for places I could invest my money in. I'm not good at investing, and it's not like I have a lot to invest, so I don't like to take big risks. Right now I have it in four main places, three of which are savings accounts. For now I think that's enough.

---

In other news, I'm very stressed with work right now. Things are... a bit rocky. It's very hard to develop a product when the tools are hard to work with, it's almost like the tools are working against us instead of working for us.

I've been trying my best to learn everything I could possibly learn to make things easier for myself and for the team but sometimes I just want to sit back and let someone else do it, you know? But because I'm an overachiever of course that's not what happened.

Anyway, I hope we could sort this out soon.

---

I streamed today. It was nice. I had no viewers but it was still nice. I also didn't talk, mainly because I had no one to talk to but also I'm just not used to talking to an audience. I can work on that though.

R.

[letters-from-r]

Thinking about money (again)

Yesterday I spent most of the day thinking about money. Which isn't really that surprising because I've been thinking about money ever since I got my first job 2 years ago. But... It's still the same old thing. Thinking about how to get so much money that I never have to worry about it ever again.

The reason why this came up again is because lately my relatives have been asking to borrow money from me, and while I can lend them some money I still do have to decline some of these asks because I simply do not have enough money to give. I don't know why I feel like I have to lend them money; I understand completely that that's not an obligation that I have to fulfill. But it's something that I've always wanted to do, ever since I realized how anti-poor the world really is. Giving or lending money to people that need it has always been one of my lesser goals. The only reason it's a lesser goal and not a major one is because I understand it's a gargantuan task that I probably will never achieve in my lifetime unless I happen to win the lottery or something similar.

Thinking about money always makes me tired. It exhausts me even more to go to work and get paid money that's always not quite enough. This second job pays a bit more than my previous one but it's still not enough. Which got me thinking... At which point can I finally say it's enough? How much do I need to earn to finally be able to say, 'Hey, this is kind of worth it.'?

I don't know. I'm not saying I'm not getting paid enough, but I actually am sort of saying that. And I also know I'm only saying that because I'm trying to support more than just myself. Maybe if I just cared about myself and nobody else I'd actually be happy. But I don't want to do that.

Anyway, whatever. I want to stop thinking about money but I can't.

[letters-from-r]

Pressure and responsibility

Hey.

The past week has been very busy in terms of work. Honestly I couldn't tell you whether I'm doing good or not... I sorta kinda don't know what the hell I'm doing. My mentor (well, the only mentor in the whole company as of the moment) says the team did well this week but I think he was being kind.

This coming week will bring in more pressure and more responsibilities to take and I don't know whether I'm ready for that but at least I've got other people to lean on or bounce ideas off of in case I get stuck. I don't know. I have to see how this week goes since it's the official start of the project.

I'm getting that feeling again where I kind of want to quit, but I only ever get this feeling when I really, really, really want something but don't want to fuck it up, so I'm taking that as a sign that I really shouldn't quit. It'll be a mess if I did, since I have to turn in my 4-week notice anyway. And also at this point in my life I really should know that failing is just part of the journey.

Anyway, cheers. Will update when exciting things happen. I still miss (G)I-DLE.

R.

[letters-from-r]

Thoughts about fate and destiny

Okay, so I'm feeling a little better. Not by much, but better than the past week anyway.

I've been thinking about (G)I-DLE's journey as a whole. There's this thing that happens in K-pop where groups (usually girl groups) that aren't from the "Big 3" companies (YG, SM, and JYP) are usually snubbed or forgotten about shortly after debut. I've seen it happen. K-pop twt is kind enough to give these new gen girls a chance by tweeting about them during their debut era, and luckily they pick up new fans, but then shortly after that they're forgotten or never talked about again.

This wasn't the case with (G)I-DLE. They came from a non-big 3 company, and their senior girl group CLC wasn't really out there as a group. CLC were, for the most part, snubbed or forgotten. So when (G)I-DLE debuted there wasn't much of an expectation, especially from the company itself, Cube Entertainment. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if you told me Cube was planning to hold their debut back a little more, if not for the fact that Soyeon stepped up to the plate and composed their debut song herself.

With all the odds stacked up against them, (G)I-DLE still surprisingly did well. Got their first music show win 20 days after debut, which is a feat in and of itself as a rookie girl group from an average company. They won more shows after that and performed their hearts out in each stage they were put in. Later that year they were given the title "Monster Rookies" which is a title not usually given to non-big 3 groups solely because their fanbases tend to be smaller in comparison to groups from YG, SM, or JYP.

