Gold glory

I bought my first gold in 2012 but it was only paper gold via Maybank GSA. Managed to collect 3g and that much still sits in my account (on paper).

Last year I opened up Bursa BGD account and so far managed to collect 6.25g. This is also on paper.

Recent gold price rise has sent me on a fact-finding mission on gold. What I discovered is that there is a massive movement of physical gold occurring after Trump's inauguration. Big big tons of physical gold are being delivered to USA.

It triggered me to seriously study gold again but this time not just an instrument of investment, but as a currency. What if Trump really does the audit on Fort Knox and afterwards attempts to reinstate the gold standard?

Many rumours are going around but the more trusted sources are pointing towards one conclusion: we are at the cusp of a massive gold bull run. It will be outperforming the indices at a parabolic scale, so they say.

Whatever happens, I truly believe gold will indeed rise like crazy. In that realisation, I've started converting some of my assets to physical gold. Not much, but still I need to start somewhere.

03 March 2025

XAUUSD = 2858.140

Zakat FY2024

I paid all my zakat to my home state Terengganu this year. Scholars say I shouldn't because I should pay zakat where I earn my income.

However scholars also say some circumstances warrant paying zakat elsewhere e.g to places that have been struck by disasters.

Terengganu has been struck with the calamity that is the federal government. Abject denial of our rights by the Putrajaya has crippled the state's finances and threatens the well-being of the people. At the same time, they are trying to fool us by saying it's our fault in the first place. The only fault I could imagine is because we decided in that we would reject an immoral false leader who habitually lies.

This kind of oppression warrants my action.

I pray Allah swt shall make those who are complicit accountable and pay very dearly for their corruptions.

Happy New Year MMXXV

Left 2024 with a good feeling. Entered 2025 initially with optimism. But a week in, it's worn off. My attempt at strict discipline is a hit and miss so far. I need to learn to deal with variables and not be confused by them so much that they affect my clarity of thought.

At this point, I am struggling with a mountainload of tasks. Between the ELP presentation, general work stuff, and final weeks of classes with multiple overdue assignments, I'm not sure I can survive the avalanche of workloads coming my way. I wish I had a Quit button ready where I can push it and all my troubles will go away, even if that means all my progress so far goes too. If it did exist, I might have pushed that button a long time ago.

The only place I wanna be right now is at UKM and doing my studies. It is true what they say. Students wish that they could finish school so that they could start working and earning money and therefore living their lives, but workers wish they could go back to school and live the carefree life as a student again. I have the privilege of being a student and a worker at the same time. I can attest that the urge to leave work is still the same if not stronger. I wish I could be a student way more than a worker. If not for the YT loan, I would have probably quit it all a long time ago and gone back to school full-time. There's no shame in starting over for me anyway.

Maybe I should ramp up efforts to seek a job overseas that can pay me high wages. Maybe where I can work for 2 years and have enough in savings to settle all my loans and still have a big chunk left that I could put in EPF or any safe investment instruments paying a 5% p.a. I ballparked the figure at RM1.5million so that's like RM63k/mo which is rather impossible to earn at my level and in my role.

Nevertheless, it is a new year and it's customary to be optimistic, at least even remotely. It is a time to be looking forward to something. So here's what I look forward to this year - I want to Quit and live a solitary life. However long and hard it may take.

My biggest war 2025

Despite all the good habits that I've cultivated over the past year, I still couldn't develop a habit to effectively beat proscratination. The severe lack of discipline and motivation is not something I take lightly. But despite my awareness of the issue and the desire to get rid of this terrible habit, I still can't figure out the way to resolve it. No matter how big or urgent the task at hand, I'm still terribble at planning for it, even worse when it comes to execution. I found several heuristical ways to deal with it. One is to "Deny yourself the pleasure" which I actually picked up from a rightwing Christian twitter page. The whole quote is about something to do with working hard to glorify God and deny any personal pleasures that would derail the invidual from the said task. The second is "Frontload everything" which I came up with on my own. The idea is to do a task the at once it is received. I kinda had the flow going for a while using the above "mantras" but now I'm back to my old self. I am terribly ashamed of myself.

Unfortunately I increasingly feel that the most effective driving force for me is suffering. If there's somebody who would yell at me or humiliate me or threaten my life or livelihood if I don't do something, then might finally have the willpower to do it. I swear that this is a disastrous behaviour that could ultimately lead to my destruction, yet I still persist.

Seriously, what is really wrong with me? Is my mind or soul really broken that even when the truth is made clear to me, I still deny it? Considering that this is the only thing that I haven't managed to conquer for the longest time, I believe this would be my biggest personal battle ever. The most pivotal battle in the war against myself.

Therefore despite having not figured out my resolutions for 2025, I'm laying down here my first and foremost resolution:

"To stop procrastinating and do everything ahead of time."

Nobody can save me but myself.

About being 32

I saw a documentary by the New Yorker on Youtube about Frank, the 99 year old lawyer who was trying his last case. He passed not long after in 2022. He refused to retire and as he aged, he went to his office and court with walkers and drank Boost for nourishment. The people who were born in that period were really made that different. They were as tough as they came and their tenacity would put anyone from the generations that came after to absolute shame. It reminds me of our own 99 year old strongman, Tun Mahathir. May Allah swt grant him happy life for the rest of his days and in the hereafter.

Anyway, it shed a tear at the end of the documentary when it showed that Frank had passed away.

I used to fight back emotions and feelings. But at 32, I don't hold back any tears anymore. I'm constantly reminded of my parents and grandmother and uncles and aunts and how they have aged so much since I've left home. I reminisce about my childhood years and become sad when I realise I can't go back in time.

The thing about being at this age is that, you've been around long enough to see the world changes, the people come and go, and the people who stay grow older as you too grow older. I resent the fact that the world has changed so much so that the world that I grew up in no longer exists. I try as hard as I could to make things stay the same, no longer seeking to make a change "for the better". Perhaps it's nostalgia playing its tricks on my mind.

All the above makes me determined that soon I will go back to my home state Terengganu for good. True I can't make it turn back to the place that I grew up in, but at least I can try. And even if I can't stop the wave of change from sweeping across us, at least I'd be there to try to keep it from also taking away the nice things in its wake.

Inshallah, I will work to that end and may Allah swt grant me this.