less cash for more time

i think quitting the part time job was a good move. i feel i have alot more time to do the things i want and needn't rush over weekend.

weekends can be spent more meaningfully these days.

saturday dearie and i helped out at mummy's. it was really hectic from 5.30pm till almost 10pm. we both smelled like bbq cuttlefish after that..but i thought lending a hand to my mummy was good. she will seldom ask..the shop is currently short handed..our extra pair of hands would have meant something. =)

sunday. we spent morning running at MR, despite the long Sat night. glad we did so..and we rewarded ourselves with wanton mee at pek kio. we could take our time to queue for it..slowly savour the food.. chit chat..without having to rush off to work. we grocery-shopped at ntuc for a while and headed home. took a 2hr nap which really charged us up. feeling refreshed, we started our work. for me i did my revision for the first 2 lessons last week.

i cooked a simple meal for dinner. john bought us all koi bubble tea - my first cup ever! i got to tinkle the ivories for about 40mins and made a good deal of noise.

it's about 10pm now. wanted to work on the presentation slides for a while and head to bed soon.

i thought it was another good weekend spent. no part time job is good! not that i earn alot from it anyway.

face the problems

while i am worried for the problems at the shop, i am sure she will emerge through it. i think problems make us stop to reflect how things are being done now.. maybe there are ways to better streamline the processes, shed unwanted stuff and bring things down to a more manageable load. don't run away from problems, face them.

there are more regulatory items on the list to address. i have sorted one of them out and i will help her shoulder more. quickly wrap up the accounts for apr.. file the necessary returns.. do up the required mandatory registrations and roll up some new reports to churn the necessary quarterly returns.

this weekend is jammed packed. going back to help brief another new staff taking over the part time position. dropping over mummy's.. pick some toiletries up.. revise through my notes and complete my homework.. minute the agm for my own reference.. work on the financial ratios to be presented over meeting. dearie and i are going to hibernate at home on sunday after the run.

i'm really thankful dearie has been helping to shoulder the housework. big hugs!

after the fool

fool's gold is a GOOD book! enjoyed reading it.

now onto something less fun..

i've got 2 technical books sitting in front of me..

and i reserved 3 more books from the library which should reach by next week.

read on!

fool's gold

this is the book i am currently reading. i've left out 3 other books in between this and investing in reits. 2 of 3 are really thin books and the 3rd isn't really worth the mention.

i will start my fics classes at smu this evening and i'm looking forward to it. the fight to get enrolled in this course was not an easy one.

recently had this "on-the-spot" feeling.. dearie said i've only "stood" there for 1 year and to progress will probably take more than 1 year.

i just want to find meaningful things to do. make the best out of my stay here.

apple

reading the newest edition of fortune magazine which was honoring great entrepreneurs.

steve jobs was first on the list.

i like this:

"... on the day Jobs launched the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked him what type of studies Apple had conducted to ensure there was a market for the computer. In a nearly offended tone, Jobs retorted, "Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?""

i think that only works for people who have that "i've got nothing to lose" attitude. bravo!

DBS CEO earned pay package of $8.8m in 2011

wow..all the talk about ministers' pay being high.. this is what i say is high.

how about translating some of that enormous pay package into a few more basis points of interest for us. the interest we earn on our savings account isn't even sufficient to cover a meal. i guess dbs probably could use all that liquidity, lent it out at 2-4% to corporates, pay us a pathetic 0.05% and keep the rest for these kind of pay packages.

more reits books

this is the new book i'm on this morning. i'm just devouring any reits books i can get my hands on. target to finish it by end of this week or early next week.

for the first time, i managed to borrow the latest fortune magazine from my company's library. hahaha..that is for diligently camping on the library portal every morning!

sale-frenzy weekend

The weekend was well spent. Dearie and I attending this private sale at Mandarin Orchard and we were absolutely appalled at how so many Singaporeans grabbed thousands of dollars worth of branded handbags without batting their eyes. I felt like some pasar malam sale!

We went into a frenzy picking of bags too. Ended with about 5 to 6 of which 3 of them were for myself (the initial plan for to find something for mummy as present). I held onto a prada bag for a good half an hour, made John help us check out the prices on the prada Italian website (we were clueless of the prices of prada bags to begin with) and then finally decided to drop all the bags and walked out of the ballroom empty handed.

Dearie thought I looked disappointed and offered to buy me whichever I chose. I rationalized hard and came to a conclusion that such events can lead to impulsive buying. I thought I will probably walk out of it thinking why did I buy this/that?

The first question I asked myself was, “is it really cheap?” though the advert was brazened with the big 75% off words, it was not necessarily applicable to ALL the bags there. In fact, after checking the original prices, we concluded it was not cheaper than Italy and not very much cheaper than what you could have gotten in the boutiques. Then I asked myself, “given that it is not very cheap, is this what you would have gotten given a choice?” dearie picked an orangy-brown prada wallet for me. honestly, given a choice, I would have gotten a pink one. last but most important question, “do I need it?” answer has to be no. so we walked out, not any richer but not $1.8k poorer.

