Preparing for Retirement in Your Twenties

In your twenties, you might feel as though you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’d be right of course, even in your late twenties, you are still young. You’re yet to experience any signs of age, your body is still youthful, and you feel alert and filled with energy. You’ve still got years and years left to work. You might be able to eat the world without gaining a pound. Then, quite suddenly and out of nowhere, the signs of ageing start to show. It’s quite common to get greyer in your thirties. Cellulite, stretch marks, and varicose veins begin to creep up on you. You can no longer stay out all night and get up for work the next morning without feeling worse for wear. You might suddenly find that you can’t even look at a piece of cake without putting on weight. Ageing is a gradual process, but that process often starts much earlier than you’d like it too.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you are old. You’re not, you’ve still got a long time to go, and there’s no reason why you can’t live a long and healthy life. But, it is a gentle reminder that time passes quickly and that if you want to be able to enjoy your old age and your retirement, it’s never too early to start thinking about it.

Photo from Pixabay

Give Your Mind a Workout

Most of us worry about how we look. We diet and exercise, and stress about how we look in a bikini on the beach. We worry about how our bodies will age and hope never to lose our looks. But, we don’t worry about our minds, and how they might age. 

But, they do. Your brain ages just like your body. The things that seem easy now might not always. You might start to forget things, or struggle to think clearly. This can hinder your happiness in old age even more than the physical signs of ageing. 

When we’re kids, we’re always learning. Every day we learn something new to the point that our minds can sometimes feel tired and overwhelmed. Then, we start work, we settle into our adult lives, and we stop using our brains so much. We don’t need to think. We just go through the motions. Doing this for too long can lead to premature ageing of the mind, just like not exercising could lead to your body ageing before it’s time. 

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to give your brain a workout. Reading, doing puzzles, learning languages and even going to new places and having new experiences. Anything that is out of the ordinary that gives you something to think about is a good exercise for your mind and can help it to stay young.

Watch Your Diet

When we’re in our twenties, and we feel as though we can eat anything without worry, we often do. Older friends and family members might warn you that it will all catch up with you one day and you won’t believe them. But, it will.

It might not catch up with your hips or belly in the form of weight gain, but that doesn’t mean that a fatty diet isn’t clogging your arteries, or that too much sugar isn’t affecting your teeth and vital organs. You might be able to drink everyone under the table without getting a hangover, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not killing your brain cells. 

That doesn’t mean that you can’t indulge in treats. There’s no point in living a long life if you don’t allow yourself to enjoy it. The key to all things is balance. Drink water, as well as other drinks. Eat fruit and vegetables, and limit your treats. 

Maintain Your Friendships

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that living in a nursing home when you are older can keep your mind young, help to prevent depression, and even give you the chance to live longer. One of the main reasons for this is that social living in old age can prevent loneliness, which can lead to depression, isolation, and unhappiness. 

Often when we retire, and we stop going to work, we lose touch with our friends and colleagues, and we find ourselves much more alone than we’ve ever been before. This can have a negative effect on our mental and physical health. 

It might seem as though there’s not much that you can do about this now, but there is. Even when you are busy, make time for your friends. Develop your friendships and keep them going, and there’s no reason you can’t stay firm friends for life. 

Find Hobbies That You Love

When we’re young, we don’t always have the time for hobbies, and many of the things that we felt passionate about when we were kids get left behind. Then, as we get older, our time becomes more limited as we move up the career ladder, raise families or both. Suddenly, we’re old. We don’t have anything in our life that we love to do. We retire with nothing to fill our time, and we’ve spent our working years so busy that we suddenly feel empty and lost. It can be almost like we don’t know how to relax. 

Starting hobbies now can help your future self immeasurably. Finding hobbies that you love, and that you are keen to make the time for will help to keep your mind young and alert, give you a way to meet new people and ensure that you have love in your life, no matter what else happens. 

Start Saving

Photo from Pixabay

One of our biggest worries about retirement is money. We worry that we will still have debt or a mortgage to pay off when we finish work. We’re concerned that we won’t have enough money to enjoy our retirement, or that we will end up poor. Start saving now, and avoid debt where you can, and you’ll never need to worry. 

Be More Aware

One of the best ways to prepare yourself for retirement and old age is simply being more aware of your body and your mind. Become more aware of how the things that you are doing now will affect you in the future.

