Thoughts while in Sunny Singapore

1. Rude drivers ...
Never fail to impress me. On one occasion I wanted to filter to the right. I signalled my intention early, and I was preparing to go in right after the car just beside me has passed. To my disgust, the car just behind the car next to me sped up and closed the gap. Fine, I thought, petty man, I'll go after you. As soon as I changed lane to the right, the car behind me flashed his lights at me! WTF! As though he couldn't see me. As though he couldn't see my intention. As though I obstructed him. He'll be like what, 2seconds slower? If it was me I'd have let the poor guy come into the lane. I've driven in the US and the UK, and in all honesty, even though the drivers in Singapore are without a doubt more highly skilled, they are undeniably more rude and inconsiderate.

2. Tiffany
never fails to amuse me. She remembers my name. She exclaims "w- kor kor come back already! But L- biu je and H- kor kor did not come back!". She throws a towel sized piece of cloth over her back and pretends to be a fairy. And flys around. Then she poses as prettily as she could in front of L's father. He gives her a shocked and disgusted look and she laughs and runs forward to "hit" him for mocking her.

3. Friends
Looked through my old cards that I received from friends on past Christmas/New Year/Birthdays. Cards from friends I haven't met in a while. Friends I used to be really close to, but got distant thru the years. Friends I wish I didn't neglect. Eh, I even got a Birthday card from a super slack JC classmate. nope you won't be able to guess - you'd never expect someone like him to send a card. Looking at all these cards made me think - how did an ordinary guy like me end up with such amazing friends.

4. Fire Alarm while opening accnt.
I was in a bank, opening an account. On the 30th storey. The lady was very professional and sorted out all the application forms. Halfway through, the fire alarm rang. You know normally its just a freak accident, or some form of vandalism that caused the alarm. Thats what I thought it was and brushed it off. All the while she was trying to explain something to me. And had to pause many times because of the alarm ringing and a guy shouting over the PA system, "Ladies and Gentlemen. May I have your attention please. The fire alarm has been activated. We are currently investigating it. Please remain at your desks and keep calm." Then in 30 seconds, "Ladies and gentlemen, there is an incident on the 18th storey. Will people from the 18th storey please head down to the plaza via the staircase. Please do not use the lift." Hmm.. the lady in front of me was determined to get it processed asap. And so was I. I wasn't prepared to make another trip. I nodded and nodded while she went through all the details, pausing as and when the guy over the PA interrupted. Towards the end, he was speaking almost all the time (very loudly), so the lady was forced to shout even louder to get her points across to me. Finally we settled everything, I got my stuff, went to the toilet first, before I climbed 30 storeys down the building.

So many things happened this week.

1. Cornwall trip. Went down with a couple of friends. Oh man, the scenery was really awesome. Never imagined that a part of England could be so beautiful. Helps that the weather was good. I'll post some pictures soon... or maybe not.. scroll down to see why.

2. At work yesterday, I stood up for myself in a small way. But I felt proud of that. Because usually I'm so acquiescent. Its a long story, but basically somebody decided unilaterally that the presentation should be postponed because the other guys had already taken too much time - and I asked to be given just 5 minutes to present, instead of postponing my 5 min presentation to sometime (who knows when) next week. Eventually I got my way, and I'm happy I did.

3. I had fun at football on Tuesday.

4. I'm going back to Singapore! Tomorrow! That means that I won't be updating the blog (because I don't think I'll have access to the internet. I live in a Kampung hut without a telephone line, not to mention cable/broadband.) for two weeks. Dear friends in Singapore: call me! you know my number!

5. I lost my keys. Its sad.

Security level has been downgraded to severe.

Just to let you know... Nothing bad has happened yet.

Played football just now. with real good players. Its always more fun to play in a team with good players. Reason being
- higher chance of winning so you feel better already
- more passes get to you
- you anyhow kick your teammates also get the ball
- less defending because they don't lose the ball so easily
- more attacking because there's less defending
- you look good when they score with a pass you made
- you look good when you score with a pass they made

going for a "team dinner" tomorrow night. Will update when i feel like it. =)

Security level: Critical.

