Just one of those days

Just one of those days where I think about what would happen in four months.

One of those days I study until 2 AM and don’t feel sleepy.

One of those, I feel alone.

A walk down the mainroad and a right turn at Hindu temple

Loysel’s Toy.

A hidden gem in Singapore, serves decent coffee but fortyhands can beat em hands down, all forty of them.

Most importantly, I never thought I’d get to take photos of cafe like this.

vague.

I like how you keep your name in lower case.

I like how you make your sentences short.

I like how you can be so unexpectedly funny.

It was the last day of June as we know it.

Everytime I book for a taxi cab, the system would register me as Mr. Ron. Nobody knew how it ended up configured that way.

It is not like I ever cared, you get into a cab, having the only intention as getting off that thing as soon as you can. At that time I just quietly accepted the name that meant nothing.

Like what bad things could happen, had I ignored that.

Don’t go away.

Been thinking a lot about life, I think for my age, I have way too much to think about life.

Some people say it’s good, some people say I’m crazy but I guess I can’t help either ways. It is just that for my age I have gone through a lot of things people normally won’t, for better or for worse.

I’ve realised I take things seriously, even small things that I should not. I have subscribed to The Economist lately, to my horror or excitement it is a thinly looking 100 page magazine. Having to go through every single line of it and having other self study commitments, I’m as close to a lunatic as one could be.

I’ve been managing my personal finances like a company should, I keep cash balance low, take advantages of payment dates, I make sure excess cash balance is off elsewhere earning higher returns. It sounds just as what everyone should be doing, but next to peers who keep cash balance low by spending it, I think I am in a more robust model.

I take papers instead of Masters or other post-graduate programs partly because of the affordability, but I realise this is lost when you are taking way more than what people normally take. Once again I am on a suicide mission to conquer two more papers other than CFA, this time in an extremely tight deadline, the materials aren’t exactly as crazy as CFA but it is a new thing after all and there’s a lot ground to cover!

I’ve been lost amidst of connecting with people, meeting with people no longer seem worth the time, especially when people either lose their way, arrive late, fail to confirm attendance in a timely manner, ends up NOT turning up and well, I dont know, just refuse to show up on time. Guess the key is, to meet people who are worth the time, and who are worth the disappointment if it doesn’t end well.

I miss the one liner talk.

There’s a light that never goes out

Love it, when words say so little, and a photo says so much.

Muar

Was no more than a short getaway trip to Muar for social visit, of course a visit to relatives I never knew existed!

A dollar’s wager

A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, given that tomorrow is not a massive blackhole that consumes everything.

Been going through quite a funny period really. The great chase of my level 2 exam came to an end, like finally. My PR application date is set in stones and company is already processing my letter. Everything I’ve been working on seem to have came to a hiatus, hopefully not a long one.

I realised that once we are used to working on stuff, we have it engraved in our instincts without knowing it. At the very end of this, have we all became Oxes of the new era? It almost feels like they no longer plough the land, all because we are doing those by our very own.

I’ve been thinking so much lately, most probably because of the massive amounts of old films revisited and books that I’ve been bragging about. I really have lost the idea why we are working so hard and not knowing what to expect. Just lately I started reading the book on Risk Management again, and it says that we do not take risks if we do not think we will succeed. It is counterintuitive, that while we know there are chances of failure or undesirable outcome, we more often than not decide on the decision based on our dreamy outcome.

But if that is the case, why am I a working class saving hard and trying to secure a better future. Especially when the risk I am undertaking leads me to a place literally no man had ever been to?

It seems like we want to make the right choices everyday, but we can’t do so with great certainty, despite how much we want.

The end to the beginning

My paper is finally over and now I can be like a normal working person, it could be half as bad but at least I get some form of control back of my life!

All the photos in my harddrive are just staring at me knowing one day they’d be forgotten and I wouldn’t even know when to post them.

I do really hope I know how to get my life balance back as soon as possible. Honestly I do not even know how many kilometers I can run as of now, the last attempt was 4 months ago, and I seriously doubt I brought my camera with me anytime during that 4 month period.

Time really does fly and being in the workforce is something still very fresh to me, I think I am still on the right track figuring out what other things I should be involved in to add value to society, and not be focusing just on my paycheck.

Oh wait, I’m just as ready to do my paper!

CFA

The designation pursuit takes so much concentration, effort and last but not least, sacrifice. It really really better be worth it. And the quote is right, “Sometimes it means exclusion of everything else”. I really can feel how my life got OFF balance, in all areas, not proud at all about it, but my career, family, and relationship with people in general have all been affected to a certain degree because of it. Partly because I’ve got a very short time for preparation this time, a mere 4 months instead of the usual one year that takes people to complete.

Guess what, it’s less than 2 weeks away wish me luck.

Lvl II

So Here I am again.

I don’t really know what this feels like, everything is just happening blistering fast around me. I felt like I just passed CFA Level 1 and so here it comes the second paper. I kid you not, having barely more than 2 months to study and I am only done till my fourth book, it suddenly seemed justifiable to burn almost 20 days of annual leave just to study for a paper.

Fact of the day: CFA candidates plan to spend at least 300 hours, for a 6-hour paper. Every level.

As much as I hate where I am in workplace, I guess I’d just have to submit to the idea that we all go through the bad phase of things making sure we are really through, so that we won’t have to revisit the phase.

