A Priori Ad Infinitum

Happy Valentine's Day! =)

2012-02-14T18:35:00.000+08:00

To all my friends whether you're celebrating or not, Happy Valentine's Day! I've learnt something more significant today that Valentine's Day is not only constrained to showing love to your loved one, but rather showing love to everyone around you. But this is a very common misconception that 80% of people make, that Valentine's Day is only reserved for couples to show their love towards one another by buying extravagantly on roses and chocolates (mainly), not for others.

Well I was part of the statistics above before this. Thanks to Alicia, she acknowledged me by keeping herself busy yesterday night just to wrap up nicely some Valentine's gifts (Ferrero Rocher) for friends around her. Valentine's Day is simply a day to spread love to everyone around you, not only your loved one. She's just that lovely haha! =)) God bless her always!

The message above is indeed very true and shall be the first message for Valentine's Day. God loves us so much that he could sacrifice his only Son to save the undeserving us, to reconcile the relationship with Him. Time to ponder upon your relationship with God? Stop hurting His feelings and start obeying Him! =)

Oh by the way, here is a link to economics freaks for Valentine's Day! 14 Ways an Economist Says I Love You Enjoy haha! =D

While everyone is busy celebrating Valentine's Day, today is my mom's birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy Birthday mummy!!!!!!! You are the best mom in the world, although many times I fight with you verbally over random things. I'm sorry for being so disobedient sometimes, for being so rude to the extent of making you cry. =( It was just my irrational behaviour that overwhelmed me at that particular moment. I'm sorry. Although many times I get annoyed by your remarks on certain things, but you will always be the one and only best mom I ever have. Thank you for introducing this world to me, and thanks for the opportunity that you've given me to grow up healthily by feeding me consistently no matter how poor you are. Thank you for teaching me many things and be my 'first' countless times. No matter how busy your working hours are, you will always be there for us. Thank you! =') I LOVE YOU always, and will always do! <3

By the way, Whitney Houston just died on the past Sunday. I just woke up on Sunday morning and about to get myself prepared for Sunday service at church. I online a while and saw this sad news. I never actually knew who was Whitney Houston but I definitely know the song above. That was me who know the song but never cared about the singer. Now I do, though. Her voice was so angelic, her music was so legendary and shall live forever. You will be greatly missed, Whitney. =(

Anyway, I was quite happy when I went to gym yesterday! It's been more than a week since my last exercise in gym so I weighed myself again to see if there's any changes throughout this week. Guess what? On the Friday before last week, I was weighed 85.3kg and had fat percentage of 27.6%. Now, I'm weighed 83.7kg and have a fat percentage of 26%! I'm progressing well through healthy diet, albeit never go to gym last week due to busy schedules and random occasions. Looks like my healthy diet has started to show its result this time! Definitely aiming for more! 10kg lost is not impossible with Him! Amen! =D

Wooohooo Acts Campus Camp is coming this weekend at Bayu Beach Resort, Port Dickson! So looking forward to it cause I know it's going to be fun! But first thing I need to do before going to camp is wash up all my clothes by myself since I'm not going back home this weekend. But I know it's worth it! =) So excited now! Can't wait hahaha! Weeeeeeeeee~ xD

That's all for now! Till then. =)

Taking a Break! =)

2012-02-11T22:41:00.001+08:00

It's been more than a month since my last consumption of fried food. Since I started to control over my diet, I completely cut off all fried food and started to eat good food. What is meant by good food here is those enriched with protein and preferably low carbs, and high in fibre with considerable amount of good fat (peanut butter, olive oil etc).

Today my mom's friend Justin came over to visit my house. He's a big guy, a bit fat though, and he has known me since I was quite small and even back when I was still staying at my old house in Taman Sri Rampai (Setapak, Kuala Lumpur). He's a security manager who could easily earn RM10k monthly as his base salary, just by specialising in everything regarding security. Err, yes security here literally means protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime, rather than security as financial instrument. Somewhat unbelievable but it's true story.

After around an hour of talking and gossiping with my mom (haha yes everyone gossips I believe), he brought us to Puchong to eat its famous Puchong Yong Tau Fu (the shop simply named Puchong Yong Tau Fu, located opposite SK Puchong Batu, near LDP Highway). Without fried food, it would not have been a complete set of traditional Yong Tau Fu. And believe it or not, it was really piquant! =) I was trying to resist the temptation of eating more but eventually failed. Well, a bit. Just a little bit more than usual appetite. It was just a lunch anyway, not dinner.

Puchong Yong Tau Fu! =D Super crispy but frigtening! =O

Fried Brinjal with pork meat sandwiched! Naiseeee! =D

Ji Bao Gai (paper wrapped chicken)! Delicious~ =)))

So that's it! Feeling hungry now? It's highly recommended but beware of your diet! It's okay though to take a break once in a while after months of controlling your diet! =) Till then.

Updates on Second Week of February! =)

2012-02-10T00:31:00.000+08:00

I didn't go to gym this week, nope not even once! =( Attributes to the public holidays on Monday and Tuesday, I was staying at home all the while. I couldn't go to gym as it is located in Summit Subang Jaya and I wasn't in Casa. But on Monday I went to Times Square to meet up with a friend and unexpectedly met some other friends too! Aina just came back from Melbourne and is doing internship now with Security Commission (she's a Sime Darby scholar, though). Knew her back in June 2010 when I entered college and she already half way through her SAM programme.

With Aina! =D

Pavillion's awesome CNY decoration of Dragon! Peace! =D

Again, nice decoration! =D

With Aina, Han Shen (center) and his friends! =)

So the outing was really awesome! After one year of studying degree in Accounting and Finance in the University of Melbourne, Aina shared with me some of the thoughts she have on her study and this includes a fair bit of stock market. So far she only covered topics on Accounting and going to cover modules in Finance in her coming second year.

Although I'm just a college student, I enthusiastically shared with her my thoughts about stock market. The only thing I'm lacking now is the experience of trading, and for that I'm going to start gaining experience once I graduated from the university. One more thing that I want to build within me is my mindset, cause it's very important to have a clear and right mindset to trade in the market. For that I would slowly learn by reading books on correct mindset written by successful people particularly in this trading line. Found out about this book and I heard that it's good to read. A Gift to My Children - A Father's Lessons For Life and Investing (by Jim Rogers, one of the most successful investors), a book intendedly written for his young daughter to teach her important values of life to achieve success and happiness. Adding this book into cart of RM200 book voucher! =p

I'm lacking of exercise this week! Usually I will go to gym at least 3 times per week (usually on alternate days) and this week none! What happened? I was quite busy on Wednesday and yesterday (Thursday), occupied with thing to be done and event to be attended. Thing to be done? I sound so busy haha!

Tell you what, I drove from home to college on Wednesday and after college I drove back to my secondary school (ASiS) in Bandar Tun Razak, Cheras, to take my SPM certificate. WHAT?!?!?! Yea I know, now only I want to go back right haha! I went back to school with Jeremy Wee (one of my best friends in school) and we chatted with many teachers, one of whom was Pn. Quake (Biology teacher (the only Chinese teacher after Pn. Ding, my Add Maths teacher left) but never taught me). We talked like some sort of old friends and from there I've really learnt a lot about a teacher's life, and apparently it's not as easy as one might have thought. I knew about her age by the way hehe, but she definitely doesn't look old at all! She looked like 20+! =O We gossiped a lot but I shall keep it to myself haha! =p

What about event to be attended? High Flyers Club, or in simplistic language, Taylor's Scholars Club, have organised an event specifically to celebrate Chinese New Year. Again I saw lion dance! I'm now wondering why I got to watch so many lion dance performance this year, in relative to other years. Some years none, and this year at least 5! >.< Perhaps God wants to entertain me before I fly overseas and never get the opportunity to watch lion dance performance for the next 2-3 years. Haha thanks anyway! =)

Anyway, just to update you on my study! I'm quite happy recently cause Miss Wong (my new FM 2 lecturer) gave me so many exercises on Simple Harmonic Motion (a Mechanics topic which I was so afraid of since the first time I learnt it last year), and eventually me getting attuned to it and able to solve complicated questions on SHM. I'm a happy boy! =D

That's all for now! Ciao~ =)

February's Updates! =)

2012-02-05T12:08:00.000+08:00

Hello people! Sorry for the hiatus as I got very lazy to update my blog lately after a whole day of classes and gym training (again on alternate days). Happy news! I've dropped 0.1kg in 4 days! Well not that impressive, but my bodyfat percentage dropped from 28.9% (on Monday) to 27.6% (on Friday), which is surprisingly lower than that before CNY (28%)! Good progress I think, lose fats but gain muscles to accommodate the weight lose. My dinner for every weekday is just as simple (and healthy?) as follow: 1 apple, 2-3 small bananas, 2 slices of wholemeal bread with peanut butter spread and about 200ml of low fat milk. That sounds a bit like my breakfast, without eggs. I'm done with my dinner. =) Yes I might get hungry when the time passes 11.30pm, so I would usually drink some low fat milk or maybe just plain water to kill my hunger temporarily. And I will sleep early, usually around 12.30am.

Biological fact about hunger is, to my amusement, hormones balancing between leptin and ghrelin. Whenever stomach feels hungry, it would secrete hunger hormone called ghrelin, turning on the hunger cell and off the satiety cell, reducing metabolic rate and inducing the desire to eat something to kill hunger. Whenever stomach feels full, it would secrete leptin, turning on the satiety cell and off the hunger cell, increasing metabolic rate and that's when one will start feeling full and stop eating. Haha so much of biological facts! But I wanted to convey is, drink plain water can actually temporarily kill hunger until you fall asleep. Well you wouldn't feel hungry when you are sleeping like a dead pig, right? I hope not. =p

Recently I've asked a question to a staff working in the HR department with my sponsor, and the answer clarified everything that I would need to know regarding my decision on UK universities. I was proposing an alternative whether I could self-sponsor for my final year of MMORSE in the University of Warwick, and what she replied was, reaffirming yet hope crushing, answer. It would be a deferment of my service with the Bank by so doing, which is not permissible since year 2011. Strong answer, I thought. Because of this answer I've since decided my firm and insurance universities.

