January — Blog — Healy Chen

So long, so slow

Boy, that was a long January. At least it was to me. Yesterday a coworker remarked that January went by in a flash, and I had to politely disagree with him. What was 31 days felt like 60 days. I mean, shouldn’t we prefer that our days go slowly? The whole life is short thing, right? What we don’t want is the sensation that time moved by in a flash. The that felt like it was only yesterday. I guess I’m doing something right: I didn’t speed-run through January.

I got an email yesterday from Amazon notifying me that in 2022, I’ve earn over $300 in cash-back from my Chase Amazon rewards credit card (the card earns a whopping 5% on purchases if you are an Amazon Prime member). That amount easily offsets the annual $139 premium for Prime membership. In fact, $300 would cover the membership fee for this year as well. It’s spending neutral, so to speak, for me to keep Amazon Prime.

My friend did some quick math, and figured out that $300 in 5% of rewards equals to about $6,000 of spending last year. Since I’m notorious for buying lots of books, the friend quipped, “How much are these books that you buy?” Honestly, I was a bit surprised at the $6,000 figure. Granted, about $2,500 of that was spent towards an LG OLED TV and a set of speakers. The rest of the $3,500 is simply the spending of daily life. The books, the supplements, the health products, etc. Since I do get 5% cash-back in return, I try to do as much shopping with Amazon as possible.

Shoutout to the delivery guys and gals.

I certainly don’t plan to buy a TV this year or anything too spendy. I’m at the stage of life where it’s all about buying high-quality things and using them for a very long time. For example, this Herman Miller Aeron chair I’m currently sitting on, I’ve had since my college days. I endeavor to have this sort of longevity with the things I own now, and the stuff I buy moving forwards.

The longest January

I’ve been seeing on twitter people complaining about how this January have felt insanely long. It led me to think for a moment, and yes, January have indeed felt like it has gone on for a very long time. In fact, I thought the beginning of this week was February, not realizing there’s yet another week of January to go. Today’s only the 30th! This month does seem rather endless.

It’s been well over two weeks since I’ve returned from my usual travel stint back home to China at the beginning of January, and I think being on the road sort of stretches out the time relativity, contributing to this month feeling like it’s gone on forever. When I’m on vacation, time seems to go by really slowly, which I guess is a good thing because those are the precious days you get to be away from your normal everyday life - last thing you’d want is for it to feel like it’s over before it starts.

With the news of the Wuhan virus getting more serious by the day, I have to say once again I’m really glad I came back to the States before things got to a critical level on an international scale. Much of China is effectively under lockdown, with large public gatherings and events cancelled, and citizens are staying home as much as possible to limit the risk of exposure. I’d imagine it would be troublesome under these circumstances to be traveling through China and needing to return home to America, or any other country.

Linger any longer in China and there might not even be a plane for you to get on. Just yesterday, British Airways cancelled all future flights to and from China, and surely other airlines would follow should the Wuhan virus continues to escalate catastrophically. While China hasn’t yet officially banned its citizens from flying abroad, the possibility is certainly there should things turn for the worse. What’s the next step after quarantining entire cities? The whole country, naturally.

Before any of this mess started, my cousin from China made plans to travel to America in March. With only a month in between now and the time she gets on the flight, there’s a high chance she may not be able to come if the world is still dealing with this coronavirus. My fingers are crossed for her sake, and for all of us.