Folks, if you haven't heard/read, police in the UK has apparently thwarted an attempted plane bombing. The current security level is "critical", which apparently means an attack is "imminent". Security has been stepped up in all UK airports. Yeah you can read it up on BBC if you haven't read about it.

I thought something was wrong this morning when I got off the tube at liverpool st. First you hear announcements like "Customers are advised that because of hightened security, delays may be occuring on all undergound lines". Then you see like twice the number of policemen standing around crowded areas. Then in the office my colleage mentioned something about the airports being closed. Hmm..

I'm supposed to say "don't worry, i'll be fine." But I know you're not worried anyway. hah.

by the way, I finally found my contact lens that I dropped on the toilet floor. I was feeling constipated one day and sat down on the toilet seat just, you know, relaxing and looking around when I saw it sticking to the side (the outer side) of the bathtub. Quite surprised that nobody else saw it, nobody brushed it off, it didn't drop back down to the floor, the cleaner didn't clean it away... that it was left there since 2 weeks ago.

It must have been flung 1.5 meters away when the case fell to the ground. So weird. You know after I spent ages looking for the lens, I actually filled the contact lens case with water and "simulated" as exactly as I could the way the case dropped, just to see how far the water would be flung out. The result of that experiment was that it was at most 20cm. Hmm. Now I know at least by how much I must widen the search scope.

A day in the life of a typical corporate finance analyst.

Yesterday, yes SUNDAY, I spent 12 hours at work. From 1pm to 1am.

Its a long story, but basically there was some work that I had to do by Monday morning.

It started off pretty cool actually. Lazed about in the morning, had a nice chat with my gf over the webcam, then headed off to work in a casual outfit by cab. Boss came in about 15mins later with a banana-caramel frappucino in his hand. Soon after I went out to get myself a strawberries and cream frappucino.

The work was challenging. I had to simulate the performance of a quite complicated product. It involved correlation, Cholesky decomposition, geometric brownian motion, and a lot of skill with Excel. So challenging indeed I spent the next 6 hours glued to the computer. (Boss left at about 5pm).

Dinner time came, but we were nowhere near completion. I decided to order some chinese takeout - to be claimed from the company of course. The food wasn't nice at all, given its price, but it was fun eating in the largest meeting room with two of my closest colleagues.

As time wore on, it didn't seem anywhere as cool as before. I started feeling like the time I'm spending in the office won't be noticed.

Finally, we neared completion. Not as ideal as I would have liked but it was 12.30am Monday morning already and I really had to go home otherwise I wouldn't be able to make it back to office 7 hours later.

So I took a cab back home, and promptly fell asleep in bed, groggy from the whole day's work.

I guess this is the life XP is living everyday. I can do this once a month, but no more than that.

Anyway, the next morning I woke up at 7.15 for my usual chat with my gf.

Her first question was "What time did you get back last night?"

(sleepily) "... 1 a.m...."

"Go back to sleep, quick" she said.

mmm.. I said goodbye and crawled back to bed for another satisfying 45mins of sleep.

I have a wonderful gf, I know.

Achievement this year: Solved Rubic's Cube

Three of my colleagues were given Rubic's Cubes as a toy/collectible/marketing widget. You now like pens, highlighters, post-its, stress-balls...

I was bored one day and picked up one of them and attempted to solve it.

And I did it in 11.75 seconds.

Just joking. I didn't do it at all. 11.75 seconds is the world record for solving the cube. I tried solving it and gave up after 10 minutes -> I had only solved one face.

I had played with the cube before, but never managed to solve it. And I wasn't happy that I couldn't solve it.

So I looked online. Trusty wikipedia... Actually had a page on "How to solve the Rubic's Cube"! Did a bit of reading and found out that its really not difficult. There are algorithms to swap pieces, say, or to "turn" a piece such that its rotated the right way etc. And there are clear steps to take to solve it.

