the missing holiday and internship

Is it worth it? I'm passing on a holiday to Oz and might be spending Christmas alone just because I want to be around for an internship that might not even happen. Everyone's desperate. Everyone wants to impress. It's sickening. I don't mean this to sound chauvinistic in anyway. But the ladies have an unfair edge (and don't you deny it). Attended a Deutsche Bank recruitment event today and couldn't take my eyes off this slut girl who had slits up the sides of her skirt until just below the hips. Where do you get clothes like that, man. How does a guy dress provocatively and not appear not heterosexual?

The Director of Private Wealth Management I spoke to later on commented on how much he loved chicks and all they had to offer. He also mentioned that he prides himself on helping his clients manage their finances so that they can support both the wives and the mistresses. BANKERS ARE PROMISCUOUS. Bankers promote promiscuity. Infidelity is the norm. In a working environment like that, don't tell me that females don't have the upper hand (dignity is another issue altogether).

I found out that to do securities trading, I'll need to know C++ and other programming languages. I'm so screwed. I don't even know HTML.

Temasek Holdings is expected to have $12,000,000,000,000 (12 trillion) in its coffers by 2015. Enough to buy a considerable portion of the world, I reckon. But yet we see the beggars, the homeless and the hungry by the roads and at the coffee-shops. A senior government official (no names, just in case of web petrol) admitted that the government used to employ 'beggar petrols'. What did they do with them after they picked them up? Were they given a decent home to live in? Why do we still see beggars around then? I don't think there's anything wrong with being a welfare state.

So back to the topic of the missing internship. Met a friend of a friend who's interning with Deutsche and almost certainly getting his internship converted to an analyst position. When I was introduced, he said, "Oh you! I 've heard alot about you. You're the smart guy."

But you're the guy with the friggin internship!

the vodka nite

i'm never good enough. for 0thers. for myself.

CCA day. Vivace. 170 sign ups. non-stop talking to complete strangers. raising $1000 in 5 hrs. recruitment talk. dissing permanent secretary of prime minister's office herself. hypocritically thanking her for joining us. friend's 22nd birthday. timbre. drinking too much vodka. letting the investment banker foot the bill. back to Sophia hostel. chatting about nonsense. drinking more vodka. passing out. waking up to snoring friend. cabbing back home at 4.30am. blogging.

nite.

the record-breaking jump

It's nice to watch the olympics. Even if India and Singapore are almost non-existent. It's nice to see records being broken and new world records being achieved. I think of it as records being made on behalf of all humankind, not just a particular country. Everytime I see something like that happen on the screen, I keep playing Armstrong's words in my head: "that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." And the hairs on my arms stand on end. And I get transported to the stadium where the sensational win has just taken place. And I feel like cheering my heart out along with the rest of the crowd.

Isinbayeva from Russia was simply awesome during her pole vault event. If you think Indians are melodramatic, you should watch the Russians. Retreating under her blanket after every attempt, you wonder what the deal really is. But great people are allowed to have eccentricities.

- right before her world record-setting 5.05m jump -

the disorganized church

During bible study...

Leader: And that is true of the Church - both the organized Church and the..er... disorganized one. Wait. that doesn't sound right.
Me: You mean the independent churches?
Leader: Yes. The organized Church and the independent churches.
Me: Actually, I think you got it right the first time.

Starting churches has become fashionable. Everyone seems to be doing it. Unhappy? Start a church. Poor? Start a church. Bored? Start a church. Disillusioned? Start a church. Redundant? Start a church. Disliked? Start a church. Got caught? Start a church.

I'm glad I'm Methodist. I really am. :)

the broken ones

I think I like my friends who are broken. The disillusioned ones are the ones who’ve seen life. And that makes them more like me. I’m sick of the naïve ones. The ones who are constantly bothered with the small things – the trivial, the transient. I like people who look at life and laugh. These are the ones who look past life’s many disappointments with the ‘been there done that’ attitude. It shows that they’re experienced. They’re the less emotional. They’re have a strong internal locus of control. They’re more confident. They require hardly any consoling, and if they do, they know exactly where I’m coming from. It saves a lot of effort in convincing and explaining. It’s brilliant. Cos we’re at the same level. They know what they want, they know what they can’t have, and they know why. And when the unexpected happens, they aren’t caught off guard. Even if they don’t see it coming, they can accept that it has happened. They don’t stumble or cave in. They move on.

