these are what i will be getting myself as reward when i graduate (if i do!) by dec. this is bait for me to work really hard. wooohoo.. and i think it'll be timely as i reckon my kanebo skin care should be depleted by dec. after all the raves about this skin care range..i am tempted to try. but it comes with a hefty price tag..which i will budget into my bonus distribution.
i am such an extravagant. but it's just once in a blue-purple-pink moon..so let me indulge! =D
the picture tells nothing of what i want to write about..but i thought it is a cute picture that reflects some happiness.. and that's exactly what i am filled with now.
happiness. relief to be more exact. yayyyyyyyyyyyy.. i cleared EVA.. it is merely a pass.. nothing to boast about..but i am thankful to pass because the assignment was very challenging..and the paper wasn't easy.
so that wraps up term 2 of 2009. one credit, one pass and a happy tricia.
portfolio management was wonderfully delivered by dr ali over the weekend. there was not a single moment did i want to doze off despite feeling extremely drained from training and long hours in class. looking forward to attempting the assignment,...but i first got to clear my FIS assignment which is still half done. oops.
cpa pre admission test was nuts. 125 questions in 1.5hours. majority mcq with some short answers. i could not even complete the paper. i feel lousy after the paper ended.. something like fis in term 1.
i learnt alot about financial assets, funds..tried to use the solver.. i learnt about allocation of assets..and how it is adjusted according to our risk appetite..investment horizon.. required return. i've been running through what was taught in the 3 days and i have to say all these new information is mind blowing. that's probably because i have been this toad sitting in a 3 feet deep well, oblivious to all the things going on outside.
But no more is tricia going to be that country pumpkin..though i may look like one. =P jia you. i must work harder. learn. apply. grow.
several things made some marked movements yesterday.
- some team issues were addressed. Will update the runners accordingly tomorrow. There are still details to be worked out so I’m hoping for more forthcoming response.
- trained with dearie at stadium yesterday and I managed to follow what he set out for me to do. Pleased with my timing, except for the 400m sprint at the end. When I reached the 300m mark, I could not even lift my legs. They felt like 2 anvils, which I was dragging over the last 100m. I only managed a 1.36 and (I know I shouldn’t have) I threw my temper. I raised my voice to tell him we have just done 10km of race pace, and another 400m sprint was crazy. =( sorry dearie.. I was just angry with myself. You are right, I am not conditioned to do that 400m..hence the lousy timing.
- managed to complete one longggg assignment question on yield to maturity. I need to make faster progress as the due date is drawing near. I need to sleep, eat and live FIS!
Icpas pre-ad classes start tomorrow again. I’ll be doing the cbd march again! Hehe. I am kind of looking forward to get out of tuas for now.
It will be a hectic thurs to sun.
Thurs – pre ad class. Revise for pre ad test on fri. Fri – pre ad class in the morning. pre ad test in the after noon. Dinner at mummy’s! (that’s the best part of the day) last up, Portfolio class 7-10pm. Sat – team training at MR (I missssss running at MR. Was just telling dearie I should have lost my ‘trail form’ as we haven’t trained at MR for almost 2 months.) classes from 1-8pm. Dinner at mummy’s, with dearie =) Sun – training at ecp. Have to start at 6am to complete the 21km by 8am. Classes from 9-4pm. I reckon I will want to go home and sleep after which.
We are drawing very close to ahm and I must keep my form up. Dearie has been helping me to get my workout in place and he has been working hard too. Our aim is to do a personal best for ourselves.. and better the seremban timing. Haven’t quite decided on scsm.. to do or not to do. Honestly a bit bored with it..but we are in pretty good form this year.. should we just go and do a good timing for keeps?
1. went for a 20.6km run at rifle range with the team. It was a painful run but enjoyed the entire process.
2. got home by mid noon. napped for an hour. woke up feeling refreshed.
3. started on my fis assignment. got to pull my socks up!
4. cooked 4 teriyaki chicken burgers for a cost of $5. yummmmmyy slurps. that's what i call good home cooked dinner. =)
5. dearie and i went for a walk at the park connector. we walked for more than 1km before we thought we should bike instead! quickly walked home, pumped up the air of our mtb and took it out for a spin. It was a windy cooling evening so being out was perfect.
6. came home and had a nice ice cold coke light.