Following instructions, I've managed to solve it in 30 minutes. Subsequently, with practice and memorising some algorithms that I otherwise wouldn't have known, I can solve the cube in 15 minutes.

If people ask me right now, what's my proudest achievement... I think I'll tell them I can solve the Rubic's cube. *victory sign*

Football again!

I played football again on Tuesday, and I've re-affirmed my hopelessness at being a goal-keeper.

You know in street-soccer (or court soccer, or indoor soccer) where the field is small and there are lacking goalkeepers (keepers are always lacking - you won't EVER find 3 of them in a court) we usually take turns to keep the goal (haha that sounds weird).

When I played in SG in the past, we usually rotate when a goal is scored/conceived. Over here its not so obvious... People just "volunteer" as and when they think they should be keeper.

So anyway I had played for about 20mins already, had to catch my breath a bit. And the poor guy was keeper for quite some time, so I volunteered.

Soon after, I conceived a goal. And then another. and another. and another. and finally one more, before one of the players decided that I was crap, and took over as keeper. All that happened in a span of maybe 5 minutes. Just to clarify, I wasn't intentionally trying to get substituted.

But that suits me just fine. =)

And I'm happy that I've used my new boots three times this year.

Luckily we have 5 weekdays...

"Luckily we have 5 weekdays ... ", my colleague was saying. In my mind I was already completing the sentence, "... instead of 6 in certain countries."

But no, what he continued saying I would never guess.

"... to rest from the 2 days of weekend."

Haha seriously that is damn funny. In case you didn't know, recently it has got really quiet. Not quiet as in not noisy quiet - its more like there was seriously nothing to do.

But still I'd never expect my colleague to say that. Everyone who was within earshot (only me and another guy) burst out laughing.

Ideal job heh?

Football.

I love sports, but I love football best of all. Felt so excited today, for the whole day, because I knew I was going to play football later in the evening. I felt so alive!

The last time I played football was I think two months ago. Wow that feeling was even better. I felt excited for 2 whole days before the game!

It was 5 on 5, street soccer style, the way I liked it. Small pitch, big goals, which resulted in a fast-paced game with many goals scored. Tight spaces, which means tight dribbling. Few people, which means more one-twos (its a passing play where player one passes to player two, who passes it back immediately to player one, who usually has sprinted forward).

Though it was only 40 minutes, it was a superb game. I loved it. Esp when somebody commented, "you're pretty good" after the game, while we were re-hydrating and cooling down. Hee...


By the way, this is a little out of point. Actually, totally out of point. I dropped my left contact lens on the toilet floor this morning. And I spent 30 minutes looking for it. And I can't find it.

Luckily I kept my old contact lenses as a spare...

What do you think of the middle east crisis?

A colleague asked me that very open-ended question. I usually answer very open ended questions with "huh?".

He elaborated, "Who do you think is responsible?"

"Responsible for the crisis?"

Another colleague interrupted, "Well, you have to go back to who started it right? Its Hezbollah."

"Depends on how far back you go", the colleague that originally asked the question said.

-- lots of stuff about the whole middle east affair, involving iran, syria, etc etc.. finally a lull in the conversation...

"So, how far back would you go?" I asked the colleague that orginally asked the question.

"Moses."

"Moses?"

"Yeah when he parted the red sea."

"Moses is dead! How can you still hold him responsible?"

"Maybe he's not dead."

... I left it at that.

Am I supposed to be used to the weather?

The temperature went to 34 today. Blardy hot. A colleague from France asked me, "Aren't you used to it already?"

I've spent 21 years in Singapore, where the weather is always blardy hot. AND blardy humid. After so long, you'd think that I've gotten used to it.

But no, I'm not used to it. I'd still prefer 24 degree weather with about 30 percent humidity.

One of those chain-blog things again.