Don't get me wrong. I still like my other friends. I'd love to help them through what they need help through. We all need that support time and again. But I especially appreciate these rare guys.. Cos life’s too short to bother too much with .

I think I've been seeing too many bulls these days. And I have an inkling that they're here to stay. Haiz.

You find sponsors in the most unexpected of places.

Cough cough.

the night at home

Friday night. and I'm home. Sort of. For a change. Listening to a nice mash up of 7 songs:

1. Miliyah Kato - Love Is...
2. Los Pop Tops - Oh Lord, Why Lord
3. Coolio - C U When U Get There
4. Vienna Boys Choir - Pachelbel's Canon In D
5. Grover Washington, Jr. - Aubrey
6. Kanye West feat. John Mayer - Bittersweet Poetry
7. Pet Shop Boys - Go West

the 2nd chance

I like Gotham again for the following reasons:

1. I made friends with the hot brunette dancer I blogged about before. She's even hotter when she's inches away from you.

2. They had one for one all night on a Tuesday night.

3. I still get priority entry.

4. They didn't do the fireman routine again.

the familial poolside party

National Day was busy busy. Hung out with the extended family the whole day. And it was pretty fun. I thought the day was really well organized. I mean... we had our very own prata man, a one-man band (albeit he sang only oldies), excellent company and poolside location. It would have been an even more spectacular event if only we had some booze to loosen everybody up a little more. I'm hoping for excuses to hold poolside parties now. And I definitely won't forget the booze. And more current music. Cos Elvis does get boring after awhile.

We met the extendended family in the afternoon for a cohesion activity at Sungei Buloh. I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one apprehensive about the whole idea. After all that had happened (and for all I know, is STILL happening)- the slandering, mudslinging, criticizing and gossiping. It was awkward to see them all extra-friendly. I guess they were trying to tell us that they didn't have ill-intentions and would like to move on. Which I totally get. I really do. I definitely value these guys more than some block-headed hypocrites who have an inflated sense of self-worth. But still, it's difficult to let my guard down just like that. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we humans have this inbuilt thing called memory. And it can't be reformatted at the click of a button. I'm mature enough to forgive, but forgetting takes a much longer time. But, hey, nobody's claiming to be perfect here.

Today, cousin's phone got stolen at the poolside. The infuriating thing is that this toot had the audacity to open up my cousin's bag and remove the phone. It wasn't like he saw the phone unattended and swiped it away in one quick motion. And this happened within the condo, where we pay amenities fees for a supposed safer living environment. BASKET. Hope the thief dies of hand cancer, or something.

Nothing makes you feel more intelligent than giving tuition to an MBA student when you're only an undergrad. Swelllll maaannnnnn.

the SPG colony

At midnight tonight, I had nothing to do and was planning on completing a book, 'The Intelligent Investor', that I had started on more than a month ago. At 1am, I found myself at the doorsteps of Attica.

Attica started out slow but the pace eventually quickened, thankfully. I was underaged, so I found the choice of music a little too ancient for me. The dance floor was ridiculously small, for a nightspot that considers itself to be a full-fledged club. The club was infested with whites. I couldn't help but feel belittled by their furtive glances. Bummer. Nevertheless, I think I enjoyed myself reasonably well, thanks to the plethora of colorful characters that joined us at the club.

There was the guy who started dissing the whites very vocally (and Attica is SPG haven, mind you). I was bold enough to join him in the dissing. Then there was the lady who was 38, but looked like she was 24. She was newly married to some Aussie who's stuck in Melbourne while she's out partying with the white-disser. Hmmm.... Then there was the Aussie who asked me if I was up for a threesome in the car with this hot North Indian SPG chick he had picked up. Being the decent guy that I am, I said no. It didn't help that my friends were right beside me when he asked me.

The 90s had pretty nice songs, I discovered. Check out 'Losing My Religion' playing in the background right now.

Happy National Day or whatever.

the cancelled show

They say I passed the test. That my Tamil was bearable. But Friday's road show has been canceled due to the poor turnout today. What luck. So I didn't make much money this week afterall. :( They've promised me a slot next week. If that show gets 'canceled' again....