Actuarial Science (3 years) at Cass Business School would grant me maximum number of 8 papers exemption from the Institute of Actuaries UK, while MORSE (3 years) at the University of Warwick would only grant me maximum number of 2-3 papers exemption. Before this, MMORSE (4 years) is longer in time frame and less one paper exemption (7 papers) than Actuarial Science (3 years) at Cass, but the fact that I am opened to choosing many interesting and fun optional modules totally surmounts the disadvantages of longer time frame and lesser paper exemption.

Now, the cost of taking another 5-6 papers on my own (should I choose MORSE over Actuarial Science) is, in my opinion, more immense than the satisfication I would otherwise gain by taking up those optional modules offered in MORSE. I still can't believe that I would not have the chance to learn number theory formally. =( Number theory, Geometry and Motion, Quantum Phenomena, Particle Physics, Astronomy, Classical Mechanics and Relativity, Stars, Galaxies etc. All these are some of the optional modules that I find it interesting and yearn to learn, and would never had the chance to learn it in Cass. This is one of many moments when I'm envious over the freedom of private students.

On the bright side, Cass is not at all that bad. Cass is afterall one of the top, if not the top, institutions to prepare students for actuarial profession, with Heriot-Watt, Oxford (Maths & Stats), Warwick (MMORSE) be others (in no particular order). Cass is the first institution in England to offer Actuarial Science degree (second in the UK, with the first be Heriot-Watt), and also the forth best business school in the UK (behind London Business School, Said Business School (Oxford) and Imperial College Business School), based on the Financial Times's business school ranking 2011. Judging the fact that Cass is a business school located in the center of financial district in London, I know I would have a very high chance to meet people with similar interest and share knowledge with them, particularly on finance, investment and even trading! Can't wait for another 8 months and definitely looking forward to it! =)

I would put Cass Business School as my firm and Heriot-Watt University as my insurance. Oh by the way, congrats to those who received offers from LSE to read Accounting and Finance! Some of my friends have already received offer from LSE to read Actuarial Science, and I'm still waiting for mine. =/ But I'm not really keen to going there anyway. Just trying to join in the hype and excitement with an offer from LSE! =p Cass FTW! =D

Back to Library! =)

2012-01-31T21:21:00.000+08:00

I'm ALIVE! And the chestpain hitting me yesterday has subsided, though minor pain still can be felt occasionally. The bliss of living another day enlivens my day with gratefulness; appreciating every single moment through. One of my friends told me the primary reason for not having new year resolutions is, due to highly probable restrictions faced to sole new year resolutions and no further plans. For new year resolutions are deterministic and impromptu plans are pure randomness. 'Live up the day as if everyday was the last day you have' was what my friend told me, and I fully concur with the implication of contributing significances to the society by practicing such wise advice.

Well I'm back to the library! err, yeah college's library if you are wondering. There lies many memories of mine, particularly college life, for the past 19 months. It's been more than 6 months now since my last staying back in the library, mainly after I started joining gym back in July. I prefer not to stay back too late in college, especially the day that I have planned to exercise in the evening after college (mostly Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with the other two weekdays as resting days). But now I have made up my mind, that I shall stay back in college until 4pm everyday to revise my study.

I saw many new faces just now, and the library was as crowded as usual. As usual there were some couples studying together in the library (sorry couldn't help but noticing haha! =p), reminding me of my previous crush back in January last year. But the fact that she stopped studying in Taylor's after securing an post-SPM oversea scholarship faded my feeling towards her gradually. Might just be another puppy love afterall. Ops, too much of privacy disclosure haha! =p

Well, it's time to start my revision now! No matter how thick are my Economics notes, somehow or rather I must start it somewhere. So here it goes! =)

Heartburn! =(

2012-01-30T23:33:00.000+08:00

As the title stated, I bet you guys remember I experienced chestpain (if you have been following my posts since before CNY) when I drank cold Coca-Cola at a very fast speed. Well, this pain persisted until now although the medicine prescribed by the second doctor did alleviate the pain slightly, to the extent of not bothering me; and eventually I stopped the consumption of the medicine altogether.

Till now, I can still feel pain at my chest occasionally, although not that severe to the extent as if a knife stabbing at my chest. Yes the pain is that intense when it strikes and I definitely do not want it to happen in whatever circumstances. I can feel the slightest pain when I inhale, when I wake up from bed, when I carry heavy weight and particularly when I stretch my upper body (chest).

So what inspires, or causes to be exact, me to write a post about it in my blog? Just now I went to gym after one week of CNY holidays and I started working out as usual. After 30 minutes, I felt some intense chestpain to the extent of experiencing helplessness. I couldn't help but to tell this to my friends around (Hari and Calvin Diong), and they advised me to call my mom and ask her to send me to clinic in seeking treatment.

I saw my trainer (Ms.Cheryl) and I told her about that. She asked me to go consult a trainee of hers who, by randomness, is a qualified doctor. There stood an middle age Indian guy who was working out and Cheryl told him that I have a crisis occuring. I explained everything to him and there he told me in detail the process of all these occurrences. Well I will tell you how it works, and surprisingly what the other two doctors before this has told me were true.

The cold carbonated drink (Coca-Cola) entered the oesophagus tube at a very high speed and, while facing sudden change in temperature in the body, expanded, causing the oesophagus tube to expand. The expansion of oesophagus tube then causes the injuries and tears of the tissues and muscles surrounding the oesophagus tube, hence my chestpain, or in more precise word, heartburn. Whenever I inhale, or wake up from bed, or stretching my upper body, I would tend to stretch/move the muscles surrounding oesophagus tube, hence the intense pain.

This is not all. To my amusement, this situation is also closely related to gastric reflux. What it means by gastric reflux here is, the gastric juice leaks out from the stomach and corrodes the oesophagus tube. There he recommended me Gaviscon, a type of antacid treatment for heartburn, and it can be easily found in any pharmacy center (Guardian, Watson etc). He added on further, this pain would not cause any harm to your body and is completely normal (sounds familiar? Just like what the first doctor said), but only would cause discomfort in you.

He also told me that I should completely stop drinking carbonated drinks or anything acidic (which includes green apple, pineapple, orange, lime juice, ice lemon tea?). He also advised me not to consume food containing high fats level (fried food) and curry. Well those stroke me all in sudden, realising that those are food for weight reducing diet. And yes, he said all these are related to diet as well, and reducing weight is apparently one of the ways to eliminate this problem.

In the long run, I must take care of my food to prevent such pain from recurrence. It IS possible to eliminate this pain completely but it takes time. Now that I know this would cause discomfort in me, that I should take care of myself and start reducing weight! Well it's one of my goals anyway, to be achieved before my final exam this May/June. Guys, please pray for me, and thank you for faithfully reading my post! I'm happy and certainly grateful, having you as my friend. =)

Dear Father,

I thank you and grateful for everything you have done for me. I thank you, too, for giving me such pain, strengthening my aim to loss weight and thus have a healthy body to serve you better. I take this as a challenge as well, for me to stay close to you and talk to you more often. I take this as your signal to reconnect with you, that I have deviated so far away from you, and sorry for that. But Father, I pray that you would take this pain away. This pain, even at its slightiest intensity, causes discomfort in me and certainly I do not wish to experience it. Father, you are the Almighty God and I know you love me. You would not give a challenge that your believer wouldn't be able to sustain. I pray that your grace will always be with the undeserving me Father.

Amen.

Reflections on January 2012! =)

2012-01-28T15:19:00.002+08:00

January 2012 is coming to the end soon and it's time to reflect what I've done thus far. So far my new year resolutions are still remained intact, although I've breached one of them such as diet (especially during CNY week). I could resist myself from all the food temptation in the first 2 days of CNY, but starting from third day I literally ate what were on the table, without self-control much. -.-

As the result of eating everything on the table, my belly is back! Well maybe not as bad as I thought, but still it would take me at least another week to cut it off. Why do you love me so much, belly fat? =( I don't love you and wish you wouldn't come back to me ever. This time I must send you further to somewhere more isolated haha. =p 10kg weight loss wouldn't sound impossible if I'm determined enough.

What about study? CNY mood was so overwhelming that I hardly think of studying. Kids were playing firecrackers everywhere, and again tempting me to join them. -.- Another temptation that I hardly could resist. Well it's CNY anyway, nobody actually study (for non-kiasu Chinese). Time to revive my study mood! Again and again I remind myself to make a study timetable, but many times I just shunned off the idea and procrastinated. It's time to get real. Here is my study timetable. As I said it, I made it straight.

Evening (2/3pm - 4pm) Night (8.30pm - 11.30pm)

Monday Maths Further Maths 1

Tuesday Economics Economics

Wednesday Maths Further Maths 2

Thursday Physics Physics

I took 3 days off for the time being. Friday usually occupied with CF in the evening, and Homes (cell group activity) at night. =) And during weekend, I wouldn't study much haha, frankly. -.- I should follow this timetable strictly, but I do acknowledge that sometimes lecturers would give class tests and so on. In such occasion, I shall study for the test and compensate the time used for that particular subject during weekend. Cool? okay done! =)

Trading? So far I've learnt nothing much new. Mr.Lai (my Maths lecturer) joined Mr. Teh (my previous FM2 lecturer)'s e-learning class about basics in technical analysis and sometimes he does share with me some knowledge about stock market. Nothing much yet so far, but he told me he joined that e-learning class also cause of the wish of sharing opinions and knowledge. That said, I know I can learn a lot from him for the next 5 months. Definitely looking forward to it! Oh btw, I found Everything Technical Analysis (by Jacinta Chan) in the library and I finished reading it in a day cause all those are basics.