Favourites
Colour: Blue, Black, White and blends of those colours. Actually since Black and White aren't colours, its just blue.
Food: Depending on situations, I like Hainanese Chicken Rice, Laksa, Wan Tan Mee, Roti Prata, Carrot Cake (white), Satay, Pengkang Fish, a nice thick beef Steak (preferably Rib-eye, Sirlion, Fillet) ...
Song: Don't have a favourite one...
Movie: Hard to say. I don't tend to watch movies again and again... But I like action/sci-fi movies like Independance Day, MIB, X-men etc.
Sport: Football aka Soccer
Day of the week: Saturday
Season: Late Spring/Early Summer
Ice cream: Cold Stone's Strawberry Cheesecake Paradise (or something - contains cheesecake ice-cream, strawberries, and graham crunch)

Currents
Mood: Tired but relaxed (went to the gym a few hours ago)
Taste: None (not eating at the moment).
Clothes: Shorts. Thats it.
Desktop: Eh heh. I'm proud of my desktop. So proud that I'm going to show you:
Toe nail colour: Natural. Except for one toe, you know the toe that got stubbed. The nail dropped out finally and now there's a new nail forming. But like newborn babies, new nails look really ugly. Its not smooth and pink. Its very wrinkled, with spots of dark purple (possibly dried blood).
Surroundings: Quiet small cosy bedroom, with the window slightly ajar, the door closed.
Annoyance: None?
Thoughts: Thinking about what I'm thinking at the moment. The fact that I'm actually thinking about what I was thinking probably means I wasn't thinking of anything. Or maybe I'm thinking about what I was thinking. haha.

Firsts
Best friend: My neighbour who went to the same primary school as I. Our parents used to compare our grades (though there wasn't much sense comparing since in Pri 1 the grades are always > 98).
Crush: Some girl in my neighbourhood. Her name was Cheryl (not the Cheryl in the same class as I - its another Cheryl!). I was 8, she was 7. Unfortunately she moved out about a year after and I was too young to ask for her phone number. Hey wait.. that's almost 20 years ago!!!
Movie: Don't remember.
Lie: Lied about forgetting to bring my homework, when I really was too lazy to do it. Lied like this too many times.
Music: I dunno...

Lasts
Cigarette: Second hand smoke? er... yesterday.
Drink: Yesterday. Though I had something with Shaoxing wine today.
Car ride: A month ago, shared a cab back with a friend.
Crush: Excluding the gf? I have a current crush - Jessica Alba. My previous crush would be Scarlett Johanson.
Movie: Munich 1972. Good movie I must say. Watch it if you can.
Phone call: Called a colleague who didn't turn up for work and boss was concerned. Not concerned for him, concerned that he didn't turn up. He didn't pick up the phone though, so I'm not sure it counted.
Cd played: Can't remember (how sad is that?)

Have you ever:
Dated one of your best friends: Yes, the gf
Broken the law: Civil or criminal? Criminal no, but civil, possibly. You know how strict SG is, littering is against the law you know... not to mention being naked in your own home etc.
Been arrested: No
Skinny-dipped: No
Been on tv: Once also when I was in Sec 2 or so. Attended a writing course (writing as in short-story writing, not handwriting writing - though I probably need to improve on the latter) with an apparently famous SG based writer. Got reporter come and interview us. I was on TV for a few seconds.
Kissed someone you don’t know: No

5 things you are wearing: Briefs. Shorts. Ring. Left contact lens. Right contact lens. (heng, got 5 things)
4 things you did today:
- Went to work
- Went to gym
- Cooked Chinese Style Spaghetti with leftover Jamaican Jerk Chicken topped with Ham.
- Fulfilled my "duty" as a loving bf by writing this chain-blog thing
3 things you can hear right now: Breeze blowing my curtains, someone turning on his car engine, my housemate just opening her door.
1 thing you do when you’re bored: Surf the net.
5 ppl whom I want to do this thing:I don't want to trouble anyone doing this. But I hope AKK will jump at the opportunity... Otherwise, the chain (more like web actually) stops here.

Tuanging

For the sake of people who don't know what Tuanging means, it means idling, or avoiding work.