We went on to taka to find something for mummy and at the same time chanced onto a good buy. I got 2 bags from dearie, a lot prettier and cuter.. and in leather.

Managed to accomplish a fair bit of other things too. dearie and I caught a separation at cathay. We did our rr and mr runs. Visited the library and got 6 books. We went to pek kio for a good brunch on Sunday. I managed to complete mummy’s accounts for feb. cooked curry for dinner. Played the piano. All in all, I thought I spent my time well.

It’s the start of the week again, not one that is too long I hope. I finished one of the REIT book (short 70 pages) on my trip to work. let’s see what else I’ll put up for read next.

new treasure trove found

reading the adapt book gave me such a headache. gave up on it. argh. i hate a lousy read.

dearie brought me to the np library today. wowowowow..it's like a treasure trove! i borrow 6 books just today. enough to last me for 2 months! =D

i'm going to start on the book on REITs. I'm hungry to learn more about the business my company is in.

we spent a splendid day today. got my mum 2 presents and she likes them. =) we ate..watched a separation.. shopped (i've got 2 new bags courtesy of dearie!).. it's a good day!

history book?

i have finished smart trust. it's a feel-good book.

next up is "adapt: why success always starts with failure". i'm one-third through the book and there's this big question mark on the top of my head, "is this a history textbook?" the author goes on and on about the american history in iraq...gosh. i'm never much a history person to begin with..so it's boring me to tears. as i flipped to the next chapter ahead, i thought i saw MORE history in them.

i seldom give up on my books half way (i can only think of black swan), but if i reach half way and it's still rambling about history (not that i destest reading history but i borrowed this book with a different set of expectation. the title looks NO WAY like a history book right?).

i hate a lousy read.. feels like a waste of time sometimes. i can better spend my time reading other more constructive stuff. bleah.

reads for the week

done with this! not a bad read. scanned some pages for keeps

now onto this. last of the 3 books from the library. put in a new request for a new book this morning. hehee

biking on the spot

uneventful weekend after a long week at work. somewhat aimless, but i guess it's sometimes good to just do nothing much.

lots of chatter with the half ironman today and other races when we were at asics getting our trail shoes. i can't help wishing i was part of those some events, which would give me something to talk about and train towards.

the run at mr felt exceptionally difficult these days. it's like chasing a bus that seems to be pulling a distance further away; i don't think i can catch up anymore.

tossing with the idea of meeting bel up for morning runs at the padang. i think it'll give both of us some discipline in running more regularly, though logistically more cumbersome.

i think work has gotten somewhat more interesting with the ongoing project. hopefully that fuels me long enough for the next 9mths, to reach the 2 year mark.

my posts sound boring these days. i only talk about my lack of training. my somewhat boredom at work. books i read. what else can i talk about. hmm.

other avenues of learning

i have been eyeing on a masters of applied economics course with NUS or SMU but i don't have the spare $20-30k to do so.

dearie introduced me to the MIT open courseware. it is a blessing! i hope they do add on more lecture videos to econs and management modules. i started on the introduction to microeconomics during lunch today. 34mins and it was superb! to me it's relearning economics again.. and i can distinctly tell the difference between the lectures i have attended compared to this. can't wait to start on the next chapter. this, to me, is a marvellous way to spend my lunch time - learning.

please upload more lectures! i'll scoure for more lectures on itunes after this. hehe.

received all 3 library books today! woohoo!! i'll start with the macroeconomics one. quite a thick book. i'll give myself a week to complete that.

my SMU course has been approved..so that means i'll get to embark on it come early apr and it'll keep me busy till end of may. assessment is end of Jun. am i weird? i'm actually looking forward to going for courses. and i'm just glad i can spend 3 months doing something that will earn me a small certification plus a baby step towards what i feel will be useful for my career!

learning should never stop and i'm just only getting started =)

holy grail

finished the china price this morning. the book is GOOD!! (one of those i won't mind owning a copy, but unfortunately we haven't got such space to house a mini-library of books)

i am learning and making alot of sense out of the books i read these days.

waiting for this book to come via dispatch.

in the meantime, i have already lined 2 more up after this. i am lucky to find the new titles this morning before the email blast was sent out. reserved 2 out of 6 new titles and i hit my loan limit.

in the meantime, filling the gap between now and the arrival of the holy grail, i'll be going through some tax updates and forex-for dummies.

the china price

done with fixing global finance. it's much a macroeconomics book. good for those with a sound understanding of economics. statistical. not a bad book but i think more for the scholastic readers. most of the time i plug in to music while i read on the trains. for this book, i needed to concentrate to think through what was written and i couldn't even have music in my ears.

for suggestion for the publisher if they do another edition of this book - widen the spacing please? it will help make reading more comfortable.

