I'm a practical person, which in translation means I am poor and cheap. Now before you start

comparing me to hungry children in Africa, know that I mean comparatively to those we know. I visited my old house today and although I felt super awkward just standing in the parking lot as the black neighbourhood stared at me, I was just happy to be "home."

Everyone who knows me knows that my humble beginnings started at Jane & Finch where I've spent the happiest majority of my childhood. I didn't know rich or poor, I just played with my barbies, ate McDonalds (I used to be skinny once, I think I was 6) and went on cool adventures in the ravine with my friends.

Not until I moved to Mississauga did I know that homes didn't all have a ridiculous amount of rodents and cockroaches. The first time I stepped on carpet felt like heaven. The bathroom was so...clean.

I have old parents and they've been through a lot of hardship to get to this paradise. They've been through so much hardship, they never let you forget it. It humbles us. I grew up feeling privileged, getting all the toys I wanted and never having to work for it as hard as my parents did.

Up until University, I never spent much. I did use all my saved up babysitting money to treat myself to a Gameboy so that I could play Pokemon Blue. All of my clothes up until middle school were my brothers' hand-me-downs. I never got a cellphone until I was 20. I never had that much, nor did I need it.

Living by yourself changes all of that. Without the nagging and consequent guilt-tripping, by University, parents have little control over what you spend on. What else? You have to stay on par with all of your friends (who don't like to admit it, are rich and can afford crap). After all, I didn't want to miss out on the fun because of money. I ate out a lot, ordered Pizza Pizza and Swiss Chalet, bought two laptops and two MP3 players, ordered $70 Forever21 shipments once every two weeks to get my free shipping, drank alcohol, went clubbing, gave my closest friends $100+ birthday gifts. I didn't work during University and all of that money depleted.

Post grad, I moved home for a bit and saved up some cash from Honda and then I moved to Korea. Needless to say my spending habits worsened. I went to Holly's Coffee everyday, ate out 95% of the time, bought clothing, bought stupid amounts of junk, travelled to every city, attended every festival/event, drank and partied and travelled to other countries. All of those $30 rib dinners at Miller Time, $100+ club nights in Hongdae, $50 in KoRail tickets and taxi fares really add up. After my post travel-travel-travel, I faced the very real and very scary realization that I was broke.

As silly as it sounds, I forgot I was poor. I always had everything I needed and I always had employment income in my bank account. I never saved a dime nor did I ever think, "Can I really afford eating at Moxies today?" Now I have student debt, that of which I have paid off $0 for. No wonder my family hates me. This type of behaviour would've never held up in poor working-class Vietnam. My ancestors are rolling in their graves.

What's worse, my friends have adapted to the misleading fact that I have money. Sadly, people love going out for their dinners and I've never been the one to say, "No" but I just don't have the choice anymore. I feel guilty that I can't be at par with my friends. I know by now when people ask me to do something and I say, "Can't. No money" they just groan and roll their eyes. Friends, I tell you this: I love eating out. I love buying things and if I could, I fucking would. I have serious debt to pay and my parents, remember, get their income from government payments plans. I don't have back up, it's just me. Not only that, I was unemployed for a good 6 months at the worst of times. Now that I have a job (job, not career), people assume I can start spending now. I'm not Germany, in the midst of an economic crisis, I can't just print legal tender and pretend that I can afford things. There's a reason I'm out of my own economic crisis now and it's because of smart financial planning and careful spending. I would like to keep it that way.

I would like to end off saying this: I know I am not alone on this matter. Many of you face financial burdens yourself, whether its OSAP loans, outstanding credit card statements, bills, gas, rent, car payments, maybe even mortgage payments for some of you. At the same time, many of you, without even realizing it (like me), forget they are middle-class poor and spend frivolously. Think about your habits: all of those Starbuck coffees, restaurants, clothing, clubs, shoes, technological gadgets, casinos - are they really necessary? The first step of solving any problem is admitting you have a problem. We have control over our spending and for some of us, it's time to grow up and realize the importance of saving for yourself. Your parents aren't going to provide for you forever (and would you seriously want them to?).

To the man who made every technological thing I own.

I don't want to be an accountant for the rest of my life. I dream of a simple life, free of financial burden and free of workplace stress.

I would like to have a boat and go fishing on Sunday afternoons in the summertime.

The rest of my week I will be at my cafe serving V's delicious cakes and other freshly baked goods. It will smell like cake heaven. I will watch artists sketching, couples watching movies on their iPad together, college students on their laptops and young people chatting and playing boardgames. I will take a polaroid with my favourite customers and hang them on strings on the walls. My new cat will prance around the cafe and customers will pet her. Sometimes there will be an open mic night for local musicians and amateurs to showcase their talent. There will be bongos. I will tweet Jason Mraz about my cafe and he will make a special guest appearance and duet "Lucky" with me. Maybe. I will run a "Plant a Lonely Tree" Campaign and have the community plant their own lonely tree. Life will be good.

What's your dream?

Give back to the world. Be generous. Give love.

Not to get anything in return, but to pay the love forward. To make the world a better place. This is the start.

Try it. See the world get better.

I let go a lot of what my brother does and says for piece of mind. It hurts like a bitch; usually after he throws one of his psychotic tantrums at me, I have to spend an entire day in catatonic state watching happy episodes of television to relieve myself of angry thoughts - but I don't dwell on it. Actually, by retelling stories of his fits of rage, it becomes funny at just how ridiculous he is and it makes living through it just the bit easier.

However, when he gets the least bit irritated (at about everything, little things, and all the time), he refuses to hide it. He unleashes his anger in every which way possible which means getting out knives, throwing pots, slamming refrigerator doors, slamming regular doors, calling me derogative names, etc. What pisses me off is the lack of reasoning in any of his actions. It stresses me out to the point where I just want to get hit by a car and die so that he could finally be at peace.

I came up with different plans of attack/defense, testing a combination of them out to see which would yield the best results: