This will be a pretty anyhow mashed up post since I do not have much to write for each of the above topics. But before I begin, let me wish everyone a “Happy Chinese New Year”.

My life hasn’t changed a single bit for the past week. Life is just going to school, attending lectures and tutorial (singular because I only had 1 tutorial so far), and having lunch with friends from other departments in Engineering, and also from School of Computing. Everyday I end by lunch time (other than Thursdays) and I have time to do my own things, except that I am generally lazy and I don’t do the things I should do. Tutorials are starting from this week onwards, but since there is 2 days of holidays, the impact will probably be minimal. Next week will be when the tutorials are all up and running.

Chinese New Year is mainly a boring affair. It used to be interesting and fun, but it has been quite monotone the past few years. Primarily it is because the cousins I used to play with have all grown up, me inclusive, and hence we all have our own private lives to run. As such, we only probably see each other only once a year, during Chinese New Year, and there is nothing much to talk about. It’s a real pity, but I guess that is life. Friends around me seem to report a similar predicament. I wonder if it is because we were all busy studying.

Reunion dinner was nice. Its the annual steamboat event and there is lots to eat. I satisfied my shabu shabu craving then, and even had the annual portion of the abalone.

I only go to my aunty’s house every year, since my grandparents live there. So the entire extended family goes to visit every year. I don’t go anywhere else, because there is nowhere else to go. I think it’s better because it’s quite troublesome to go from places to places. But I guess I will never understand the feeling of commuting during CNY since I never did experience it. Probably better for me since I won’t like it much anyway.

Today is the 2nd day of the new year and I’m staying at home, trying to study and catch up with work. But it’s really boring. At least the week will be better. There’s school to keep me busy for a while, and on Friday there is the CNY celebration for Advisors Alliance in the boss’s house. I didn’t go the other time, and I guess it is good to see how large his house is. On Saturday there is a primary school clique CNY gathering at my teacher’s house. It has been a long time since I seen them, so I must take it as a good opportunity to meet them.

The past week there has been plenty of unrest in many people’s blogs with respect to the topic of the Association of Bloggers. In a way I have learnt that whenever you try to do something, you must be prepared for the backlash, and you must be prepared to ignore critics. I say ignore because some critics are just criticizing for the sake of criticizing, and their arguments are not really valid. Critics who raise valid points should always be welcomed and feedback be taken seriously.

In a way, I realize that this is remnants of the blog wars that was carried over since a few months ago. In actual fact, this shouldn’t be a blog war, but it has become one, and I feel that it is because of what the President wrote in her own blog. I feel very disgusted at what she wrote, because she could have not wrote all those insensitive things. If she had exercised restraint like any responsible representative of any association, a huge bulk of the problem would not have begun. Hence from this I learnt that when I become a representative, I have to be mindful of my words and actions because what I say and do will affect many people and cause many possible problems.

Personally I feel that most of their aims are good, and should be encouraged. Entrepreneurial actions should always be encouraged, even if they eventually fail. Their intentions are good, and there are a few people up on the team which I respect, one of them being Paddy, who is running many companies like Bak2u and Blog2u. Hence I’ll be just sitting back and watching how events unfold, and pray that they will overcome all the problems they have now and do the things they wanted to do.

There’ll always be people who disagree with your ideas, especially if they are new, but time has shown that it is with new ideas that our lives continually improve. People may think you are mad, or stupid, but persevere if you believe in something, and it will happen.

Well today’s papers seem to say that Mindef is recruiting. Apparently during recessions, the number of people who signed on increases. Maybe it is because people have a need for an iron rice bowl, and you probably won’t get fired unless you do something really bad.

Personally I’ll never sign on. I won’t understand why people want to sign on, especially with the events happening recently.

Anyone remembered that just last week ago, the parents of a NSF won a lawsuit against Mindef? The reason they sued Mindef is that Mindef stopped paying for the medical bills of the NSF who’s in a coma. The reason Mindef gave is that he was not on active duty, simply because he was seen in his bunk resting a few minutes before that accident happened.

