Slow Living

Sep 22, 2025

Slowly weaning off my compulsive habit of constantly checking my investment portfolio throughout the day. After about 1.5 months of playing in the stock market sandbox, I think I have more or less seeded all the investment fund into about 10 dividend-paying stocks (mostly ETFs). Ongoing work should just be leaving the stocks to grow at its on pace and occasionally cultivating them by harvesting (sell with gain) the ones that grew and bare fruits and fertilizing (buy) or even pruning (sell at a loss) those that are not growing healthily.

I came up with the investment metaphor while I was adding a little garden on the kitchen countertop. My friend bought me a thoughtful gift of a mint planting kit, I planted the sesame-sized mint seeds and finally installed a LED grow lamp with a timer that I bought months ago. Now I eagerly awaits for it to spout. While designing the little kitchen garden, I prepared a few extra plant pots to grow more edible herbs in the future.

Besides investment, I did manage to find time to work on more ideas for my sustainable design studio. I continued the experimentation with paper making and successfully recycled some of the juice cartons I had saved up into handmade paper. I also kept up with my running practices of 2-3 times a week and about one hour each time.

My current pace of life in Canada is much slower compared to when I was in HK. It’s not easy to slow down. Often times the fear of time being wasted comes to haunt me. But slowly I’m coming to realize that it’s ok to rest and just let time pass and the world runs its course. It’s like planting a seed, you can’t rush its growth by over fertilizing and watering. With the right conditions the plant will eventually grow at its own comfortable pace.

A protest by Palestinians against the Israel invasion was happening in my neighborhood earlier today. Brought back memories of the many protests that happened all over HK back in 2019. It also reminded me of the reasons I decided to return to Canada. Diversity, peace, and freedom (despite the slow pace) are the essential nutrients that kept our country strong, and I can only pray that it will forever stay this way. Amen.

Paper Making (cont’ d)

Sep 8, 2025

Continued with my paper recycling project this past week. Successfully recycled the many paper coffee cups I had saved up into beautiful handcrafted pink and white paper! I find much satisfaction in transforming waste into beautiful and useful things. Would be nice if I could make some decent income via such joyful endeavors.

I’m still trying to wean off my addiction on compulsively logging into my investment account and checking my portfolio value throughout the day. Sometimes I would sit in front of the computer reading up stocks for hours without noticing the passing of time. This past week I started selling off some of the ETF shares I bought and made some decent profit. It felt surreal to see the price rise so quickly in such a short time despite constantly hearing about bad economic news like tariffs, job losses, high unemployment rate, war, etc.

I really need to get more serious in my plan to setup a sustainable design studio here in coming weeks! 💪🏻

Paper Making

Aug 25, 2025

Since making my first ever self-conducted investment a few weeks ago, it has become a bit of an addiction to check up my investment accounts compulsively throughout the day during market hours to see how the value of my portfolio fluctuates. Didn’t make a lot of buying or selling, but I’m quite fascinated to see the numbers going up and down and couldn’t stop wondering about how they reflect the inner workings of businesses and the economy in general.

Slowly I’m trying to wean off the addiction so that I can shift the focus to my more important goal of setting up a sustainable design studio here in TO. Reached a big milestone this past week. I had finally made recycled paper for the first time using the many coffee cup sleeves I had saved up since moving back to Canada. This was something that had been sitting on the back of my head for a long time but I just never got around to actually doing it. My thought is that if I can prove that I can make a profit in recycling paper, albeit very tiny profit, I can make it a proof-of-concept business case for scaling up a sustainable business by recycling other materials and with higher volumes.

I can be a bit of an idealist sometimes. I still think it’s possible to set up a profiting business without harming the environment, or better yet, a business that can make a profit by healing the environment from all the damages we collectively as humans have inflicted on earth. Making recycled paper this past week was a tiny step in the right direction for this grandiose dream of mine. May God continue to bless my endeavors ahead. 🙏🏻

Personal Finance

Aug 20, 2025

Made a major accomplishment a couple of weeks ago. I finally made my first ever financial investment after a long studying period (2-3 weeks) and after some self-conducted research (another week) and after overcoming some minor technical difficulties in setting up the investment account! What did I buy for my inaugural self-directed investment? Just some shares of an ETF that included all the major Canadian banks. I figured that it’s an improvement from investing in GICs because it offers higher interests (dividends to be exact and that is better in terms of tax) and better liquidity without needing to be locked in for long periods of time. The risk should be relatively low I think, what are the odds of all the major banks collapsing?!

After making my first ever investment, I continued to log on my brokerage account daily to make additional investments and check on their performances. After less than two weeks of a few hours a day, I’ve finally used up about 70% of the funds given by my parents to buy roughly 8 stocks, mostly bonds and ETFs that are relatively low risk and pay decent dividends.

Having my personal finances settled was a big relief. The fear I always had was being the servant in the Bible parable who dug a hole in the ground and buried all his master’s money. He was seriously scolded by Jesus for being an unfaithful servant. Having made the investments gave me the peace of mind that I wasn’t wasting away the money that was entrusted to me.

With my personal finances more or less sorted out, I can now finally shift gear to set up my sustainable design studio here in TO. Hope that I can be a faithful steward of God’s gracious gifts to do good works. May God bless my upcoming endeavors. 🙏🏻

Horticulture

Aug 11, 2025

My friend leaving me many plants to take care of while he’s on vacation had triggered my passion for indoor gardening once again. In addition to my friend’s many plants, I bought many more of my own. My northeast facing window sill was perfect in recreating the Garden of Eden planting system I designed (and still testing and improving) from my HK studio.