this new book is soooo timely. i book-dropped the fixing global finance today and this book came in the afternoon. and being kiasu of having some time lapse between the time i finish this book and going onto the next, i have made reservation for a new book which should come by next week. woohoo!

best thing about this book? it's paperback. hahaha!

strange me, i feel invigorated with the reading. can't wait to start on this.

impetus to study

a sudden surge of envy came over me today. seeing local uni grads have such an edge made me feel unjust and tempted to enroll myself into a local uni too.

i wish i could have done so for my masters back then..but local unis claimed they don't recognise acca. sigh. one of my regrets in life is not having the chance to study in a local uni.

i kept scrolling through the sponsorship pages on our intranet. i could try asking for a scholarship, but also being mentally prepared of a likely 2.5years bond. i stopped short though, because i know my bosses are not pro-education.

keeping my fingers crossed, no hiccups to my oct block leave.

friends are posting photos of tokyo marathon. i miss that run soooo much. i wish i can do that run again.

time to read my book and lie in bed. run run tmr morning!

weekend done

it's been quite a fruitful weekend.

finished 2 months' of accounts for mummy.

handed my part time job over to the new lady. the rush this morning affirmed that stopping this job is the right thing to do. won't have to gobble down my sunday breakfast no more!

ran mr this morning. did circuit on sat evening. feeling healthy!

japanese curry attempt was flunked! it ended tasty neither like japanese curry nor chinese curry. blame it on the lousy recipe! hahaha!

never throw away a pair of chaco sandals. stupid tricia threw it away when it could have helped save us 20% on new pairs! arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! so angry with myself. dearie needs a pair for his upcoming camp, so heck the 20% discount. i'm going to get it for him.

visited ling with mummy and dearie today. glad she's doing well after delivering max! he's so tall for a 2 weeks' old!

haven't done much of the reading i intended. oops!

why are the prices of the handsets not coming down? why don't they release some new phones soon? so i can lay my hands on a new hp!

time to watch a tv show and get an early night. back to work tomorrow.

next weekend will be good! dearie's bringing me to movies! =D

new book fix

yay! the book from the library is here!

this is my new read for next week..maybe for the weekend too!

being book-less can be soooo aimless! i don't know where to look at in the mrt. i can literally feel my brain coming to a halt. not good!

something to read keeps my mind stimulated. =)

cycle coe

one of the biggest contributors to the ever rising inflation in singapore is the price of cars.

we read cpi is up 4.8%. last round of coe prices jumped too. we don't need to read the tarot cards to see coe prices staying elevated for the near future. there's a whole slew of rants on coe prices hurting the middle class.

i think we seriously need to rethink our lifestyles. is there a better way to commute to work? i wish i have the option of cycling to work, but i have scoured my entire building to only find one toilet that has a shower. i think more can be done to encourage people to find alternative ways to get to work.

it has to be a paradigm shift in mindset. First, stop lamenting and whining, because that doesn't solve the problem. Second, it's about understanding what are the daily things we do adding towards the environment as a whole. look at the drastic climate change we are already experiencing. try taking a deep breathe in cities like beijing and hongkong. what kind of a world have we created at our convenience? Third, corporations must stop thinking it's all about profit. it's not. what are they doing at the expense of our future generations?

so we ask, how much can we do as it's just an effort of one or few. but imagine if everyone start being more conscientious of what goes into the environment and does abit. then the impact will be great.

should i write to the big big boss and start asking him to do more for staff who are keen to find alternative ways to get to work? afterall, we pride ourselves with the many green projects we do, don't we? haha

ongoing efforts

with our ongoing efforts to improve ourselves, dearie and i took up a new challenge - learning and re-learning chinese.

john has kindly loaned dearie a K2 chinese textbook, which he has embarked on saturday. i was pretty appalled how difficult chinese is for the children these days, i didn't remember chinese being so tough back in my kindy years.

for me, being the cheapo i always am, will be attempting to do my own reading instead of enrolling for the chinese business courses earlier planned. i think cost is one factor and not having a friend to go with can make it quite lonely.

hence, i resolved to start reading My Paper on a daily basis, as it has a fairly short chinese section, which i deem manageable for my snail-pace chinese reading. in effort to be more environmentally friendly, i am going to read the e-version (though the toggling of the page is proving to be such a nuisance).

Hopefully we can both keep this up, because knowing how to read, write and comprehend chinese is an asset in the coming decade at least.

I'm doing a little research on the S-Reits as part of work now. Pretty interesting to go through all the results and presentation slides from all the S-Reits. Should I stay on in the Reits industry? If yes, should i do the CMFAS reits management paper? after so long, i'm still circling around this.

Not reading any book at the moment. sent an inquiry to check on my reit book that was suppose to come.

running has been on a slackened mode. something inside of me says i should be more disciplined about it but i guess that's not of much importance for dearie for now. it is hard for me to ask for more than what i am already given.

alright..back to reading. ought to give my cv some botox as well, spruce it up a little. =)