It almost seemed like it was fate. (G)I-DLE was fated to win, they're destined to be on stage. And this alone gives me hope that whatever this is they're going through, all these bad things happening to them, it'll all pass. It'll pass, and they will triumph. Besides, they've been strong their whole life. They kinda had to. I know they're gonna get through this.

I have a feeling Soojin will come back.

R.

[letters-from-r]

Extra extra sad

Yes, I'm still sad about the Soojin situation.

I honestly have been avoiding logging in to my Twitter account because I know there's nothing good for me there. The whole fandom is in shambles. I hate it here.

The fandom has created a petition that garnered almost 200k signs. We've been trending hashtags like crazy for the past week and bombarding Cube with emails for the past couple days. None of us know whether any of this will help, but we still do it to show we're still here and we're still waiting for Soojin.

We haven't heard much from the members aside from scheduled throwback posts from Universe and a few Instagram post here and there. It's Soyeon's birthday soon, Minnie and Yuqi are yet to go back to Korea. At this point I think this is going to be a full on group hiatus. Miyeon has a few semi-permanent schedules every week but I don't think they wanna face Neverland as 5.

Sad times.

[letters-from-r]

Good things and bad things

Work

So, I finally started at my new job last August 9. It was surprisingly nerve-wracking. I definitely feel the imposter syndrome now more than ever before, and it was already bad before.

We're still on the bootcamp process, so everything's pretty chill I guess. But I feel like I should be doing more, or I should be performing better than I currently am. I know I don't have to show off, but personally I'm just not satisfied with my performance for this first week. I'm definitely going to do better this week. I just have to be careful not to burn myself out.

Personal

I recently made a purchase that I have definitely been pushing off for a while now. I've bought myself a new laptop. It's a mid-range laptop that's decent for gaming, but I rarely play games anyway so its only job is really to allow me to do at least these 4 things at once:

(1) play music via Spotify, (2) code via Visual Studio Code, (3) chat via Slack, and (4) browse the internet

Not a terribly demanding task, right? So far I think it's doing pretty decent. I've tried playing a game on it and it's not doing so bad.

Don't get me wrong, my previous laptop wasn't as bad as I'm making it out to be. It could do all those 4 things pretty decently, except that sometimes it gets really slow.

Other Stuff

So... just last night the whole Neverland fandom just received some devastating news. Cube Entertainment has decided to remove Soojin from (G)I-DLE. From what I know currently, it was a decision made by all parties but mostly it was what Soojin wanted, because she was feeling bad that she's affecting the group's reputation negatively.

I think the whole group and even the agency wanted to wait a bit longer, but... I don't know. Non-issues turn into big issues in South Korea. (G)I-DLE was actually still doing pretty well despite the state of things. This was just a bad business decision overall.

Right now I'm very disappointed and also heartbroken. (G)I-DLE is really never going to be the same again without Soojin. I still have a very small sliver of hope in my heart that everything will be okay again in the future, just maybe not right now.

Maybe I'll talk more about this soon. I just don't know what to say or do right now. The whole fandom is heartbroken.

[letters-from-r]

Hyperfixation?

I've been feeling a bit meh for a while now.

At first I thought it was because I've forgotten how to love the things I used to love doing, like reading books and comics or watching movies. But what's actually happening is that I'm really, really, really fixated on (G)I-DLE that I really don't want to do anything else. I know hyperfixation is a common theme among people with ADHD, and as far as I know I don't have ADHD, so I won't claim that I am 100% hyperfixated on (G)I-DLE but it certainly feels that way sometimes.

(G)I-DLE is still on hiatus, and as much as I love seeing the members have their own solo schedules, I really do miss seeing them all together. I miss watching them on Vlive or on TV shows and I miss hearing them sing as a group.

I can definitely just look for other things to focus on, and I've tried, but nothing's quite the same.

I've been watching a lot of crime documentaries lately, and Minecraft videos on YouTube, but they're always just stuff that will help me take my mind off of things. I'm not as invested in them as I am with (G)I-DLE.

Maybe I should try watching a new series.

I've been feeling quite lonely too. I haven't gone out with friends in what feels like forever.