Besides my favorite succulents, which are hardy and requiring minimal maintenance, I was also given the opportunity to care for a few orchids. Read up on it from Wikipedia before attempting to repot them. Also scaled up my planter system by using buba straws to incorporate the bigger houseplants. The planter system was installed at a small corner of my kitchen counter because orchids don’t need much direct sunlight.

This home gardening project had brought me much delight, the new home now feels more complete with the added greenery. It had also got me fancy the idea of opening a small flower shop cafe once again. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little shop where plant and coffee lovers can meet and shop for a pretty plant to bring home, not just to beautify but also to suck up the carbon dioxide and oxygenate their interior space? Wouldn’t the world be a better place with more plants?

Mr. Procrastination

Jul 28, 2025

After my childhood friend gave me his old (2007 model) car back in January, I was given the full responsibility of maintaining a second hand car for the first time. Though I have been worrying and praying for safety every time before I drive the car, my friend Mr. Procrastination had been dragging me from getting the car checked and undergo maintenance… until last week. My newly met mechanic friend from church helped me change the fluids and replaced a head lamp, but the winter tires still couldn’t be replaced yet because the wheel lock and rims were still with my friend. Picked that up at my friend’s mom’s place on Friday and treated their family for dinner afterwards.

Some of my good friends seem to know Mr. Procrastination pretty well too. When I had lunch with a couple of high school friends a couple of weeks ago, they told me that they still hadn’t ask for permission from work to take a few weeks off for their family vacation that’s happening this week, and they had bought the tickets way back in January!

Besides car maintenance, I managed to tackle a few other tasks that had been burdening me for a long time. With much patience, I managed to (partially) unlock my CRA account after waiting more than half an hour on the phone and finally found out that I didn’t have any TFSA room for investment because I was a non-resident. Also managed to contact the bank of my business account and asked about the credit card application. After many minutes of investigation while I waited on the phone, the staff told me that there was “an error” on the credit card application last month and they had now reactivated the application and will expedite the process. Fortunately, or it may be God’s timing, the month long wait for the business credit card had turned into a self enhancement opportunity to learn about economics and investments, a topic I had been procrastinating to learn all my life.

While on a roll winning over Mr. Procrastination this past week, I finally started doing some gardening at home once again. And one of the good friends who will be off for family vacation for a few weeks just brought me the many plants from his place to look after. Seemed like he had undergone some serious procrastination to have that task completed!

Oh Mr. Procrastination, what will I do without you?!

Summer Vacation

Jul 24, 2025

Finished reading the last of the investment books I had borrowed from the library. Met up with my childhood friend’s dad for the third and final time before he returned to HK. And on Sunday after returning from church and lunch, I decided to open the expensive LEGO set I bought myself for birthday last month. Assembling the set of my favorite artwork of my favorite artist of all time brought tremendous joy!

Reading books, meeting friends, and playing with LEGOs, the last couple of weeks felt like a summer vacation I haven’t had for a long long time! I’m grateful for everything.

Summer Meetups

Jul 13, 2025

This past week had been considerably productive. I kept myself busy reading and learning about investing, it’s a topic I’ve been reluctant to touch until I realized it’s something unavoidable. Will give myself one more week to learn before getting my hands wet on making my first self-conducted investment. Besides reading, I managed to discipline myself to hit the treadmill three times this week for my marathon training.

I would probably stayed home entirely to study if not for some meetups with old friends. My childhood friend’s dad was visiting from HK, and I met up with him a couple of times. And then a couple of my old UW classmates were visiting town from HK and US and we had two separate meetups during the weekend. It’s always nice to meet and catch up with old friends.

I had been a bit too focused on learning about investing, so much so that I didn’t drive my car the entire week except for the meetups on weekends. I also forgot about asking a friend to see if he needed pick up from airport on his return trip from HK, he had to call pickup service. I also couldn’t make it to see an artist friend visiting from HK because she had been staying with her family outside of the city and I was a bit reluctant to drive long distances with my old car that has yet to be fixed up. I try my best to meet and catch up with friends whenever the opportunity arises, but sometimes I’m just too lazy to take the initiative to reach out to them. My bad.

All in all, I’m grateful for the many good dependable friends in life even though I had not always been the best of friends.

Canada Day Week

Jul 7, 2025

Finally completed the “bunk bed” and put in the finishing touches to conclude the den renovation project. That was my major accomplishment during this past memorable Canada Day week.

The week was made memorable without needing to leave the comfort of my own home. First came a full rainbow after some light rain the day before Canada Day. Then on the night of Canada Day, the same balcony view was transformed into a hodgepodge of small scale fireworks show from different corners of the city. And as though that wasn’t memorable enough, my condo building together with a few other buildings in the neighborhood was blacked out completely for a few hours after a crazy flash thunderstorm the next evening!

Even though this was the first black out I experienced since moving into this condo about half a year ago, I wasn’t scared at all. As a matter of fact, I feel at peace and happier in general since moving back to Canada. This is a good sign that my decision to move back was correct. I’m grateful.

June

Jun 30, 2025

Have been continuously working on renovating the small den at home. The DIY “bunk bed” I imagined had a little stability issue and I had to design some new custom 3D-printed components to strengthen a small cantilevered cavity. The issue had now been successfully overcome and I should be able to put in the finishing touches of the den renovation project this week.

Also managed to register for a company on my birthday and had a business bank account set up. Setting up a sustainable design studio here in Canada will be one of my main focus now that I’m more or less settled here.

I had been spending a lot more time by myself at home nowadays. It’s an unfamiliar feeling that I’m still trying to get used to. But I think the increased quiet time is a positive thing as it had led me to pick up reading and learning again. Also, I now cherished more the relatively fewer social meetups such as welcoming a childhood friend back to the city and occasionally joining my friends for pickup bball games on Sat mornings.

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