Feeling lost

Venue of the 2nd RPA Philippines Summit

Our water supply is back to normal

I guess it's been a week since our water is back to normal. We returned our excess water containers to my parents and just kept 15 gallons worth of empty ones, which is as much as we can keep given our small space. It's good to have water back. Really. Metro-wide water crisis isn't over yet but I think we have stable water supply where we live. Thank God!

I attended the 2nd RPA Philippines Summit

It was really insightful, being seated with delegates from various companies hoping to setup their own RPA team. It's also great listening to those who have already successfully deployed a robotic workforce on such a large scale. I enjoyed listening to the huddles, not really pitching in, but just trying to soak in knowledge from the experts. After the two day summit it just dawned on me how much work needs to be done in order to put things in the right place. From creating a governing unit for all things RPA, to funneling the tasks in order of priority, to managing sprints, to deploying them right, and so on and on and on...

It's freaking overwhelming.

Now I don't know where my career is headed

I was reading through my mailbox the other day and saw a job posts notification from LinkedIn. I'm not actively looking, I usually ignore job alerts, but I read through the list anyway, curious if there's anything new that fits me after I've added UIPath RPA in my skills portfolio.

There was none.

I joined the company as a Performance Tester but I never really got to hone it here. Instead of focusing on one track I was exposed to different things. I learned functional testing, php web development, and now I'm dabbling into RPA too. Initially I thought it was cool, I'm an all around QA who can read code and make robotic workflows. But where does that put me? I don't even know what position to search for in Jobstreet anymore. :(

Makes me wonder where I would be right now if I had accepted TCS' offer last year. What was I thinking turning down a six digit offer with a clearer career path? If I had joined them and had a few months to work on my Performance Testing skills before applying at PlanIt, would I have passed the technical assessment? Would I be offered a job at Australia or New Zealand?

Hay Lord. I feel like I'm being led to too many paths right now that I'm starting to get lost.

Out of sidelines, full of rest

Now that I have more free time after work I can finally enjoy watching KDramas, and probably even go back to reading! Yehey! But of course, we all know I'm just gonna end up lounging and doing nothing on social media. :P

Oh, I already received a rejection email from PlanIt

Not exactly a rejection letter, but I was put on wait list for the next six months. And knowing that some people on the wait list already got called with an offer makes me a hopeless case. Oh well, it's probably not my time yet. Who knows.

What I do know right now is that I want to get a job out of this country hahaha. Where do I find companies that offer relocation benefits extended to their family? XD

4 Essential Ways To Take Care Of Your Skin

Photo from Pexels

1. Swap to a lighter foundation

Now, I don't mean that you need a lighter tone of foundation, after all, I can see you through the computer! Instead what I'm talking about here is swapping a to a lighter coverage foundation, one that isn't so heavy and so does not clog up your pores as much.


Of course, the advantage of this is that it is much better at letting the skin breathe, and it's always easier to wash off thoroughly at night. Something that means you are likely to get fewer blemishes, and problems, because this is the time when your skin replenishes and repairs itself.

2. Get it checked regularly

Next, it's important to remember when caring from our skin that it's not just the stuff on our face that need some TLC, but our entire bodies too. 

With that in mind, regularly checking any moles or blemishes you have to see if they have changed in size or shape is a worthwhile activity. 

Then if you do find any you are concerned with you can find a skin cancer clinic local to you and get a medical professional to assess them for you. After all, the sooner any problems with moles or other skin blemishes can be identified and treated the better the outcome is likely to be. 

3. Clean it well each night 

Another way you can take care of your skin is to ensure that you clean it as well as you can. Of course, you will need to tread a very fine line between cleaning it thoroughly, and over cleaning and exfoliating, which can leave your skin looking red, dry, and aged. 

To that end, creams and gels with exfoliant pieces should only be used once a week, and the same goes for facial brushes. Remember too that even wash clothes can be too harsh on their own, so combine them with a soap-free cleanser, and use the super soft bamboo versions where possible. 

4. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate 

Finally, when it comes to taking care of your skin, it is absolutely essential to stay as hydrated as possible. However, this doesn't mean just sipping water throughout the day, but taking action to hydrate the skin directly. 