Oh btw, I've got RM200 book voucher (as stated in the Budget 2012) and it's time for me to buy books (again?). I've bought a number of books recently and now I have RM200 more to spend? What should I buy? I don't know. Should ask my seniors on any good books to recommend, that would be relevant to my study in future. Books on actuarial science, risk management, finance, insurance? Or I should just spend it buying some random books like Animal Spirits (by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller) and Fear and Greed (by Pauline Yong)? Those are good books, too. Time will determine everything. Just wait. =)

One more thing, remember my last way of utilising time? By stop playing Facebook games and applications altogether? Good news, I've stopped playing Maple Story Adventure altogether, for a few weeks now. Incredible! Now I've allocated longer time on doing other more beneficial things. =)

Wooohooo! Going to Sian Wei's house later for PE1 CNY Dinner! =) I'm glad that I joined PE1, so happening! So far I've joined many events organised by PE1. Sunway trip, squash, watching movie (Jack and Jill) at Tropicana Mall, and now CNY dinner. Thank God for everything! =)

That's all for now, people! February would be more interesting! Stay tuned. Ciao~ =)

Happy Chinese New Year 2012 (Dragon)!!! =)

2012-01-25T22:23:00.000+08:00

Wooohooo!!!!!!!!! yea I'm having lots of fun during this Chinese New Year! And the bliss of getting an Internet connection is so overwhelming throughout this period! I'm now back in Penang Island (Balik Pulau, to be exact) and here locates my grandmom's kampung house. She is 70+ year old this year, but thank God that she's still here. In fact, she's my only living grandparent, and I never had the chance to meet my dad's side grandparents. =( Anyway, they are now in Heaven with the Almighty One! =)

The pretty boy with his two pretty sisters! =p

On the first day of CNY, we visited my dad's side relatives at Bukit Mertajam (also in Penang, mainland though) and as a young boy I am, I never actually cared much about the most up-to-date gossips in town but rather, getting ang-paos!!! Well I believe most younger generation do (too bad for those who has married). What about those older generation? Keep talking about gossips. Gossips, gossips and gossips. It's been a year anyway, since their last gathering on gossiping. Hours and hours spent (or wasted?) in gossiping. Unproductive, but consolidating family bond. =)

First day of CNY ended with lots of ang-paos picking and gossiping. Second day I met up with Leowanie (a ReComer I knew since January 2010) in Penang and went to Queensbay Mall! And that was my first time visiting to QB! Although I always come back to Penang during Chinese New Year, but I never actually visited QB, not even once! We had lunch at Manhattan Fish Market and that's all, nothing much since not many shops were opened that day. Bad timing, but what to do, she only had that day to meet up (other days, she is going to work).

Me in front of Pulau Jerejak, near Queensbay Mall. =)

Awesome CNY decoration at Queensbay Mall! =)

Third day of CNY, which is today! Weee!!! My mom wanted to meet her friends at Queensbay Mall (again~ -.-) so my whole family went to Queensbay Mall this time to walk around. Today most of the shops were already opened and a huge crowd, although lesser than ordinary crowd at Midvalley or Times Square, was strolling there. I was hoping to bump into someone I know there but none haha! =p Not enough popularity. Later on we went to visit my aunty's house (mom's sis) at Ayer Itam, and headed to Ayer Itam Dam. We skipped the Kek Lok Si Temple cause it was a bomb. Too many people and ridiculous traffic jam.

Me at Ayer Itam Dam! Looks quite thin haha! =p

Me, again! =p Plant with nice leaves!

At the Ayer Itam Dam, I finally had the chance to exercise. I ran through the side path surrounding the dam for a round spanning 2.8km, in my blue jean. -.- I never actually expected that my parents would come here, otherwise I would have brought a shorts and extra shirt. Impromptu. Finally had the chance to exercise? YES! I had been eating too much these few days (okay maybe not that much, but sugary drinks and fattening nice food) and I AM getting fatter!!! Someone would be quite happy reading it. -.- Well I hope I'm not getting fatter haha. Will measure my weight again next week. =p

See how I sweated so much? Feel happy! =)

Tired~ @.@

Oh one more thing! About the chestpain hitting me last Thursday, painkiller itself didn't heal me. I was still having mild chestpain (especially during inhalation) on the first and second day of CNY. Thank God that I visited another clinic (Joe Fernandez) in Bukit Mertajam and the female doctor gave me another set of medicine and it worked! The right explanation about my chestpain is that, when you drink very cold Coca-Cola at a very fast speed, the cold drink encounters a sudden change in temperature (from low to high) inside the body and expands fast to produce bubbles. And the others were almost the same, but of course she prescribed me more than a mere painkiller. -.-

Yea, I'm going back to KL tomorrow! Why? Nothing much to do in Penang, my dad said. Sitting inside the small kampung house in Balik Pulau is suffocating. My grandma is a faithful (I'm not sure about religious? superstitious perhaps?) Taoism practitioner, and would burn red candles for religious purpose WHOLE DAY long alongside with some fruits putting in front of Taoism deity. Eyes would get swollen if you sit at the living hall for more than a few hours due to the candle smoke, serious! I don't have much to comment personally, as this is a religion issue. But I wouldn't sit there for the whole day long inhaling the smoke. -.-

2012 would be my last year celebrating Chinese New Year in Malaysia, as I would be in UK by October this year. I bet I would miss all these a lot, next year during this festive season. But I would get to celebrate Chinese New Year with my friends, well a slightly different way of celebrating Chinese New Year. Definitely looking forward to it haha! =)

Counting Blessings! =)

2012-01-20T23:51:00.000+08:00

Hello people! I'm back from a week of classes before Chinese New Year! Wait, YES Chinese New Year is coming soon! Excited? I bet you are, if you were a Chinese. Anyway, there are lots of things for me to update here! So ready? Here it goes.

Saw that or not? Yea that's right! As you might have guessed, Taylor's College SJ actually invited a lion dance team to college, just to perform on our ECA Recruitment Drive. I was so freaking excited when I was watching lion dance performance, considering that it's been years since I watched lion dance performance for the last time. Ah, the bliss of childhood memories rushing all over. I literally cheered for the lion dance performers after they finished performing. =p (like a kampung boy haha, I know! -.-)

It was held yesterday, giving opportunities to new students to join new clubs and societies. When I looked at them choosing society by society, I suddenly thought of myself when I was in my first semester, back in June 2010. That was super long ago, but yea I still can remember that I actually joined 5-6 clubs but eventually, what happened? I'm only active in one club, Christian Fellowship.

Since I'm only active in a club, all I did yesterday during ECA Recruitment Drive was walking around the car park area (in college, of course) to recruit new members to CF! I felt really honoured to contribute my very best to CF, and I can feel the hands of God working on me! Amen to that. I always had this doubt in myself, that God didn't have a plan for me, in this long journey of salvation. But I was awfully wrong, very wrong indeed. God has proven my value in His eyes, by utilising me in His work, asking new students to come to know Him. Even such a small contribution in human eyes, could be a huge leap towards the salvation of other people. I thank God for that.

Oh by the way, there were people giving cans of Coca-Cola for FREE yesterday during ECA drive itself. The point is not this, but what I actually learnt is, NEVER drink your coca-cola at very fast speed. I treated Coca-Cola like 100plus + ice lemon tea (my favourite mixture drink) and drank it at a very fast speed, and something 'bad' (I thought) happened to me. My chest felt a sudden excruciating pain, but I prayed and it turned out fine, after a while.

When I went back to Casa yesterday, I slept for the entire evening and when I woke up, the pain was STILL there and I was freaked out. All in sudden, for once in my life, I appreciate my life so much. I felt so scared of DEATH. The word 'death' never actually crossed my mind even once cause I'm a daring boy. I'm adventurous and brave, and would love to try out everything challenging. Now, what if I couldn't make it to the next morning? Yes, that was the exact thought chest pain gave me. For once, I prayed so hard. For once, I felt that I was so close to God (especially when I was going to sleep at night).

But I believe. I believe God, that He has a great awesome plan for me. He wouldn't want me to die at such a young age. It's not time for me to die, as it would be such a waste of a great talent that could give huge contribution to both the society and religion. Thank God, that I woke up this morning. Although I could still feel some pain in my chest (especially when I press it), but I know that it's going to be okay. Few hours ago, I went to nearby clinic to consult a doctor.

As expected, the chest pain was due to extremely fast consumption of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is an unstable drink, from the perspective of chemical elements. If you drink Coca-Cola at a very fast speed, the drink would expand its bubbles INSIDE your oesophagus (or something like that). The cartilage or joints holding the ribs might have swollen due to the bubbles from Coca-Cola, hence the chest pain. He said, it's perfectly normal! =/ He eventually gave me a packet of painkiller pills and that's it!

Thank God for this! This is really a relieving and great news for me. Finally I can have a nice sleep tonight. =) So guys, never drink Coca-Cola at a very fast rate, or you might experience chest pain like what I did.

Enough of this, I have another good news and another blessing in disguise, perhaps. I will tell you about the good news first. Remember I lose around 2kg in a week last week? This week, I was hoping for a similar rate of losing weight. BUT no, unfortunately I didn't lose any major weight. I merely lost 0.1kg (from 84.5 to 84.4) and the good news is, I lost 1kg of fat but gained 1kg of muscles. Body fat percentage dropped from 29% to 28%, which is GOOD! Another blessing that I want to thank God! =)

Bad news? Err, my sponsor refused to send me to do 4 years MMORSE at the University of Warwick! =O Also, now only I know what I really want. Before this news, remember, I was contemplating between Warwick's MMORSE and Cass' Actuarial Science. Now I know what I really want (4 years MMORSE). But, considering that I could only obtain maximum amount of 2-3 papers exemption from Institute of Actuaries (UK) should I go for MORSE (3 years), I would rather go for Actuarial Science at Cass (able to obtain maximum number of 8 papers exemption).

Although I could get only 7 papers exemption from MMORSE (4 years) and plus it's 1 year longer than typical Actuarial Science degree at Cass/Heriot-Watt, MMORSE has more optional modules for me to choose, and obviously is more FUN and interesting! It has more flexibility too in the career of applied mathematics, as compared to very specialised Actuarial Science degree. Besides, Mathematics degree in Warwick is one of the Top 4 in the UK (others be Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial) (COWI).

Should I really forgo Warwick for Actuarial Science at Cass? Or, should I go for Warwick's MMORSE and fund myself in my forth year of study, with the other 3 years being sponsored? Or, should I just shut up and go to London? I wouldn't know, and time will determine everything. I still have 4 months to decide, anyway. Anyone has a good suggestion are welcomed to message me, thank you! =)

Storage Paradox

2012-01-15T17:26:00.001+08:00

Chinese New Year is around the corner, and by this time many parents (including mine) start to clean up the house, seems as an effort to welcome a great year ahead. My mum, in particular, began to be excited to clean up everywhere around the house. Curtains, grills, storerooms, rooms; and the list goes on and on, endlessly. What interests me is not this, but rather something most of the people wouldn't have pondered upon.