7. sitting here starting on my assignment again =)
8. turning in early for the day as we will be running tomorrow morning.
photos of our dinner.
we cooked the chicken and pan toasted the bread.
notice the added eggs too! dearie calls it ramly special.
dearie eating longevity noodles. it is a must for dearie's bday. longevity noodles+2hard boil eggs!
i think i did a better job this year..compared to last. haha.. is it dearie?
mummy bought 2 brownies for dearie. brownie is dearie's favourite.. and we gotten these 2 from brownie factory (taka basement).. the top seller is yummy-licious!
posing for a photo before it disppears =)
i played and sang a birthday song for dearie. playing was off..singing was out of tune..but i guess it's the thoughts that count =)
hope you've had a good birthday. and for many more birthdays to come =)
I composed an entry earlier this morning but all was wiped out because my pc went kaput and I had not saved the file. Sigh.
I wrote about my experience at shenton way. I wrote about how I missed the cbd march and longed to be part of the contingent one day. I wrote about coming back to a seat that has memorized my curves. While I fell back into the comfort zone I have demarcated, my pc acted up.
Apparently, the power supply has been cut off. With no warning, rhyme nor reason, the screen blacked out and the cpu could not be revived. I bade it goodbye and relocated to the seat opposite my current. Dearie called it a promotion and boy is it a promotion to celebrate about.
I now swear sisterhood with newspapers, boxes and empty files. My new position as “warehouse manager” allows me to work off a dim CRT, windows 2000, and a 391,536KB Ram (not sure how slow/lousy that is but I know my laptop has 3gb ram?). I tried to make it play some music but realize there is no sound output. Argh. With all that in consideration, it is perhaps a downgrade more than a promotion?
In another light, this seat is giving me another perspective to the office I work in. it’s a secluded corner and I have a wall on the right of me and half a partition behind me. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic; I kind of like the “security” the partition and wall are giving me. It feels more “contained” in some ways.
I am reminiscing the clattering noise of cbd march. I like the glitzy array of fashion ladies dorn and suave men all over the place. A little part of me questioned if I will one day be in that contingent.
You know, have an office over looking some parts of the cbd. Like May puts it “reserving seats with tissue paper”.. dressed in suit, pencil skirts, heels and coach bags. I just want to be a true professional. Work in a professional environment. Do some meaningful work. Make some important decisions.
I dream. And I can still hear the clatter of heels at the back of my head.
I deprived my dearie of good hawker food with this..but he looks like he's enjoying it hor? =P
My Champ! Mr Dearie Tey!
1st time i'm seeing a cheque with 3 signatories.
it seems like dearie is SHARING his prize money with me.. hehe..i'm trying to pry it out from his hands actually...hohoho
Dearie's impressive timing. V impressive for a 21k.
My timing. Not fantastic but my personal best.
Our lunch before departing Seremban. Ah Dee Lou Shu Fen. Yummmyyyy..but guilty la..( will post the Hakka Mee soon!)
I’m back! The trip to Seremban was fantastic and I enjoyed myself tremendously. Why?
1. Seremban is only 3 hours drive away from Singapore. The travelling wasn’t that taxing on dearie =)
2. The food was absolutely fabulous! We tried the famous must-tries: Tow Kee Hakka Mee and Lou Shu Fen..yummy yummy.. we could have eaten a good dinner but thanks to my stupid suggestion, we ended up eating tortillas and bbq chicken.
3. Dearie brought me to the movies! We caught Obsessed. The movie was mediocre but the company made all the difference =)
4. Both of us did a PB during the race =) Dearie came in 10th in the men’s’ closed category with a timing of 1.28 while I came in 12th in the women’s open at 1.56. Dearie won rm100 prize money! Woohoo! It was a hilly run but the route was good. Not so crowded.. traffic was ok.. and the whole race was well organized. Best of all, the weather was great; cloudy and windy. Perfect. (dearie must write the race report!! Because he ran with a KENYAN lady! Wooow!)
Sham’s training really paid off as I know how hard I was running.. and I could rake up my energy to sprint towards last 1km. I didn’t expect the route to be so hilly.. from the start to the end it was slopes never ending.. the mr trainings were good.. the np hill runs came in helpful..and the track training.. made a difference. Something I thought I should have done, which I did not, was to train 21k at race pace. I have taken the 20k runs too easy for the past months.. it was only last week’s 17k did I start to run harder.. I think it wasn’t suffice. It’s ok, lesson learnt. Will be taking a different training strategy towards AHM.
5. Dearie brought me shopping and we got some good deals in our grocery and toiletries shopping. I got 2 pairs of shoes at 20% discount at vincci too.
6. The hotel, Seremban Inn, which we stayed in is value-for-money. It's very clean, the service was good, located very near the race start (less than 1km run away)...the bed was very comfy.. all for rm80. Thumbs up!