Happily, this is a task which is seldom tiresome, as there are a range of different products on the market designed to assist you with this. Look out for hydrating moisturizers, and other facial care products that focus on this benefit. You may even like to combine them for the best result, and skin that is well and truly taken care of. 

Uhh late post

I completely forgot about this lol. Written last Monday haha.

Fire alarm went off in our building earlier during work and we were told to evacuate. We don't know the reason yet. Some say it started at B1 parking level, some say it started from B4 or B5. Nobody knows. I thought it was a drill, so I'm surprised it was an actual emergency. First time I experienced this. Yikes.

One of the blazers I tried on

I got myself a blazer for tomorrow's conference because the dress code says business attire and I only have a lanky company jacket with me. Picture above isn't the one I got though haha. I got myself a simple black blazer that's it 'cos I'm not too confident wearing other colors lol. 

Aaaand since we're on the dressing room now lol, let me just share a couple of outfits I tried a few months back while looking for something to wear for my friend's wedding.

I was looking for something to match the pink floral skirt. Black off shoulder looked okay but it's black. White undergarment looked okay but I didn't have a pretty cover up to match. 

I also tried on this dress but it's too dark. Eventually I got the maroon boat neck top lol. Love the mirrors here, I look less fat hehe.

Yeah that's it for the late post hehe.

Today, we won. Or did we?

The queue for our daily water ration. Photo grabbed from our condo's fb group

Oh gosh, the water situation in our district is soooo bad I've been taking showers at the office for the past 3 days. They started scheduling water supply on Monday, opening the valves 3 times a day for 2 hours at a time. That day we were still able to get by but eventually supply and demand came in to play and water is out in less than 10 mins!

The 2 hours window got replaced with 'until supply lasts', and since things got even worse on the following days, they shut off the valves completely and resorted to rationing water from the basement faucet with an allocation of 2 containers per unit per day. We had to line up daily to get household water, and I had to drive twice to my parents' house this week to fetch drinking water.

The sound of water flowing in these pipes is music to my ears

It's crazy but it's not so bad. This afternoon, we got our tanks filled and got faucet water by 3pm. We filled all of our drums, buckets, and water containers, then shut the faucets to allow water to reach the higher floors. 

I'm very grateful for our PMO and Council members for doing everything they can to supply our needs and keep us posted. Our Facebook group is being regularly updated and people are helping each other out. Some are giving out their water ration stubs, some are offering to fill containers while they're out to fetch water from another city, and people are mindful not to hoard and save only what they need to give chance to others. The spirit of community and kindness is very uplifting. The brimming positivity between neighbors is heartwarming. Our system isn't perfect, and our mitigation plans are not without flaws, but everyone was understanding of the situation, and aware of the pressure it puts on the management. If they break, so do we.

Today we won because we didn't give in to the adversity and cooperated with level heads. Because we chose to be kind and thoughtful of others. Because we shared ideas and helped each other out. I've never experienced this kind of community. Well, I've never experienced water shortage this bad haha.

I'm also very grateful for my parents. I couldn't have survived this week if not for them who came to our rescue. They lent us pails and drums, and bought water containers for us when it's getting sold out everywhere. They didn't mind that I had to come to their house and annoy them at 2 in the morning. I told them I could just come and go to avoid disturbing their sleep, but what kind of daughter am I that I can't even stay and cuddle with them for a while. Gaaahd, I super duper love my parents!

Another thing I'm super thankful for is our office shower. My goodness, this one's a big deal because my husband and I can't share 10 gallons (our daily ration) for shower alone. We'd have nothing to flush our toilets with! While it's embarrassing and uncomfortable to come to the office with greasy hair, and to be greeted by the guards with "Mam, shower po?" (see, I'm a regular this week), I'm grateful I get to enjoy a warm shower at least! Sets the mood right for getting to work.

Still, this isn't to say we're all good. Someone has to take responsibility for this, apologize, and make it right. Whether it's MWSS, MWC or our godamn government. Everyone's pointing fingers and no one wants to admit their fault. With our growing dissent for authority it's no wonder conspiracy theories make more sense than our politicians' lying mouths. 

This country's disgusting politics has a way of killing your hopes and sucking your faith dry.

Comfort food. Been on this for 5 days straight.

Good thing there's Tummy Box's sisig and Costa Iced Mocha. 