Having lived in a small house in Setapak (KL) for over 12 years, I had accustomed to living at a small cosy house before moving to a slightly larger house at Seri Kembangan (Selangor), when I was graduated from my primary school. Despite my old house in Setapak was small enough with very little room for storage, but the storeroom was always full with old books and documents that my parents used for their Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) exams.

Now that we have moved to the new house, and they have qualified as Associates (ACIS). But their books are still being kept in the storeroom. Not only that, but the space in the storeroom seems to be getting smaller and smaller (although the size of the storeroom is much larger than that in the old house). Why is this happening? I contemplated over this for a few minutes, and here is what I've observed.

When we have a smaller storeroom, we tend to keep things that we wouldn't really need in future, just for any possible circumstances arose. We will stop accumulating 'rubbish' once our storeroom is full. Now suppose we move to a bigger house with bigger storeroom. What is likely to happen? Would we keep our things just to the capacity of the size of our small storeroom previously? Or rather, would we keep our things up to the full capacity of the big storeroom?

As you may have surmised, yes we tend to accumulate things up to the full capacity of the big storeroom, rather than keeping things only to the capacity of our previous smaller storeroom. We move to a bigger house with a bigger storeroom, in a hope that we could enjoy life with larger space everywhere the house. You might argue that bigger storeroom is built for the purpose of storing higher amount of things. That's undeniably correct, but I suspect an irrational occurrence to our behaviour should we get accustomed to a larger storeroom.

When we have a small storeroom, we would keep things only to the limited capacity of our storeroom. We tend to be more attentive of our capacity of storage. But when we move to a larger house with larger storeroom, we start to develop a thought that we have 'unlimited' capacity of storage, hence tend to be oblivious of the things we keep in the storeroom. One perfect example is, my mum turned the back-room to a storeroom when the larger storeroom reached its highest capacity of storage. We wanted a larger storeroom and larger space everywhere the house, but now we transformed the back-room to a storeroom just to accommodate the ever increasing amount of stocks. Isn't it irrational? Think.

How does it affect our daily life, and most importantly, what could we do to prevent ourselves from falling into such irrational trap? Storage problem is just an example for what I wanted to convey. As human being, we tend to get accustomed to the changes in our lives but struggle to revert it back to the previous state. In other word, many changes made are irreversible. From the above case, we get accustomed to a larger storeroom (and sometimes alter our mind to store more things somewhere else than storeroom), and eventually struggle to clear up things when it's time to move to a smaller house or for whatever reason that might arise.

So what do we do? Be more mindful of your own ability (or capacity) and not to expect too much when you improve something, to the extent of being unrealistic. Expectation kills (some people say), and often changes our state of mind and also our behaviour. We should always be realistic of our own strengths (at the same time improving our weaknesses), to strive better in everything we do.

2kg Lost in A WEEK! =O

2012-01-12T23:18:00.002+08:00

That's freaking impossible I thought, but I just did! =O I couldn't believe it but last week when I weighed myself, I was 87kg. Guess how heavy am I now, yes you're right. I'm back to 85! I hope the rate of detraction wouldn't stop right there just before joining gym. I've been weighed 85kg for over 5 years, and I want to break the record of having weight more than 80kg.

As you may have surmised, yes I did it by implementing healthy lifestyle (eating good food and start exercising). I did not expect that rate of decreasing weight but the way I'm using somehow proved its reliability. I had a huge belly with fats surrounding my waist, and my main objective was to cut down my belly fat. That was my main objective and what I did was controlling my diet. I've written the healthy way of eating before in previous posts and I'm going to write it once again. Eat healthy food. No fried food, minimise sweet food, no processed food (mee and kuey teow included), drink a lot of water and eat lots of vegetables and fruits. Remove skins (and the fats around the meat) when you're eating chicken meat, and do not eat any tangible fats (or if possible less fat/oil in everything). Consume high protein food like milk (or low fat milk) and whole eggs.

Drinking low fat milk, eating eggs and chicken breast meat are my favourite. You might argue that egg yolk contains high cholesterol level but from various sources in the Internet, high body cholesterol level is mainly caused by eating red meat (beef, mutton, lamb, duck etc), and NOT by eating egg yolk. In fact egg yolk contains lots of vitamins so it would be a waste if you throw it off.

Drinking low fat milk in excessive (like what I do) also has a side effect, my housemate told me. It's fathomable that my main purpose of consuming low fat milk is to get protein. But low fat milk also has higher proportion of calcium as compared to full cream milk, and having excessive calcium in your body is definitely not going to be beneficial but rather side effects, such as tiredness, loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhea. Sounds scary, but I just like drinking milk! =/ Going to cut down my milk intake. Full cream milk is good as the proportion of calcium is not as high as low fat milk's.

This is what I eat for 3 meals in a day and I could actually write it down.

Breakfast : 2-3 slices of wholemeal bread with peanut butter spread, low fat milk, 2 whole eggs.
Lunch: Rice (of your fist size, if possible brown rice), chicken meat / fish, tofu, vegetables (each of these can be substituted by other food having similar amount of protein, carbohydrate and vitamin).
Post-Workout: Chocolate milk / 3 whole eggs (I still do not consume any protein shake till now)
Dinner: Anything light (not heavy), for instance, 2-3 slices of wholemeal bread with peanut butter spread / apple / eggs / milk / oat / nestum etc.

That's all I eat and I'm seeing my result! Perhaps the time period is not long enough to prove this, but I will see what will happen for the next 2 months. =) Just wait.

Blessing in Disguise! =)

2012-01-10T23:32:00.000+08:00

'How's Cambridge decision?' and 'Got any reply yet?' are among the most common questions that I got these few days. The actual decision was revealed finally after a few months, on last Friday. Some of my friends (in fact a lot) got rejected as always, and some of them got pooled. I don't personally know of anyone who got offer from the University, until just now someone told me that one of my friends got offer. I would like to congratulate those who got offers and commiserate those who got rejected. To those who are being pooled and waiting to be fished, good luck and have faith in yourself! =)

Unbeknownst to me, I was waiting for my decision like anyone else. Thanks to my senior, I was advised to stay calm and not to expect too much. Indeed, expectation would influence your immediate reaction at the moment you get to know your result. If you hoped too much, you will be very disappointed when you were rejected. If you did not expect much, you wouldn't feel that down if you were rejected. Moreover, you will instead be surprised by the success should you succeed in that matter.

So, I was waiting for the decision email to come hitting my email. Nothing. No changes from UCAS Track. I sent an email to Pembroke College's Admission Office and the admission officer asked me to wait until Monday (9 January). So I waited until Monday and still nothing came knocking my door. I sent another email to the admission officer and finally, she replied me just now. An automated email goes like this:

Wooohooo! A rejection! Surprised of my reaction? That was what most of my friends' reaction when they know that I'm happy for this. Why am I being so happy for being rejected? Why don't I feel that disappointed when I get rejected? If I tell you that I'm very happy and don't feel disappointed or sad AT ALL, I'm lying. I doubt anyone would feel extremely happy for being rejected. But, what is the element that makes me happy, and more importantly, what alleviates my disappointment in merely a few minutes?

If you feel happy for your rejection, why do you apply in the first place? Well, I applied for Cambridge Maths mainly for its strong reputations and my deep interest in Maths. But sometimes a rejection doesn't mean that's a bad thing. Perceiving it from another point of view, it's a blessing in disguise. I had been rejected by many scholarships institutions two years ago, and what doesn't kill you would definitely make you stronger.

What really rejoices me was my personal preference and the ability to think rationally out of emotions. Emotion is a very strong element that would influence everyone of us if we don't know how to control it, and use it for our own good. It could be so demotivating to the extent that you take it as a failure. When you view something as a failure, you will never get to stand up and search for other doors. When one door shuts down, often we are so overwhelmed with our emotion, that we do not realise many other doors are opened for us. So first thing to learn here, learn to control your emotion and not the other way round.

What about my personal preference? Do I NOT like Maths at all? No, I love Maths and I would really love to pursue a career related to Maths. But at the meantime I must also be acknowledged that Maths Tripos at Cambridge is a course full of extreme level of mathematical theorems and proofs, and often is NOT consistent with real life applications. In other word, Maths Tripos in Cambridge teaches pure maths at extreme level with the main objective of moulding top notch mathematicians.

You might argue that there are some rooms of real life applications for pure maths, but those are still very limited in fact. Number Theory (a branch of pure maths), for instance, can be applied in cryptography. One of the advantages that I could think of studying Maths at Cambridge is, graduates would be able to pick up any sorts of knowledge (be it finance, economics etc) at a very fast pace as they have been trained rigorously throughout the whole course. The ability of understanding abstract mathematical concepts trained students to think beyond everyone else's remotest imagination. That's the ability that I wish to drill within myself.

On the bright side, if I got an offer from Cambridge to read Maths, my hell will get started. Why? I would then be required to do STEP papers, which are NOT easy at all. Based on past year records, many Cambridge's Maths offer holders missed their offers simply because they didn't meet the requirement set for STEP papers. My A2 is coming this May/June 2012, and the combination of A2 and STEP is predicted to be a disastrous one. Plus, should I got an offer from Cambridge, my sponsor wouldn't let me go and would certainly pressurize me to firm it. Thank God for saving me from all the unnecessary stress. You know what I want eventually.

I suspect my passion for pure maths is still at the scratch of the surface, and it definitely won't be consistent with the fact that many maths students pursue a degree in Maths because they appreciate the beauty of Maths and their extreme passion in Maths. Maths is itself a very beautiful creation I would say, but with the exposure to many other interesting elements like Economics and Finance, the passion for Maths alone somehow distributed over a larger area of subjects.

Since I am deeply interested in financial market, I prefer to pursue a career not only emphasizing the importance of maths, but also in statistics, economics and finance. Anyone who knows me well will definitely know that I like Actuarial Science, and recently grew my interest in trading and mathematical finance. I still have a lot to learn, and a lot to improve myself. I am still a novice in most of the subjects so I wouldn't have time to sulk over yet another life challenge of mine.