For the past three days, I was doing that. I actually signed up for this course "Advanced Equity Derivatives", hoping to learn something advanced about you know, equity derivatives. Unfortunately, it turned out to be actually "Really Basic Equity Derivatives". I already knew everything he had to teach.

On the first day, I thought, hell, its always good for someone to reinforce your learning you know... At the end of the day I thought, the instructor isn't even clear about what he's teaching - I may end up more confused.

On the second day, I thought, its 8 hours long of boring activity, but hell, its not work! I sit down and listen all day, make a couple of comments here and there, and yet get free lunch, still get paid, and I leave for home at 4! 4! can you imagine? I'd suffer through any boring lecture for that. By the end of the day though, I thought, I was just wasting my time. I could just have stayed at home and nobody would suspect I'm at home (the people at the office will assume I'm on course, the people on the course would assume i'm in the office).

On the third day, I thought, I'm a man of integrity. I should go for the course since I signed up for it, the instructor knows me now, and hell, its still better than working right? At the end of the day though, I'm glad I went for the course, because it ended at 3. 3! And we all headed to a nearby pub to "discuss some equity derivative related problems". Which of course included poker, somebody's wife, somebody else's girlfriend, snooker, over a seeming endless supply of beer.

Days like this come rarely. I do appreciate them though. =)

A small accomplishment

Today I ran in the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge (Whoa its a damn good marketing event la, 13,000 people participated in the run, and everyone has to call it the JPMCCC. No-wonder you have the Barclay's premiership, the Stella Artois Tennis Open etc.)

It was quite well organised I must say. Each company had a large tent where you can put down your stuff. Plenty of access to bottled water. Lots of toilets all over the place. Water point at the halfway mark. At the end of the race got water, banana, and a T-shirt. Head back to the tent for some BBQ food. Nice, everything paid for somemore. haha.. I will prob go again next year if I'm still around. Hmm. Maybe I should sign up for 10k, or half-marathon runs. Its a good motivation to get active. YEAH!

Had to leave early though, because the run was at 6.45, and by the time I felt well enough to leave for home it was already 8. Germany was playing Italy at 8. Took me an hour to get back home. Fortunately I didn't miss much as they didn't score any goals. Unfortunately, I lost 5 quid because they didn't score any goals. Ah well, its still an overall (tax-free) profit.

Cool but stupid: Magnetic Floating Bed

Got this from gizmodo:


It reads:
"Every so often, we like to take a look at things whose functionality isn’t measured in gigabytes or megabangs, but instead just look amazing. This magnetic floating bed, I submit, may be among the coolest things we’ve ever covered. Designed by Dutchman Janjaap Ruijssenaars, it’s got enough magnets to keep 900 kilograms (1,984 pounds) floating in the air. To make sure that the bed doesn’t float away should it become windy (or “interesting,” wink wink), it’s tethered to the walls by four cables.

Technically, the magnetic floating bed is for sale, but at a price of 1.2 million euros ($1.53 million), you’re not likely to find it in your local mattress store."

Its just common sense: since the bed is already "tethered to the walls by four cables", we should just do away with the magnets and suspend it by the cables.. I'm sure it'll be much cheaper.

Its Blardy Hot!!

I know most of you guys would be pronuncing the title the Singaporean way, i.e., no intonation, no accent, just "ITS BLAARDY HOT".

But for the fun of it, lets do it the British way. Try it: "Its BLAD-y HOT!". Ah, I guess intonations doesnt get conveyed just thru the spelling of the text.

Sorry about that, I guess I got a little carried away with accents after watching this movie Matchpoint. Pretty good movie, and its not just because Scarlett Johansson is starring in it. It was based in London, where this ex-tennis player becomes a tennis coach at Wimbledon, gets aquainted with the British upper-class, gets married to this sweet girl with tons of money, then gets involved in an affair with Ms Johansson. She gets pregnant, wants him to leave his wife. He's too used to the upper-class lifestyle and isn't willing to give that up. So he kills her.