Heya

I don't know what's taking them so long to send me my rejection letter. The more they delay it, the more hopeful I get so you know why not just whack my dreams dead on time right? We have this group chat on Telegram where people have shared their application status, and almost all of them got their results already. I only know of one person besides myself who hasn't received an update yet, but his case was different because he was explicitly told to wait 2 more weeks for feedback. Uhmm.

So where does that put me in this nerve wracking journey?

Today is supposed to be the deadline of sending out results but I haven't got anyyyy so I don't know where I stand. My cell was dead the first week they started calling successful applicants but I knew they'd reach out through email if they attempted to call but failed so I didn't bother so much about it. But dang, 2nd round of calls and my cell, which already has signal at this point, has not picked up that elusive call from Unknown Number, the bearer of exciting news. 

I'm starting to think they forgot about me totally lol. That or they're still deliberating where to put me, with my mishmash of skills ranging from C grade Web Development to F grade Performance Testing. After my terribly disappointing technical assessment, I don't even know what to highlight in my resume now lol.

Anyway. I'm not supposed to stress about this because I'm not even officially in the market for a new job. But weeeeell, I'm getting anxious too. Haha

Hoping for the best but setting my expectations low. Worst case is I get rejected and I get to keep a job I love and be with people I enjoy working with for the months to come. 

How bad is that huh.

It's a good day today

I feel like God cushioned my fall with lovely stuff today so it wouldn't hurt so much that I didn't make it to PlanIt. Everyone assigned to AU has been called already and I didn't get a call or email, so it's safe to assume I'm out of the game! I'm still waiting for the official rejection letter but that's gonna take another week I believe after they've processed all the contracts of successful applicants.

Of course it's sad, and it's mostly because we spent a lot of money to attend the roadshow. Then again, it's not like I'm itching to leave my current company, cos man I love it here. I'm thankful though for the experience. I've never applied for an overseas job before and this kindof opened a different realm for me. 

Anyway, on to the good stuff!

Free skincare items

I got this lot from our neighborhood decluttering group FOR FREE!

I've been wanting to try Witch Hazel because of the hype so it's cool I get to sample it without shelling out a dime. So I got two toners, a citrus serum, a base UV, a nude and vegan lipstick, and a tarte blush-on. And all of them work well on my skin! I'm loving the UV base specifically because I can use it before heading to work and it's so light on the skin too. I've been meaning to switch to suncreen products but most of the products I test give off an ugly white cast sooo hmmm.

Our house is clean lol

Yep, that's clean! The floor has been mopped, the surfaces wiped of dust, electric fan is cleaned, aircon filter is cleaned, the toilet is cleaned. It's a refreshing feeling coming home to this. Thank God for cleaners! 

New phone!

Our company issued me a new phone yesterday because my current plan has expired already. New firm standard is iPhone XR and I'm part of the pilot batch to receive the unit! Yey! Actually what I was really looking forward to is buying out my old phone for only 1k. So now the iPhone 7 is mine! Yehey!

Long time no Primo Iced Coffee

It's been an awfully long time since I last had Iced Mocha from Costa. The barista even greeted me with a long time no see. It's sooooo refreshing tasting it again. The real reason I decided to go to Costa is to kindof treat myself after failing PlanIt. Heck, I'm not about to wallow in misery at the unfortunate result of my application. So I thought of buying myself a slice of cake and a large cup of americano from Family Mart. But the idea of drinking Costa Iced Coffee sounds more soothing. This is a better gift, a better band aid so to speak. And so I indulged.

The usual at Go Salads

After getting my drink at Costa I ate dinner at Go Salads and ordered the usual. Yep, I'm already starting to heal lol.

New kitchen things!

Today I decided to over-reward myself. I've had this on my wishlist for so long but was so tamad to head over at Landmark to get it. Finally, today is the day. I got a 24cm steamer insert and also a lemon press! Now we can make siomai, buy frozen siopao, and steam the hell out of everything. Also, I can finally make lemon garlic ginger concoctions much easier.

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Apparently, some failures remind you that life isn't so bad and that you do deserve to get some things naman. Like great coffee, a steamer basket, and a lemon press lol. Or maybe that's my subconscious response at failing. If I can't land a job down under, at least I can get this frkn steamer basket without having to prove anything haha! 

Oh Lord, let your will be done. ❤