It really does benefit in developing a new personality, as much as the world would see otherwise. Yet, guess who ends up seeing it?

As I feel super connected to heaven today, and as the world would point at me and say I’m an arrogant lad perhaps, I still want to leave this composer with below.

I believe, I am not a waste of time.

Winning feels good, and I like to feel good.

Runnin’ out

I want to be back in but it is harder than I thought. I don’t know how taking photos became such a luxury and I believe this is really an understatement. Bringing my camera along was such a normal thing to do and there are even people in Melbourne who associate me directly with that. I guess working life is a totally different ball game, it is always about planning ahead.

A lot of things changed from *gasp* my last post, especially this blog, I think it has become a private journal since most people have forgotten about it anyway. I am in a position that holds so much uncertainty, in fact I don’t even know if it is a dead end despite the having all the terms being reasonable. I much rather be with financial models and spreadsheet all day. I have always doubted people who doesn’t believe money is not everything, but I think… I am challenged, so badly.

My watch died… It was a gift from someone special… I guess it should go away altogether, it is right about time. Also I would not trust anything Italian other than their cars, in just 3 years it could malfunction just like that. But I saw something handmade and mechanical, and I am in love again. In fact I am viewing the timepiece tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Shalom.

Is there all there is

Do you look at this as they are, or do you dwell on intricacies.

A bit obsession with meko

Everyone is a little too obsessed with their own pets. To prove otherwise, I should say this is just to show how drastic a haircut could change her looks.

End.

LIFE!

I think I have been busy throughout my life, for good or for bad, computer games or exams, there is rarely a moment of peace. I function on predetermined goals and doesn’t stop for refueling, Looking back at how I prepared for CFA I cannot be any prouder for myself, sacrificing so much of time and valuable opportunities is something unprecedented. I only knew we could succeed in life with priorities set right,yet I never knew priorities meant sacrificing. I even brought my books to funerals I had to attend. That or I am just not a big fan or funerals.

Corporate had minor changes in remuneration system, it came to me like a pay rise and there’s no better news than this. I am a wee bit closer to my purchase of strata title, even though it is fair to say it is too early for anything concrete.

Time to brighten up my dying blog with some photos perhaps?

Time is expensive

It feels weird to be back home. Ever since my job started, life just meant very much little to myself since I gave most of it to my job and my preparation for my paper anyway. Which was by the way, a tormenting 6 hours in total, I came out from the exam hall and could see the sun for like an hour.

For those who heard that working plus studying is the deadliest combination, you got it right. It seem perfectly sane to bring your books on a holiday. Sleep beyond 7 hours seem too costly, and it takes 30 minutes of social networking and youtube to make you feel guilty, which is why I youtube and facebook at work?

21 seems a bit premature but I began to look back at my life, realised that I was once crazy about a lot of things, relationship, photography, shopping, yes, and even pc games I was never good at. Nothing seem to stay for too long, even though none of them ever really left. It seems really bad but I am inclined to allow my passion consume myself, it makes me more alive, feels like I am working towards something, feeling less of an underachiever.

Working is a time whereby you lay down all your path verbatim from your imaginariun. For me, I take it with a pinch of salt, I never married the woman I thought I would and said I would, I never did science in Uni, I never got into ANU by 0.25 marks, I did not end up a PR in Australia, and I thought that was what I wanted ever since I was 10 or so, the wild idea nurtured from my mom’s simple question on a trip to Sydney.

I was amused by how things turn out while I was standing on the bus on my way back, I could have waited for 5 minutes until the next bus, so I could sit down on a bus like a normal person, yet I did not, I wanted to go back as early as I could make it. And where was the old guy in me?

I have a lot things I want to pursue now, maybe it is because I don’t like my current job in any way other than a stepping stone, but with enough effort and cold-bloodedness towards myself, I can get both CFA and FRM by end of 2012. I do not know where that takes me, or if there is even any synergy between the two but I got to make something happen. And that become my motto, and that I might have shamelessly quoted from some SC 2 shoutcast.

Some people think I put too much pressure on myself, and they tell me thinking that I do not know about that. I do have family members slowly walking away from the world, healthy or otherwise, one day they all have to leave.

And for myself, lastly, I haven’t done my papers, I haven’t had time to watch Gone with the wind, no time to read “I have no enemies”, "Against the gods” by Peter Bernstein, not even For One More Day, or Purpose Driven Life. Time is a lot more expensive that I thought.

An unfarmiliar face

I start to realise this is not it.

Good as such…

I need…

Nope, not a real update… Just to let people know I am still alive.

I miss doing readings in Monash Clayton and State Lib, at least that’s where I get coffee. It slowly became more than just fuel and energy. I miss the instantaneous boost in productivity albeit fleeting.

Being distracted, so distracted from studies. I even updated Chrome, Picasa and Xunlei for no apparent reason, and I moved my taskbar to the right of my desktop.

I don’t know why, maybe December is sooner than I thought.

Little press

Maybe I am a bit slow, maybe I should have known earlier, but it is no longer good enough to take care of  yourself anymore.

I think fickle is good, fickle means you take every pieces of new information to form a bigger picture, and actually basing decisions on current best grasp of the situation.

Frictional unemployment.