Discovered a new hobby during this period while cooped up at home studying, or rather slacking. Unbelievable as it may sound, it is cutting nails! Yes I know that sounds gay but everytime I'm bored studying or watching a movie, I will pick up my nail clipper n start chipping away at my nails. **Please do not try visualizing the image if you do not want to lose your appetite**

And the worst thing is, I cant seem to find my nail clipper today! I usually leave it at the table besides my studying desk but when I reached out for it a while ago while feeling bored, I realised it's not there! And I still can't find it after searching the surrounding area.

In desperation, I voiced my concerns to ling and this was her reply...

"How come a nail clipper can become more important than me?!? Nv hear u say u cant slp without me! Angry!"

Haha, now I can't sleep because firstly, I cannot find my nail clipper and secondly, ling's reply is so funny! Guess one can find simple pleasures in life....

Turnaround?

In between my last entry and this, I have been through 3 more papers and things seems to be getting better, but only because the start was pretty bad. My 2nd paper was a disaster, not just any blink-and-you-forget kind, but rather those slp-and-you-a-nightmare kind ! I think I failed the paper, but at least it wasn't so bad cuz most people found it extremely difficult too. In fact, one of the student even consolidated protests from all the students and lodge an official complaint against the school. Hopefully it works.

But then things got kinda better and the next 2 papers were do-able. Not exactly confident, but after the disastrous start, I think it signal things might just be getting better. 2 more to go, andI so want to get it over and done with. I guess I'm done with studying. Never thought that taking exams was such a chore, it was tough forcing my unwilling soul to go through it. And to think I might still have to take CFA in the near future.

So many things have happened lately - the terrible earthquakes in China, Obama winning the Democratic nomination, US sinking into recession while many others experiencing inflation, Man U won the double - clearly the world waits for no one. In between, I have been thinking about what I am going to do after I graduate, that is if I manage to. Here are some of the options I'm considering...

1) Persist with landing my dream first job
2) Settle for back office job and wait for the economy to get better
3) Work for my dad
4) Charity work?
5) Learn something I always wanted to but never had the drive to do e.g. 3rd language, guitar

But 1 thing is definite - spending more time with ling! Oh, and it's exactly 1 more month before ling arrives! Can't wait...

It's been a good 2 months since I last blog. Sort of just lost the urge to write about things. While this period was meant to be a time to mug really hard for my exams, I have practically wasted it. I do not know why but I have become really nua since I came UK for my studies. Days are spent downloading and watching movies instead of studying hard. Evidence is my 500gb hard disk is running out of space!

I can't seem to find the motivation that I once had while in NTU. WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!

Tomorrow is my second paper and again I don't feel prepared. I am conceptually so weak with derivatives, and being lazy to put in the effort to understand it, I decided to focused my efforts on a few topics which have been repeated in past year papers in the hope that they will come out this year too. I am really praying so very hard!

My first paper was quite a disaster too. Was forced to choose a question where I did not know how to do half the question. Came out with a really bad feeling that I din't do well and that my aim of a distinction is practically down the drain. It was the worst paper I have taken in a long long time, demoralising and tortourous.

I guess it's true. Hard work is rewarded, and I have definitely not worked hard enough to deserve good results. Can only hope I find my motivation for my next few papers. I still have time to make a difference to my results! (or so I hope)

Dawn of a new era?

Came away from a talk today with some profound insights and thoughts of my own. It just struck me out of nowhere, but I am penning this down and hopefully down the road, I can look back and reflect whether what I've thought of has come true or not.

The talk was on the credit crunch and mainly centred around its impact on US and Europe. It got me thinking about what does this mean for Asia. Then 2 statements made separatelt by the speaker struck me. The first one goes "During the burst of the dot com bubble, the US had a budget surplus 3% of GDP and fiscal stimulus resulted in a swift recovery which led to a budget deficit of 3%." The other went something like this "There will come a time when the sovereign wealth fund (SWFs) will no longer come to the rescue of these troubled financial institutions and this will occur at a time when they need it most. As such, Europe is likely to feel the brunt of the credit crunch much worse than US."

These 2 seemingly innocuous statements put together got me thinking about what this could mean for Asia and even Middle East. There will come a time when SWFS realise their folly that investing money into these foreign financial institutions aren't such a great idea. This is evident by the losses suffered by many of them with the subsequent fall in share prices of institutions like Blackstone, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup etc.

Therefore, instead of putting all the country's reserves in such places, why don't Asia Central Banks use it on stimulating domestic demand and fiscal spending? This will allow reserves painstakingly built up over the years to be spend on Asia for the benefit of Asians. In addition, this presents a great opportunity for Asia to "decouple" from the Western world while they are sorting out trouble of their own. This will allow the "decoupling" theory to actually be realised and not allow Asia to be stuck in a situation where "when the US sneeze, Asia catches a cold". The end product of the crisis will therefore result in Asia becoming the main engine for global growth and establish ourselves as a leader on global issues that the West has been so accustomed to.

I know my idea seems a bit far fetched and naive since my knowledge of economics isn't that great and there are probably barriers/politics that prevent such a scenario to materialise. But I am sure that this credit crunch presents an opportunity for Asia to start asserting ourselves on a global basis if we start thinking more about ourselves instead of thinking that we need the West to progress.

Can someone please tell the Asian Central Banks my great idea?

I SO WANNA GO HOME!

Wordless

Today is such a special day that I have to make 2 entries. An especially bad day I must say. One which I shall not mention here, but the other was that a blackout occured soon after and my house was in total darkness for almost 3 hours. Had to order pizza delivery since cooking was not possible and forced to eat in the dark. And this was when I thought things could not get any worse...

The "True" Cost of Everything...

Total investment of overseas studies = around $100k.

Total return from overseas studies = unknown.

I would like to rationalise with people who might find it crazy to fork out that kinda $$ for 1 year of overseas education, especially for a MSc degree that doesn't seem to be valued much by employers. Initially I thought so too.

$100k could do so many things, not forgetting the opportunity cost of me not starting work and earning $$ makes the costs even higher. I am not young anymore (25 this year). Compared to my female peers my age, some of them will have already worked for 3 years by the time I graduate. That's a lot of headstart which I have to make up! Also considering the state of the finance industry now, it's difficult to secure a job I want. My options after graduation seems pretty bleak at the moment, but I am not worrying so much about it now. My priority is to do well and hopefully graduate with distinction so as not to let my parent's money go to waste.

Nonetheless, I believed I have grown as a person and gained some new perspectives in life with my decision. While i totally agree the education is not worth the obscene amount of money LSE charges, but there are some positives to come out of it. Some intangibles that are difficult to quantify in monetary terms. For example, I learn to be more independent aka doing housework and cooking. Indeed, I find shopping for groceries quite thereupatic and cooking quite a nice departure from the monotony of school life. I also become more aware of things I am previously impervious to. Before coming to London, I admit to being politically and religiously insensitive. Looking back, I attiribute it to exposure. For example in Singapore, I do not follow the political elections because I take it for granted that PAP will always win. As such, there is not much say one can bring and therefore I do not have an opinion. In London, I started coming into contact with politics through newspapers, television and conversations so much so that I have been catching up with the US presidential elections with much interest. Indeed I recommend anyone who is free to go check it out. It's really quite interesting, especially the parliamentary debates.

So to answer the question whether it is worth the $$ and time, I seriously cannot answer. Perhaps only time will tell...