Remember this, a challenge would only strengthen you if it fails to deviate you from your initial goal, or worst, topple you altogether. I have so many reasons to be grateful and cherish over, rather than be disappointed and sad. Anyway, I still have 3 offers on hand, and now it's the time for me to really ponder over what I really want. Living a life by counting blessings is very much indispensable than living a life of sadness. Thank God for everything I'm blessed with! =)

Firm: The University of Warwick (MMORSE) / Cass Business School (Actuarial Science)

Insurance: Heriot-Watt University (Actuarial Science)

New Outlook! =)

2012-01-09T17:53:00.001+08:00

Some of my friends told me that it's quite hard to read posts in dark background, especially like what I always do. Long-whining post with many words. Gracemode suggested to me, saying that I should try white background instead with dark color words. I think she was right, so there you go! I think it's time to give this blog a fresh outlook, since it's a new year!

I've got some gifts for my new year and I've posted this on the first day of the year on Facebook! New pair of shoes, new haircut, new wallet and a new spectacle. Now I'm going to strive hard for my new goals, new plans and new hopes! I would be going back to college tomorrow, and hectic classes would be resumed.

Despite all these gruelling schedule that I've foreseen, I'm definitely looking forward for tomorrow! It's been a month that I've done nothing, revised nothing on my formal academic syllabus. It's time to go back to my study. But it is also the time that I would meet my 'new' friends (after a month of holiday).

New outlook, as stated in the title, is not only meant for the fresh look of my blog, but rather new expectations and attitudes. I don't expect much for what I could do on the first day, but I definitely can change my attitudes. The main problem that overwhelms me is procrastination. I tend to say 'later-lah' to many things that I am capable of completing it on the spot, but eventually this seemingly easy, yet malevolent, act would creep in and serve as hindrance to completing my works.

The key word here is discipline. My dad used to accentuate this word over and over again to me and my siblings, wanted us to be discipline in everything we do. Same keyword would be particularly useful here. I've mentioned earlier that I would make a new study timetable; but due to procrastination, I have not created any. I guess I would make one once I get my new class timetable.

Be nice to everyone might seem easy but in fact it is not. Often you will find yourself couldn't cope well with someone, and you find it very hard to find a common topic to start the conversation with the person due to various reasons. This is a challenge for myself too, cause sometimes I couldn't talk much as well with people around. Some of my friends said that I'm a talkative guy, but I beg to differ. I would only talk if something interests me, otherwise I would just remain quiet most of the time. What you can do if you were in my shoes? Smile. =)

I find smiling so amusing to the extent that when anyone (including stranger) smiles to me, I will smile back. It's free, anyway. I think smiling people are beautiful people, beautiful in the sense that happiness turns into 'epidemic' and spreads insidiously to everyone around. Want to know how I define pretty girls? Cheerful and friendly girls who smile frequently are pretty, I think. So smile more! Smile turns problems into hopes, sadness into happiness, and many more unexpected transformations. Life is good if you know how to cherish it.

Rat Race! =)

2012-01-08T23:09:00.000+08:00

It's been a few days and I'm back! Well I'm always here. I have so much things to tell yet couldn't put it in words. I just don't know where to start. I've attended a few events these few days - a gathering for Christian Fellowship members in TCSJ (2010) and an annual general meeting for alumni of Alam Shah Science School (OASIS). I wouldn't tell everything in detail cause that would certainly bores you to death, but I've noticed something in common. And I feel obligated to share it with you, my reader.

First of all, I felt extremely happy and grateful to gather with many old friends (some of them even lost in touch for ages). I was happy for their well being now, and definitely hoped that they would continue to do well in their life. Some of them do extremely well and have already proceed to doing their respective degrees, while some of my seniors from my previous secondary school have already started working. Some of my CF friends are taking gap year and still pondering over what to do next, albeit already graduated from their pre-U for months, or years for some cases. But this doesn't make them any lesser than those who are doing well in degree. Why?

Taking any gap year doesn't actually make someone any lesser compared to those who have planned well and proceed to the next stage of life. Quite contrary to it, it actually gives someone more time to think of their future career, or simply just taking a break after more than 11 years of formal education. Many parents think that their children should not waste the time taking gap year, and should finish their study as soon as possible, and start entering job market to earn money. Everything is subjective based, and the word 'should' to above cases has been embedded to the mind of most parents, over many generations.

What are the reasons we study and graduate from such and such degree? In the end, everyone is looking for a job with the main objective circulating money. What most people do not aware of, is what we called as 'Rat Race', awaiting us upon graduation. We graduate from a good degree from top university with a good result, find a good job in top firm, get the paycheck, and start paying off our debts in any form (car loan, mortgage, house loan, study loan, credit cards etc). Soon after you get married and have children, expenses for household increases, exponentially. This goes on and on and on, without any breach in between. You cannot possibly build wealth with such cycle circulating on and on and on, without an end.

So, what do we do, to avoid such seemingly trivial, but could have pernicious consequences, cycle that haunts most of the working population? Start SAVING! Saving itself might not be influential enough but this is the first step! A simple yet crucial step that would contribute to your financial independence, yet many people couldn't do it. That's where credit crisis comes in, in simple form, when everyone gets involved in any forms of debts.

A smart person will try his/her best to avoid from every sort of temptation, to be trapped in debts. As long as you have debts, you will never achieve financial independence. Credit cards is another very common form of debt. It's good if you could spend appropriately based on your monthly earning, but many people do not care much and spend extravagantly like nobody's business, treating credit cards as the licence to spend future money. Think twice (if possible thrice) before you register for a credit card, as that would easily crush your dream of being financial independent if you couldn't control your spending. Invest in income generating assets (bonds, property, stocks, options, futures, forex, commodity) and reduce expenses. Think about it.

That's all for now! Ciao~ =)

Holiday's Ending Soon! =(

2012-01-05T12:36:00.000+08:00

What??? Holidays spanning a month time are going to end soon!!! Oh yeah it's only ONE month anyway, what to expect? Time flies as you sleep and accumulate fats at home. Wait, that's not what I've been doing okay! I've been 'studying' all this while! Non-academic related though. Who says studying is only necessary for exam? =p

Sadly a lot of people do and I used to be in that category. I did not appreciate the value of continuous learning and obviously did not practice it. Knowledge is power! We have so much things to learn and pick up, to equip ourselves with powerful tools for survival in the ever increasingly competitive global market. Yet a lot of us choose to constrain ourselves to topics related to exam syllabus, not for the sake of real knowledge. No exam, no study. That was what I used to say.

Well now I've changed. I realised I have so much things to learn, and I will pick up as much as I could along the learning path. Besides new year resolutions that I've made for myself, I would add some new goals and pick up new knowledge throughout this year. New Year Resolutions are overrated. 95% of people, after 15 days, would incinerate their new year resolutions and resume to their prior lifestyle, as if they had never set anything for themselves. Me? I will consistently remind myself to keep intact with my new year resolutions. My new year resolutions are not too hard to be achieved, anyway.

New Year Resolutions are meant to be followed strictly, to be realised by the end of the year. If you couldn't keep intact with the new year resolutions, why bother making a list of it at the beginning of the year and by the end of first month forget about it completely? Be more disciplined, more persistent and more persevere. Everything is possible if YOU want to do it. Yes, you. Mind controls everything, anyway. If you think of success, success will be on your way (of course with efforts putting in). Nobody could change you, only yourself.

Well holiday's ending soon, the title says. That's right, I'm going back to college on January 10 and by then I might not have enough time to update this blog. I'm afraid that I might leave this blog hanging, just like what happened in March last year after my last post, regarding the actuarial trip to Bank Negara.

Thinking of this, now I have set a new goal. What?

UPDATE THIS BLOG AT LEAST TWICE A MONTH!

Is that even possible, especially during exam period? Why not? Remember, everything is possible if you have the heart and mind to do it. Utilise them and you will discover wonders out of you. You will never knew what is your inner strengths and abilities until you've discovered it yourself. Time to spice up your life (and my life, too)?

Now, I must create a study timetable! A2 is coming soon this year, for me. Trial is in March and this time I must nail it. History must NOT repeat. I've screwed my A2 Trial last year and definitely not going to do the same this time. Time to practice past year papers and fully utilise my valuable time! First step, start revising! =)

I know that I'm not that disciplined to study cause I never like studying. What? Yes, studying is bored. Learning and truly understanding is the way to go. Studying for the sake of exam by rote learning will not be beneficial to you, and it might bring pernicious consequences to you in the long run. That was what I do throughout my primary and secondary life. Well it's not too late to change, isn't it? It's never too late to change, and it's entirely up to YOU.

Alright that's all for my motivational talk haha. Stay tuned. =)

Books Collection! =)

2012-01-02T23:11:00.000+08:00

Wooohooo I've recently picked up a new hobby - books collection. That's a bit crazy but it was sort of unintended one. Remember I've bought two new books a few days back at Kinokuniya, KLCC? My dad suddenly told me that Bank Negara book sales (40% off) at MPH bookstore is on now but is going to end soon at January 8. Since I've a list of trading or self-help books to be collected and read, I decided to give it a visit!

As you might have predicted, I was strolling around the Finance/Investment section to find for some interesting books (to be collected =p). I've found 7 books that interest me, so I bought it! =p I realised that I might not be able to understand all these book if the contents get too technical, but I know that as time passes, I would be able to understand eventually upon consolidating my fundamentals in topics regarding investing and trading.

