After realizing that changing hotels wouldn’t be possible without a passport, I had to accept the situation as it was.  The city was noisy, overstimulating, and at times deeply uncomfortable.  But this was the reality I was given.  I considered retreating to a quieter spot outside the city,  but doing so would mean forfeiting the booking and disrupting the fragile routine I was starting to build.

A rhythm slowly emerged:  stay up late trading the U.S. markets,  try to catch whatever sleep I could,  then wake up mid-morning and find breakfast nearby.  After that, I’d head to F45 for a workout:  one of the few grounding anchors in an otherwise chaotic week.  The afternoons were spent at Starbucks, laptop open, immersed in charts and strategy.

It was here, in that strange little corner of air-conditioned limbo, that something important happened.  I didn’t just trade.  I built.  Hours went into consulting tools, refining edge cases, pressure-testing assumptions.  The end result was the most robust iteration of my trading system to date, and a framework I genuinely believe in.  It wasn’t just technical.  It was architectural.

With the help of AI, I set out to streamline everything.  That meant making tough calls, including selling off several stock positions at losses.  Thankfully, the market’s recent turnaround worked in my favor, allowing me to offload many of them during short-term rallies.  The goal was clear: free up real, usable cash.

One of the core principles I’ve come to respect — echoed by none other than Warren Buffett — is this:  it’s not if another market crash will come, it’s when.  And when it does, only those who have money can take advantage.  My regret wasn’t so much about missing the March-April dip to buy more.  It was deeper than that:  the midnight run from China was done while over-leveraged, stretched thin across margin positions.  When the crash hit, it was brutal:  margin calls, threats of forced liquidations, and no access to withdraw cash when I needed it most.  I had to start dipping into my emergency fund to keep this run going.  That was a lesson I never want to relearn.

This time around, I executed a deliberate unwind to reduce exposure and raise cash.   The timing couldn’t have been better.  As the markets began to stabilize, I used the recovery not to chase gains but to build resilience.  Going forward, maintaining a healthy cash buffer is non-negotiable.  It’s the one move that turns panic into power when the next storm hits.

All of this took place over just one strange, intense week in Bangkok.  And then,  out of nowhere,  it clicked.  The trading framework I’d spent hours constructing finally locked into place.  It felt complete.  Functional.  Like I could step back and let it breathe without constant micro-managing.

It was a surreal moment of stability, and it called for a celebration.

So I headed to Khaosan Road, that chaotic neon jungle of backpackers, vendors, and basslines.  I hopped on the back of a motorbike taxi, one of those "hold-on-and-hope" rides through Bangkok traffic, and ended up where the energy was loudest.

There were buckets of alcohol, street Pad Thai, and canisters of laughing gas. Yes, that laughing gas.  Nitrous oxide (N₂O), served in balloons, handed out like party favors.  I tried a small dose,  more out of curiosity than thrill-seeking.  It sent my head spinning for a few seconds,  made me laugh at nothing in particular,  and left me feeling like the laws of physics had briefly taken a coffee break.  Someone even snapped a photo, a blurry, ridiculous timestamp of a night where the absurd somehow made sense.

And somewhere between drinks and dizzy spells,  I pulled out my phone and sold a few naked put options on Tesla midway through a painfully unfunny comedy show.  Markets moved in my favor.  Money was made.  None of it should have worked.  But it did.

It wasn’t a night for optimization.  It was a night for pressure release.  For exhaling everything I'd been holding in.  A strange kind of ritual to mark the end of a very long stretch of survival mode.