So all I need is patience and prayer. I hope.

The song playing right now is pretty excellent stuff. Listen to the whole thing!

the color dilemma

I realise that I have a number of silent readers. But I still want to do this poll. Which is nicer? Black or medium silver???

- black -

- medium silver -

the new free-lance job

Began my new free-lance job as a Singtel roadshow emcee today. Had a really hilarious time trying to speak Tamil. I am very grateful that it was only at the workers quarters. I am also very grateful for the Chinese, Hindi-speaking and Bangladeshi workers who started streaming past us in droves cos then we had to switch to English. Tamil was fun, anyhoo.

- Wine club publicity. It's simple, but I'm still proud of it -

the material wishlist

(this isn't ranting)

The media reported on the results of the FX challenge. The winning team, earning $1.5million, made the following comment:

"'Our strategy was to take a long-term view on each respective country... We... traded almost at our limits. We took very aggressive positions in our long-term views"

While I don't dare deny the brilliance of their strategy, it just shows that much of a trader's success is owed to luck. You don't make $1.5 million in an hour by just following the market. You don't lose $1.1million doing the same (that's me). The only way you make/lose over a million is if you speculate - when you expect something to occur and start building toward it, hoping that it eventually happens. And.. for us, it didn't happen. Bleh.

Which is much like life, if you think about it. If you want to make it big, you've got to risk sinking real deep. It's all about putting it all on the line, and hedging those risks if you can afford to. (But you don't usually have that luxury) Which is why having a decent paying job working for someone else usually doesn't get you filthy rich. Am I willing to risk it all? Would I mortgage my apartment, sell the car, remortgage the apartment just to fund a start-up that I can only hope will make money eventually? Would I speculate on currencies with uncovered positions in real-life just like what I did during the FX Challenge (if regulations allowed for it)? Hell no. But that's alright. Afterall, I'm not dying to be filthy rich.

Cos this is my material wish list (assuming I don't uproot). I don't NEED to have them all. I'd just be pretty satisfied if I did:

• A 3-room unit at The Nexus ($1.6m)
• BMW 650 ($338k) - by day
• Audi R8 ($495k) - by night
  
• Korg Triton Studio ($4k)
• Boston Upright ($10k)
• Bloomberg Terminal ($1.5k/mnth)
• ACSOBA membership ($500)
• Misc nightclub memberships ($1000/year)

I don't need a yatch. I don't need a Ferrari. I don't need a $50k club membership. I don't need a $4m District 1 condo like The Sail or One Shenton. I also realize that the cars probably won't happen. Which is fine.

So, you see, I'm reasonable. I don't need to be filthy rich to be happy.

the FX Challenge

So we lost the forex challenge. Heck, we didn't even get into the finals. It was pretty unexpected, the results. Only 1 SMU team out of the 7 made it to the finals, but virtually all the SP teams qualified. I'm not sure what went wrong. Even the NUS teams did as badly as us. And we undergrads were supposed to be the more experienced ones.

The top team in our wave made $900k in just an hour of trading. We.. erm.. we lost $1.1million in that same window. It's fake money, but the trading was REAL. And that worries me. If I ever become a trader, I'd be doing this ALL DAY. And that one hour of panic buying/selling was already pretty draining.

Later at night, we planned to finish up the Absolut Mango bottle at a friend's place. But someone had to get all high after just 3 glasses. So we decided to entertain ourselves watching him instead. Which was pretty fun, I must say. :):):)

the smart godson

My godson is really smart. He's only 6 months old. I was busy preparing for a meeting yesterday afternoon when he was supposed to be sleeping. But he didn't want to sleep although he was yawning non-stop. So I had to prepare for my meeting with one hand and let him entertain himself with the other, hoping that he would get bored of my hand and go to sleep. After awhile, he realised that my concentration wasn't on him and started snatching my work. When he was sure that he had my attention again, he would go back to entertaining himself with my hand. This happened REPEATEDLY. Then he gave me this really wide smile when he saw me finally put my work down.

Turf City has THE best maggie mee goreng in the country. I always knew my search would not be in vain.

Car shopping is really quite fun.

- bold, assertive, alluring-