Here is the list:
1) A Guide to Investing During Bull and Bear Markets (by Dr Othman Yong)
2) Essential Stock Investment Strategies to Make Money Even in A Falling Market (by Ho Kok Mun)
3) The Financial Times Guide to Technical Analysis (by Jacinta Chan)
4) Winning the Game of Life (by Adam Khoo)
5) Secrets of Millionaire Investors (by Adam Khoo and Conrad Alvin Lim)
6) Secret Psychology of Millionaire Traders (by Conrad Alvin Lim)
7) Profit from the Panic (by Adam Khoo, Conrad Alvin Lim and Ryan Huang)

New Year Resolutions! =)

2011-12-31T01:04:00.001+08:00

Hello people what's up! It's been a few days of chilling at the beach, enjoying the sea breeze like nobody else's business, in Kuala Terengganu! After 9 hours of travelling on the road, wooohooo finally I'm back at home! =p

The infamous year 2012 is coming tomorrow! Yes it's tomorrow! Are you ready for it, to face the year full with devastating myths that the world is coming to an end, pushing human to the brick of extinction? The upcoming of the year 2012 tomorrow also literally means that today is the last day of 2011! What will you be doing on the last day of 2011, so that it could end the year perfectly, memorably? For me, I will probably just stay at home although I wish to go out somewhere and join the mass to count down, welcoming new year! =) Who says you can't stay at home and count down at home, with your dearest family? =)

New year resolutions, something seems to be outcast to me, suddenly struck me recently. I thought I should make a list of new year resolutions, to enrich my life even more, to live my life to the fullest. What seems to be alien to me suddenly inspired me, and I was so determined to make a list of new year resolutions. I never made a list of new year resolutions all this while, mainly due to the perception that it would be futile if we forget about it on the second month of the year (which a lot of us do, frankly).

So here I will make a list of new year resolutions, as well as the ways that I will implement shortly after this, to ensure that those new year resolutions will stick with me throughout the year! My new year resolutions are as below:

1) Reduce my bodyweight for at least 10kg before my final exam on May/June 2012

This is definitely not impossible as I've started my mission to achieving this goal! Here is the plan: Eat a few slices of bread, eggs and low fat milk as breakfast; rice (fist size, preferably brown rice) and steam chicken breast (or steam whatever protein source as substitution, take off the skins and fats surrounding the meat), with vegetables and fruits as lunch; fruits as dinner (eggs, milk and a few slices of bread/oat as dinner for post workout at gym). No sweet drinks, no curry, no noodles or kuey teow (mihun is allowed though), no fried stuffs. Eat more vegetables and fruits, and drink water more frequently! =) Wish me luck!

2) Study for knowledge sake

All this while, I always study last minute (or at least 2 months before any major exam), after procrastinating and enjoying my life before the realisation strike me that the exam is just around the corner. Most of the students always study just for the sake of exam, not knowledge sake (and that includes me). This is wrong and I shall amend it! I shall start studying for the sake of pursuing knowledge, in other word I should really understand the topics within the syllabus (not by rote learning), if possible outside the syllabus (although not necessary). Learn more beyond the scope of what would be asked in the exam, enables us to understand the topics better with wider scope of knowledge and interlinked information.

3) Learn trading in the stock market

It might sound absurd for me to learn trading at such a young age, and I know it is not exactly the right time for me to learn it. I've missed an opportunity for me to learn basics of technical analysis (taught by my previous FM2 lecturer, Mr. Teh), but with my interest abounds, I read about simple technical analysis on Investopedia and Stock Chart. Indeed it is a great site for trading novices like me (although I haven't started trading on real life), cause whenever I have time, I could read on my own, on whatever topics that catch my interest. For this one week holiday enjoying life at KT, I've read some topics about behavioral finance, technical analysis especially oscillators & indicators (MA, MACD, OBV, Stochastic, RSI etc) and some technical terms of finance (such as bond, yield, option, hedge, futures, derivatives etc).

I've been following trading blogs especially my lecturer's one as he consistently update his blog daily. I know by reading alone wouldn't really help me in trading, but that would at least introduce me to the fundamentals of the method. Without any losing experience, nobody will earn money even the geniuses. The first cruel fact about trading in the market is everyone will lose money. Those who do not lose money (including those who win some money) are within the top 20% of the market. Hmm... just wait and see if I could learn something from my new Economics lecturer, Mr. Mohan (he has been trading in the stock market for 15 years now). I will probably learn more after my A2 next year! =)

4) Travel to at least 5 foreign countries

Since I would be flying to the UK next year (hopefully if everything goes well), I will grab the opportunity to travel to as many countries as possible, mainly European countries since UK is quite near to its neighbouring countries like France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland etc, if possible US and Canada too! =)

5) Learn ice skating

After 19 years of life, I never actually try ice skating before! It seems to be so fun although with all those butt kissing the floor scenes for the novices (of course including me)!

6) Read at least 10 books
I've bought a number of books from a book fair a few months back at KLCC, and now I'm only reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Yes I still haven't finished reading it after so many months. Only manage to finish about 2/3 of the book. Would try to finish up Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan by Nassim N. Taleb, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and some economic books by Tim Harford by the end of the year 2012. =)

7) Learn cooking before flying overseas
I must learn how to cook before flying off to UK! Well at least to cook some healthy yet simple and tasty diet for myself! For now I only know how to fried stuffs (eggs, fish, chicken, vegetables etc) but I don't really know how to prepare complicated food, or 'quality' food. I don't want to fry everything up, I want something more healthy. Steam food always? That will be plain boring. Shall spice up my diet plan soon! Will check out some recipe book on the Internet soon! =)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So these are my 7 new year resolutions that I've set up for myself! What about the ways to implement it as I've mentioned in the beginning of the post?

1) Be more disciplined in my eating habits and diet
I should take care of my own health although I'm still very young. It would be too late by the age of 50, to start eating healthy cause everything inside my body would have been literally polluted/damaged should I continue my prior eating habits. Nobody will take care of you except yourself. Love yourself before loving other people.

2) Always bring at least one worth-reading book inside the bag
Have a book with you always inside your bag would evoke you to read it during leisure time, or while you're waiting for any public transport in Malaysia (since it's quite famous for its inefficiency and time consuming). Of course the book should be book that can provoke more constructive thoughts while reading. By so doing, I will be able to finish at least 5 books by the end of the year, since I can read while travel from Casa to college or vice versa.

3) Stop playing Facebook games (or reduce the time on it)
Facebook games are in fact very time consuming and not beneficial. I know this would take extremely great self-discipline for me to completely stop playing Facebook games, but this would be a gradual change. Slowly reduce the time to play Facebook games (I'm currently playing Maple Story Adventure), which will lead to complete halt of playing it in the end of the year. Time is precious, and should be used to the fullest for the sake of knowledge pursuit and broadening social network.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There you go, 3 ways to ensure myself sticking to my new year resolutions!

By the way, I went to Kinokuniya at KLCC today with my relatives coming all the way from Penang. I was searching for some books at Finance and Investment section, and 2 books caught my attention so I bought it. I Love Stock (by Pauline Yong) and The Upside of Irrationality (by Dan Ariely). I Love Stocks is the first book I bought related to trading, and The Upside of Irrationality is the book that would be next reading material upon finishing Predictably Irrational (also by the same author), soon! =)

Tonight my family is having barbeque as dinner, with my relatives coming from Penang! Wooohooo! Time to join them for fun! =p Ciao~

Happy 2012 New Year, everyone! =)

Merry Christmas people! =)

2011-12-26T17:55:00.004+08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

I know!!! It's quite late for me to update my blog regarding Christmas! Today is Boxing Day anyway! Before posting some happy posts, let us bow down our head a few seconds to mourn for those who had been sacrificed exactly 7 years ago, due to the Great Tsunami that hit most of the seaside countries in South East Asia. I was just a chubby (I am, still) innocent boy back then, came back from a trip to Thailand a week before the disaster. I couldn't really comprehend everything that every adult was feeling back then. Sadness covered the whole atmosphere and broke through the peace and joy of Christmas Day.

Now, 7 years has passed and it's Christmas Day, again! =) Christmas is not all about Santa Claus; I think the affection of people for Santa during Christmas is overrated. Christmas Day wouldn't be meaningful without Jesus Christ, our Savior. It's the birthday of Jesus, celebrated primarily to appreciate the salvation Jesus has given all of us, to link us the sinners, back to the Holy God. Based on the concept of Trinity (God, Jesus and Holy Spirit as One Entity), Jesus is God in human form. So to be able to reconnect the relationship between sinners and God, God Himself has to send his only Son to Earth and bear the sins for us by dying nailed on the cross, a traditional cruel Roman way of killing the criminals of highest level.

Right, enough of spiritual theory! This year's Christmas, I didn't go to any church for Sunday service. I was planning to go to Acts Church for Christmas service, but I've decided to join the family trip to Kuala Terengganu (KT). It was such a rare opportunity that I could find, to spend time with family since most of the time we are separated. Mom always work in the office during weekdays till 10pm when she reaches home; Dad has been working outstation in KT for 3 months; I stay in Casa Subang during weekdays to attend classes or simply go to gym. I prayed to God, and somehow I had a feeling that I should join this family trip, rather than go for Christmas service at church.

So, here I am, in Kuala Terengganu! I came here since Friday morning, with quite a high expectation that I would enjoy tremendously from the trip. One of the the trips that I was anticipating the most was the trip to Kenyir Lake, the largest artificial lake in the world. I've never been to Kenyir Lake, so I was definitely looking forward to it. As for KT, it's like a small town in the middle of a bunch of Malay kampung surrounding it. I think it's even smaller than Kuantan. The majority of population in KT are Malays, as expected. Not much Christmas atmosphere in KT as most of them are Muslim. No Christmas trees, no decorations, no ornaments, no celebration. Just a typical holiday for people in KT.

Despite the dull atmosphere around in KT, I definitely enjoyed myself with my family. My sister have just finished her SPM, so she's here too! =) I think the most important thing during Christmas day is not the Christmas tree, not Santa Claus, not decorations, not ornaments, not Christmas light bulbs; but rather, the relationship between family members, remained peaceful and united. We shall take this opportunity to consolidate the bond with family members, and forgive each other for whatever thing that they might have offended you. I've chose to follow my family to Terengganu (although I realised that Kuala Terengganu is such a boring place), but I've learnt a virtue that I should appreciate my family, that we should stay strong together as a family. Nothing is more important than your family in the end of the day. The sooner you realised this, the sooner you would start to appreciate (if you had not) every effort your family member has done for you thus far.

Impending Christmas! =)

2011-12-20T18:10:00.001+08:00

Hello people, I'm back! Sorry for a week of hiatus cause I just didn't feel like writing anything. Oh hey! It's Christmas, in less than 7 days! =) Firstly before that, I've mixed feelings within me, came to know lots of news happening around the world. Kim Jong-Il is dead. I don't know what to feel, whether to be happy or sad. Everyone around the world was celebrating, cheering happily; but back to the country where the nation has lost her Great Leader, everyone was weeping hysterically. Check this out if you haven't.