I enjoyed this trip immensely.. thank you dearie for everything.
This race gives me good momentum up to AHM. I’m going to work harder for a better timing. =) dearie, you must jia you too!
Dearie ran with me yesterday. I started with 7 laps and he paced me for 13laps. I targeted to do 8km in race pace of 45mins..and I achieved it! Dearie kept encouraging me to keep the pace and at every lap he would tell me my timing. That really helped me tremendously to keep pace and listen to how hard I was pushing. He also reminded to keep my breathing regular and calculated my km/h pace (I’ve got no idea how he could compute that) He helped me achieve a negative split timing =) some pointers I got from this session:
- my race pace is 2:17min/lap. To keep within 1-2sec frame is the target.
- breathing is very important. I gasped during my 8-10th lap and it affected my pace.
- training must be at constant speed.. dearie kept emphasizing that. Constant. Constant constant. Oki. No more chionging at the end for me in the next few weeks’ training to come. I must know that it is the half marathon I am training for, not 8km race.
- do more warm up. Because I think I used the first 1km to warm up my legs and hence I was stressed out at the end of not being able to hit target. and yes..got to relax during run.
- rest is important. I was exhausted from the long weekend and I was not able to run properly on Tuesday. i was practically dragging my feet along 3km. sleep is king, indeed!
Dearie went to register for school today. It was funny listening to him rant about getting lost at campus. That's a problem i wish i had..haha..but my school is so small, it's difficult to get lost.
Over the radio a couple of days ago, it was reported that in the years to come, HALF of Singapore population will hold at least a degree. Having a degree will soon become a Norm.
As I re-read the earlier parts of this post, I like that parallelism I can draw from running in application to life. Knowing pace. Rest. Constant speed. And I think knowing the end point ranks most important of all.
with the lowering of savings rate from 0.125% to 0.1%, i might as well keep my money in the cookie tin than leave it in the bank.
it's time to invest your money instead of leaving it in the savings account, losing value. if inflation is 6% p.a and interest rate is 0.1% p.a, you are effectively losing 5.5%p.a value of whatever you put in the bank.
no wonder the recent singapore bonds issue was over subscribed.
Tuition wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. I feel rusty after the half year break away from tutoring, the syllabus wasn’t at my fingertips anymore. The struggled with some questions on topics which I didn’t deal with on a daily basis.. so I was stumped. Didn’t like that feeling to be honest.. and I know that if I want to get them all back, I had to do my homework of reading through the past year papers, understanding the formats required and prepare for each class. I didn’t like going there unprepared as words didn’t flow out of me like second nature. i don’t tutor as a profession.
It is not being fair to the student if I do not do my homework. However I am reluctant to commit from now till her exam in nov. the 2 modules next term will demand more from me.. hence I’m kind of stuck right now. I hate waking up feeling tired. I hate not being able to do my easy runs. I am not sure if I have the time to prepare for classes. The motivation to continue is the hope to see her do well in it and the monetary supplement I can gather from the effort.
I despise myself that I do not earn a comfortable sum of money that can eliminate the 2nd motivation almost instantly. i’ll give myself more time to reconsider on this.
I remember when I stepped into this company more than 2 years ago, I told my boss my plan in the next 5 years was to be a member with icpas. I wanted to go full force towards career progression. After working hard for the last 2 years plus, I looked back from where I commenced and I can tell myself I have progressed.
Nevertheless, the fish tank only has that much space and does not grow any bigger than it is. I continue to swim to and fro this tank right now; mastering the skills to glide and move swifter. Yet, this is something I hope I needn’t be doing in the next decade to come. Hopping out will take a lot of courage and I am not sure how much bigger the next tank will be.. or will it be the frying pan? but if I don’t try, I will continue to go round and round this tank. I do not count on the tank expanding in the short-mid term and I do not want to raise my hopes on anything. Nothing is promised and I doubt there will be anything offered.
Darn it on the economic crisis, sweeping away with it opportunities and career options.
Hang on tricia. 6 more months to graduation. 10 more months to get icpas and acca membership. Don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. It will get better.
I hope dearie’s career will gain leverage. Like ma always remind us, “remember we must not let others look down on us.” I hope to move up a gear too, once I gain momentum to shift out of the inertia state.
these are what i will be getting myself as reward when i graduate (if i do!) by dec. this is bait for me to work really hard. wooohoo.. and i think it'll be timely as i reckon my kanebo skin care should be depleted by dec. after all the raves about this skin care range..i am tempted to try. but it comes with a hefty price tag..which i will budget into my bonus distribution.