Anyway, back to the point. I hate the weather here. It really sucks. One moment ago it was so cold it snows. Another moment it gets wet. Not just wet but dull gloomy misty foggy kinda wet. And now its just blardy hot! Why? Why can't the weather be like oh sunny California, where its sunny yet cool.

I'll never settle down in London. The weather may be a convenient topic to discuss over coffee/beer, but I'd rather give that up to live somewhere nicer.

Brazil Lost...

Damn it. I had high hopes on them. and high stakes.

I lost 5 pounds on them losing to France, and 4 pounds on them not winning the world cup.

Well, at least I made up for it by guessing the right number of goals...

England lost too. Quite surprising that they played better with Rooney off and with 10 men than with Rooney on. I guess England just isn't a winning team.

Training for a 5k run...

I signed up for this JP Morgan Corporate Challenge 5k run. Just for the fun of it, and also for the free T-shirt that the company is sponsoring =). When I signed up, I felt pretty confident about it - not to win the race la, to complete it in a reasonable time.

But I haven't been running for the past 2 months? Since my toenail turned black, I had several excuses not to go running. House-moving for example, my back ached for the next two days. And then I got struck down with a cold. Slight fever, then coughing and mucus and pleghm. And then the world cup. Its like the world is against me running!

I decided that if i'm going to leave some face for myself, I'd better start moving. So on Tuesday I ran on the treadmill. I started a little too ambitious, and gave up at 2.5k. Today I ran again, and managed to complete the run, though about a minute more than my best time.

ah.. boring post eh. guess nobody's interested in me going to the gym.

But wait! interesting part comes up. I went to the gym at about 4.30pm today. The gym was quite empty. Of 10 or so treadmills only 2 were taken. However, while I was at 2.5k, this plump middle aged indian man comes to the treadmill right next to me. At first it was alright yeah, until he raised his arms to press on the buttons...

* a waft of wind catches the odour under his arm and brings it straight to me *

*breathing heavily.. puff pant... then gag...*

worse still, once he starts running, he rests his arms on top of the treadmill panel! the treadmill is pretty big, the panel comes up all the way to the chest - so his arms were f88king raised!

now, imagine a plump middle aged indian man. arms raised. sweating more heavily than you who still has another 2.5k to go. less than 1m away. with the wind from the cooler blowing air from him to you. with you not being able to help but breathe heavily.

its a nightmare i tell you.

thankfully though, the nose works in magical ways. It gets desensitised after continued exposure to the same smell... and I survived the run.

House Season 2 finale

I just finished watching House, M.D., this TV serial that is really pretty good. If you haven't seen it, its about this super brilliant doctor that's arrogant and makes himself miserable. Its a fantastic show.

I was most impressed by its season 2 finale. Dr House is shot by someone. I sort-of expected that, him being the arrogant jerk, moreover this being the finale, of course something dramatic like that will happen. But I never expected the plot to develop into something else. Can't reveal too much, otherwise it'll take the fun out of the show. But, I can tell you, straight after watching it, I went online to search out a review/ critic for that episode. Its quite simply the best TV episode I ever watched.

Watch it, you won't regret it.

P.S. Its better than the action-packed Portugal vs Netherlands match.

I blame the world cup

1. For turning me into a couch potato. I've been confined indoors, with a lounge chair, a TV and a remote.

2. For distracting me at work. I can't seem to do much between 2-4, 5-7 and 8-10 for many days and more recently from 3-5, 8-10. It seems starting today my un-productive periods will be from 4-6 and 8-10.

3. For reminding me that footballers earn shitloads of money, that some girls actually dream of becoming a footballer's wife.

4. For making me pick up spread betting. Don't mean to advertise here, but do check out betfair.com. Its like trading stocks on an exchange - the prices move up or down depending on supply/demand and of course during the current match. Being careful not to get too engrossed in gambling, I'm limiting my maximum bet size to 2 pounds, which unfortunately is also the minimum bet size on the site.