North Koreans appeared to be sad, whether for demonstration purposes to foreigners or fear of being killed by the ruling authorities should they didn't appear that way. Personally I was extremely disturbed after watching this video. I understand they are living under the ruling of the purest communist country in the world. None of them could escape from the terrorising family of Kim Il Sung (the creator of North Korea), otherwise might face the risk of being shot to death. There were stories told that some of their citizens have their families living in South Korea and they never got to meet them again.

Those are typical stories. Some even tried to escape from the border of North Korea, trying to slip through into South Korea's territory for the sake of freedom. Freedom, that's what most of the North Koreans are dreaming for. The death of Kim Jung-Il does not mark the fall of North Korea, but just a change of the Great Leaders, exactly what happened in 1994 when Kim Il Sung died. Kim Jung-Un will take over and direct another new chapter of North Koreans' life. What will happen? Just wait and see. Hope that Kim Jung-Un would be nice and North Koreans' life shall improve. This has definitely taught us something, something worth while for us to reflect to. Be grateful of what you have, people! You have freedom, that's what North Koreans are dying to enjoy it. (although not to abuse that freedom)

Anyway, it's Christmas soon!!! So these few days I indulged myself in Christmas songs. Having volunteered myself in Christmas carolling in college last Saturday in conjunction of Open Day, I knew more Christmas songs and started to sing along! =p Here are a few that you will definitely enjoy! =)

Excellent Advices to be Pondered Upon! =)

2011-12-16T12:35:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I've bumped into this article and here I will extract some interesting yet thought provoking ideas that everyone should start practising, including me! This has given me a new insights and definitely helped me to be a better person! =)

1) Stop spending time with the wrong people.

Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn't have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth.

2) Stop running from your problems.

The whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately moulds us into the person we become.

3) Stop trying to be someone you are not.

One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.

4) Stop being scared to make a mistake.

Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.

5) Stop trying to buy happiness.

Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.

6) Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness.

If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.

7) Stop being idle.

Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. Making progress involves risk.

8) Stop thinking you’re not ready.

Most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.

9) Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons.

Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.

10) Stop trying to compete against everyone else.

Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.

11) Stop being jealous of others.

Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own.

12) Stop holding grudges.

Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.

13) Stop letting others bring you down to their level.

Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.

14) Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break.

The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.

15) Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments.

Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.

16) Stop trying to make things perfect.

The real world doesn't reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done.

17) Stop following the path of least resistance.

Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.

18) Stop blaming others for your troubles.

The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life.

19) Stop trying to be everything to everyone.

Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.

20) Stop worrying so much.

Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.

21) Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen.

Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.

22) Stop being ungrateful.

No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life.

23) Stop trying to hold onto the past.

You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.

Adapted from: http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself

Pride! O_O

2011-12-10T17:38:00.000+08:00

Yesterday night, when I was driving back home (Myvi) from Casa (near Puncak Jalil/Bandar Kinrara), a stupid reckless driver drove his Honda City so fast and followed my car so closely, driving impatiently. The driver kept changing lane just to cut all the cars in front of him. But what is that related to me? His stupid behaviour provoked me and made me frustrated. As the result, I tail-gated him (after he drove pass me) all the way, until my mom stopped me, and of course followed up by her nagging. Sorry mom, for putting your life at risk. I just realised how stupid and selfish I was, just to give the driver a taste of his action.

Why did I do that? One thing is, I hate it when some stupid drivers tailgating me. I just couldn't bear with their stupid action, of putting every road user's life at risk! The probability of crashing into some objects when he's tailgating others or driving recklessly on local streets is definitely very much higher than ordinary drivers. Others might have emergency brake and he couldn't stop his car on time, and collide into them. Accident.

I used to drive so recklessly, but I've changed. I don't see the point of driving so fast, just to reach the destination faster by a few minutes, or worst, never reached at all. I was tailgating the reckless driver, and at the same time flashing spotlight on him to provoke him, just the way he did it to me. Come to think of it, it's futile. I shouldn't have done that cause that will only serve his purpose of driving recklessly - to find another driver to race with him. Irrational? Yes. I was being so irrational at that time.

When it comes to driving, I can be so illogical, irrational. What actually initiated my intention of tailgating the reckless driver (of course me myself had to drive recklessly to tailgate a reckless driver)? Sad to say, pride. Everything comes back to one deadly sin, pride. I realised that pride within myself is quite extreme. I don't like to lose to others or kiasu (who isn't?), from all aspects. A driver shows his/her pride by driving recklessly, to show that as if he/she was the best. An extreme level of pride will definitely bad for the person, but a mild level of pride is always good (talking of economics). =p

Without mild level of pride, there will be no improvement. There will be no competitiveness. What can you (and I) do if your sense of pride surge to the extreme level, due to various circumstances? Pride can just haunt you any time, anywhere. Even in a simple conversation with friend, might initiate pride within yourself. One thing that you can do when that (pride) happened to you is, always be humble, all the time! Put God (or any deity that you're attached to) first, and acknowledge that you're not the best.

When other people are being prideful, there's nothing you can do other than giving them advices. What I've learnt from the experience above is that, do not follow what they're doing! It's good to have certain level of pride but not to the extreme spectrum. Of course the pride I'm referring here is only individual's pride, not other types of pride. Get it right! =)

Till then, ciao~

2 Weeks Experiences in The New Class! =)

2011-12-10T11:14:00.000+08:00

Listening to: The more I seek You - Kari Jobe

It's been two weeks since I joined the new class! Most, if not all, of my new classmates are quite friendly to me, gratefully! Thank God for that! Within the first few days I've recognised and remembered most of my classmates' names! =p Okay to be frank, I was trying to memorise. That's why I could remember their names fast, and blend into their group easily? =) How? Facebook does the trick! Adding someone into your friend list in Facebook will definitely improve your ability to remember names. Well it works for me, at least! =p

Okay why am I keep writing posts about PE1? I don't know, just want to share my thoughts with everyone, how I spend my time in the new class and so on. During break time I tend to hang out with a group of new friends, and a large portion of them were from Catholic High School, PJ. Haha I was supposed to go there, but I didn't. My younger sister did, anyway. Most of them tend to play ping pong (at Wisma Subang) after eating lunch (during break time), and I join them every time they go! I'm interested in playing ping pong too, cause my dad is quite good at it! But he never taught me. I found my ping pong skills improved over these two weeks. =p That's quite awesome! haha! =)

Jojo Pan Mee, char siew (roasted pork) fried rice, famous pork noodle, and Subway (on Friday cause there is a breakfast set at our break time) are among the regular food they have every week. Crap, until now I haven't tried the pork noodle cause usually we need to wait very long (at least 40 mins) for the order to come. 18 months in Taylor's and I haven't tried eating pork noodle even once! So much to be a Taylor-ian. Epic fail. =/

How are the lecturers doing? My first post about the new class depicted quite a lot on my new lecturers. After 2 weeks, here's the real one! My classmates are not really satisfied with my FM 2 lecturer (Ms.Wong) and Physics lecturer (Mr.Subra). Not to offend anyone, but I don't know, my friends just don't really like their approaches of teaching? I should first clarify about Mr.Subra. Indubitably he's good, especially at doing notes. I think his notes are quite detailed and awesome. He even has all this notes handwritten, good job for that! =) But I think he's not really attractive at teaching. His way of teaching is mundane, boring. He's not 'sharp' enough at answering questions asked by students? That's what they said. Hmm.

Ms.Wong? I don't know, but my friends kept complaining about her. One of my classmates said she's okay in teaching mechanics, but when it comes to statistics, fail. She asked students to look at examples at the textbook (A Concise Course in A-Level Statistics by J.Crawshaw and J.Chambers), and explained from there. But unfortunately the students disliked this way of approach. They said they could even read from the textbook at home, if that's the case. How Mr.Teh (my previous FM2 lecturer) taught me was really awesome! He entered the class (without textbook and only one marker pen? *gasp* ) and started to teach, by writing formulae on the board and explaining the concepts to students.

I think this way is more effective cause students had to listen attentively to his teachings, otherwise will not going to understand what he said. He then selected a few exercises from the textbook and asked students to attempt it. Sometimes he asked students to take questions from past year papers and attempt it. See? Isn't it more effective than Ms.Wong's way of teaching? I think so. For me, I can understand what Ms.Wong was trying to teach cause I have learnt those in Mr.Teh's class. But how if it's new to the students (my classmates)? I don't think I could understand too, if I were in their shoes. =( Hmm, for other lecturers, they are all quite awesome and doing great! =) Keep it up!

That's all for now! Ciao~ =)

Interesting videos! =)

2011-12-07T21:19:00.000+08:00

I've bumped into these two interesting videos in Facebook, which I'm going to share with you all! I bet some of you have already watched one or two of these videos, but here I am going to share my thoughts with you! =)

First video is quite hilarious yet partially (or absolutely) true?

okay I believe lots of you have watched this video cause it's spreading insidiously like wild fire or epidemic in Facebook! So many of my friends shared this and me too couldn't help but to share! =p The script was quite funny overall, from Batman to Columbus! This is what the guy in the video ranted about being in a relationship with a girl, and he really sounded so experienced. I couldn't help it but in the end of the video I laughed so loud and even my housemates were looking at me, as if I were crazy! =p

But, are they (what he said throughout this short video) true, partially or entirely? I will say partially, because in my opinion all girls are different. In the video he stereotyped all the girls to be the same, and ironically a lot of things he mentioned fit what we (guys) always hear in the real life! Firstly, in the video, it was mentioned that a guy has to worry about his girlfriend's happiness all the time once they are in a relationship. I think it might be true to a certain extent, but a guy shouldn't care about his girlfriend's happiness ALL the time! Yes you love her, and want her to be happy! But a mature girl wouldn't create too much demands just to make herself happy while making her boyfriend not happy? The result if this rule is broken, the video above depicts it very well.

