On stress relief and busy schedule, and miscellaneous thoughts...

I've come to enjoy keeping my journal entries in blogs, mainly for my own reference. It's exactly one month ago, when I was quite stressed out, and I felt sort of overwhelmed of all the tasks. Amazingly, a month has passed, and my class in this semester (of my masters program) is coming to an end, saved the final exam this week.

Reading my journal a month ago, I realize I've accomplished most everything that I needed to do, though there are still things that I need to wrap up. Now, I have another long list of things to do. New class is starting next month. But I feel like I have a recipe on how to deal with the busy schedule and my study. I feel quite good about it.

Perhaps one of the worst things is when we have to wait, and sit on our hands. Right now, a few things have to wait, and have to be done sequentially. (We'll wait for the tax refunds, then refinance, then do some advertising for the business, etc etc.) I don't like waiting. That's probably one of the things I have to learn to do better, namely, to be patient.

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On a different note...

Did I mention that my 401k portfolio that I've been actively managing myself, is now up by close to 9%, year-to-date? I miss a few sucker's rally for the past few weeks, but I don't think they're real.

There's this saying that, we've had our lost decade from 1998-2008 when the markets implode, akin to the Lost Decade in Japan. It certainly feels like it to me, when incidentally, my 401k has lost almost precisely 50% over these past ten years, so that the value over this same period is almost exactly equal to the sum that I have contributed to the 401k (as if there's no growth over these past 10 years), and nothing more.

I wonder how long it'll take me to recoup some of the growth in my 401k.

If we hadn't sold our second condo almost at the top of the property market (in mid 2007) with some 350% profit, we would have worked for almost nothing in the past ten years, which would have been very sad. I'm still marvel by the timing of that transaction, which was kind of forced on us (since I had not wanted to sell that lovely condo). In hindsight, it's Providence that it should happen that way, at that period of time. I almost feel bad for that family who forced our hand to sell to them, and now they're saddled with multiple mortgages (five, I think), including their vacation homes. I guess God works in His mysterious way.