Secondly, shopping. Trust me, guys do not like shopping so much! And even if they 'do', they do it for the sake of their loved one. Of course their loved one could be mother, sisters, girlfriend and so on. okay I'm stereotyping all guys here, but GENERALLY most guys wouldn't spend hours and hours strolling around the mall for nothing. Guys are very systematic and they only go shopping to buy things they need, and not what they don't really need at that time. Window shopping might seem interesting for girls, but definitely not for guys! They rather play video games at home or do whatever they like (hobbies, interests, etc). So girls, try not to drag your boyfriend to the mall! But if he really do want to accompany you, let him be! This proves that he loves you more than you do! Appreciate him more! =)

Thirdly, about texting messages and phone call! I don't have much comments on it, but it seems typical for couples to text each other frequently in a day. In my opinion, text each other 3 to 4 rounds is more than enough actually! I've learnt from my mistake that I made a year ago, and now I've became more experienced. Do not text a girl too much even if you really miss her or want to chat with her. This will only make you look stupidly desperate and you might even scare her off. Text her once a day, and if she didn't reply, don't text her for a few days. If she doesn't bother to text you after more than 2 weeks, don't bother to continue your pursuit! There's a very high probability that she's not interested in you. Alright this is the process of chasing over the girl you like. But what happen if you're in a relationship? Lots of girls that I know prefer talk to each other face-to-face (if not, talk to each other on phone just to listen to each other's voice, or Skype!), instead of texting via phone or chatting via any mean (Facebook, MSN etc). So be smart, guys! =)

Oh by the way, I like this quote from the video. Behind every successful man, there's a woman. True! But behind every unsuccessful man, there's also a woman! Anyone can tell the number of unsuccessful man is much much higher than the number of successful man in the world! =p So funny yet thought provoking! Sounds true, but I think this was just part of his rants! He was blaming the girls... haha foreveralone. =p Last one, every discussion with a girl is called an argument! =O *gasp* Warning: Do not argue with a girl! you will never win (if you're a guy LOL!) I've no comment on this, but I think you (guys) should fight for your right and freedom to speak out your thoughts if you really think yours is the absolute truth. To be in a relationship (or marriage) is not easy, but this one word is very powerful and it could possibly hold your relationship firmly to the end, TOLERANCE! Think about it. =)

Enough of the first video, gosh I've written so many thoughts on it! =p Now it's the second one, a thought provoking yet extremely touching story. Too bad if you couldn't understand Mandarin.

But I will give a brief story on what the video is all about. This video is about a lovely father who loves his daughter so much, trying to leave something to his daughter when his life was ending, soon. Yet he didn't want his daughter to know about it, so that she could grow up more happily, optimistically and mentally stronger. The father used to play 'hide and seek' with his daughter and he said in the video, that he's going to hide from her for very very long period of time, this round. He asked his daughter not to search for him, and asked his daughter to look after mom, to make sure that mom doesn't cry frequently (Otherwise they will be considered as losers). So he asked his daughter to make sure mom lives happily always, by making her laugh (when she's sad thinking of dad) and proud. He said, her daughter can only ask her mom about where he has been hiding, after eating 10 birthday cakes. So there you go, the game started. The daughter grew up after 10 years, to be a cheerful girl. She finally knew that her dad is dead, but she was very very proud to have such a great dad, so great that his love miraculously transformed her to grow up as a mentally strong girl. When your life is going to end, what can you leave behind?

I felt so touched and almost cried after watching this video. I don't know, I just feel the urge of sharing this video with everyone. What you can learn from this video is definitely a tremendous one. Appreciate your loved one when they are around. Life is fulled of obstacles and problems, true, but don't ever let those problems affect your relationship with your loved one. What you leave behind (when you are dead) to your loved one, will definitely influence their future lives. You love them so much, and want them to live happily even with your physical absence in the family. Love can melt everything, and a true love can exist even after your loved one passed away. Remember, when you're dead, you will present in their (loved one) memories, always! =') So don't be too sad if someone you love passed away recently. He/She will always live in your memory! Be happy always, and your loved one will definitely be happy too in the other spectrum of the world! =')

Updates for the past 5 days! =)

2011-12-05T22:28:00.000+08:00

Wooohooo I'm back, finally! After 5 days of leaving my blog rotting on its own, here I am again! Haha just kidding for the rotting part. yeah I was quite busy these few days, and you know you actually need motivation to keep your blog updated? One post will normally cost me 1 hour of time, and that 1 hour could be used to do so many things. Well maybe not that many but still... time is GOLD! So, why am I still updating my blog then? cause I love my blog!!! okay and my readers too haha! =p

okay so what have I done for the past 5 days? I will lump everything together to this one post although with quite a different name. On Friday, I attended one of the cell activities called Homes by Acts Church. My assigned Homes is SJ10, and guess what, that's the most awesome place you can be in Friday night! Okay that's what everyone says haha! =p Last week was the final Homes for the year 2011 so we took that opportunity to celebrate upcoming Christmas! I am quite a shy boy (sad to say), and even to give a testimony requires a whole lots of guts from me! I had a great testimony to share that day, but I wasn't courageous enough (again? =/) to speak out! Oh my gosh, the time for testimony just passed on and it was time for announcement, followed up by Word sharing by one of the Homes leaders, Sister Katherine.

By that time Katherine was about to share and discuss the Word of God, I still haven't shared that testimony! =( Thanks to Samuel who was sitting beside me, he knew that I had something to share with everyone so he told Katherine about it! =O Gosh, everyone's attention was on ME! Now I had to share, and I somehow had the guts and the ability to share out everything! Praise the Lord for that! =) I was quite happy cause all this while I wasn't brave enough even to speak out. I always try to sit in one corner and indulge in my thoughts. Okay many times I don't even know what to think about, but I always have something to think about. Something random. Reflections on what I've read up, and what I've learnt so far. Reflections on all the decisions that I've made. Oh back to the story. Later we exchanged presents and I've got two chocolates (Hershey Kisses and Toblerone) as my Christmas present hurray! =)

On Saturday, I attended ReComers gathering at KLCC and unfortunately not many people could make it. Only me, Casper and Nikki Quah were there. Kamilia was there too but she went off cause she had other stuffs to do. We were then waiting for Jern Siong in front of Kinokuniya, and while waiting for him, I decided to take a look at Kinokuniya! Gosh, it was really great to see so many books that I'm sort of interested in there. Even books in risk management, technical analysis, technical indicators, etc are there! Too bad I couldn't buy any of them cause it was too expensive, costing around hundreds bucks each! =O Jern Siong couldn't make it in the end, so three of us went on to eat lunch at the food court and later watched Puss in Boots. Funny movie I will say, and I like the 'oooooooooooooooooooo' *covers mouth while looking around* LOL!!! Check this out, and the funny part is at 1:53 - 1:54! Wahahahaha! =p

On Sunday, I went shopping in Jusco with my family!!! Weeeeeeeeeeeee gosh I bought 7 clothes cause there were 50-70% discount during the happy hours! Awesome... until my mom said that would be our new clothes for Chinese New Year 2012! O.O But it's good enough! Now, it's time to slim down a bit! =p

Sunday night - After months of holidays, finally I'm back to study! I had a Further Maths 2 test today (Monday), on two chapters mainly on Sampling and Estimation, and Hypothesis Testing! I could choose not to sit for it and my new FM2 lecturer permitted me to do so. I don't know why, I just feel like I should sit for this test. Although it's been months since the last time I touched Statistics, but this will be a great opportunity to revise these 2 chapters! =)

This morning I was quite excited cause it's the D-day! Haha just kidding! Yeah cause it's the first test I'm taking in PE1 !!! From this test I noticed that many of my classmates are very hardworking and tend to take tests seriously! They even skipped the break time just to study for this test! It was 1pm and the test began. I can do most of the questions (just on time) and everything went well for me! Just hope that I didn't press the calculator keys wrongly haha! =p

That's all for now! I shall update more frequently! Ciao~ =)

Improvement in Operation Check Up! =)

2011-11-30T21:12:00.000+08:00

Remember that my personal trainer (Ms. Cheryl) did one operation check up with me, last week? Yes today finally I went to the gym after around a week of sleeping at home, or more on indulging myself at Lanai! =p I was quite determined today, and although my calf seemed to cramp anytime, that didn't stop me!

Check out this post, and you will know what I'm talking about! So today again I bumped into her and asked her to carry out the check up for me! Again it was the same series of tasks:

1) Running on the treadmill for 20 minutes (I ran 4km with average speed of 12 km/h and maximum speed of 16 km/h during the last 60m).
2) Rowing for 500m (I did it in 1 minutes 51 seconds, slightly slower but still okay!)
3) Chin up with reduction of 20kg from my current weight (I did it for 5 times consecutively but it was 5kg heavier than last week's!)
4) Push up as many times as I can (I did 40 times straight, a great improvement from 25 times last week!)
5) Sit up as many times as I can (I did 70 times straight!!!!!!!!!!!!! Again a great improvement from 35 times last week!)

See!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! I just can't believe actually! Guess how much did I score? Last week I got 18/36 and it was a pass! This week? *drum rolls please* I've got 25/36 and it was so close to intermediate score of 28!!! So awesome!!! Looks like my diet somehow works! =p

Really? Maybe not. One of my ex-classmates once told me a way to diet, i.e. skip dinner. After talking to my housemate and personal trainer, I realised that it is so NOT TRUE and definitely not the right approach to reduce my body weight! Human body prefers to consume carbohydrate and protein to provide energy, and before the body fat actually being burnt off through normal metabolic activities, the muscles will be consumed first. The right way of reducing body weight is actually by reducing the food portion to around half, and definitely NOT by skipping meals! It will simply just not work! That's the reason why most bodybuilders (although I'm not intending to be one) build up muscles first before cutting off body fat.

Building muscles and reducing body fat CANNOT occur at the same time. When you're in the process of building muscles, you will definitely put up some weight since you have to eat a lot to bulk up! I talked to my personal trainer, and she said that I should eat at least something at night! Don't leave my stomach empty ever. To lose weight fast, I shouldn't consume any carbohydrate after 4pm, although some food which are rich in protein and vitamin, and high fibre (such as oat) are recommended! =)

So that's it! I will keep up my good work towards achieving my goal in err.. 3 months right? =p Ciao~