I find it totally irresponsible in my opinion, simply because that guy was scheduled to be on duty, so what if he was in his bunk resting for a while? Personally, I think that, since we send our young guys over to train to be civilian soldiers, defending Singapore in time of need, surely it isn’t too much to expect that they take care of our guys when something happens? Bear in mind, this is forced conscription. It’s not like we volunteered for it. Since its forced, then anything that happens there is surely Mindef’s responsibility! Especially so if the NSF was not conscripted, such an event would probably not happen. So I do not understand why we have to differentiate between active service personnel and personnel who’s considering serving but not really serving since he was in his bunk.

Makes me wonder, if something happened to me last time, who’s going to take responsbility, especially since we go to our bunks quite often even on duty. I said it before, and I’m saying it again, such an event just doesn’t give us the confidence to fight for Singapore, knowing that if something happened, Singapore may not take care of us. The will to fight for Singapore is based on the belief that our loved ones are here and Singapore will take care of them and us. If we realize that the organization doesn’t really care as it claims to (care for soldiers? bullshit), then how can we participate in reservist actively?

The other problem I’m annoyed with Mindef is that it is super inefficient when processing reservist details. They have been doing reservist for years, so why is there still a problem with ns.sg? I’m scheduled for reservist (as claimed in a letter from my HQ), but yet I do not receive the sms like my friends did, nor did I have anything under MyCallup in Ns.sg. A couple of my friends are in this situation, and we’re wondering, so is there reservist or not.

The last annoyance I have is that I booked tickets to travel in the month of July since November, and now it seems that I must station myself in Singapore. I am intending to call up and enquire, and hopefully I’ll be allowed to travel. If I’m not allowed to, I’ll be very pissed. Are we going to be subjected to be able to only map our lives 6 months at a time? Are we doing this for our NSmen, who serve wholeheartedly, but yet are subjected to such an inconvenience? Serving NS should make me proud and valued, not inconvenienced. Not to mention that the service the call centers give is totally lousy.

Bleah. So Mindef, if you want to recruit, do something about all these first. You’re only lending fire to those anti-National Service people.

Over the whole course of my previous “Entrepreneur Internship Program” in the last month of December, I have repeatedly heard the same questions from the various speakers. They kept emphasising to ask ourselves, “What do you want in life”.

In fact, never have I felt so strongly in my belief that we need to visualize our success before we can achieve that success. Simply put, how can we work towards success if we do not know how our version of success looks like? As an example, how can you work towards achieving financial freedom by age 40 if you did not aim for that in the first place? Hence, the question “What do you want in life” is justified for everybody around the world, whether they want to achieve success or not.

That said, different people want different things for themselves. Some people just want a stable job, some wish for a happy and stable family. Some wish they will have enough money for retirement. For others, they wish they have plenty of money for retirement, so they can enjoy whatever they want to do. Some want to travel every year. Some want a huge house, others, a small HDB flat. What will make you contented?

During the whole business camp in JB, there was this session in which we were asked to draw on a small sheet of paper, what we visualize our life to be in the future. It’s not what we think our life WILL be, but it’s what we WANT our life TO be. Some of the people were not being serious; a friend drew 3 angles in the sky amongst the clouds. Another friend was aiming for something higher. A palace (I think it just means a big house), lots of money, private jets and such.

Personally, I drew 4 people at the start. It’s probably going to sound like some cheesy art a 3 year old drew, but yes, that is what it is. I drew me, my wife and two children. A happy family, that’s the foundation of it all. And then I drew a money symbol with broken chains, symbolizing my desire to achieve financial freedom. In a way, it means I can be employed by choice. Or in layman’s terms, I’m working because I want to, not because I need to. To put it even simpler, it means “I got so much money, that if I do not work, I won’t die”. Followed by a car, a house, an occasional tour.

Sad to say, all these means money. What I want in life needs to be substantiated by money. Although you hear your elders telling you that money is not important, that happiness is the main thing, but to tell the truth, we humans have plenty that we want, and all these need money. Which is why we’re all running in this rat race now. Which is why we’re in universities, because a university degree gives you more money in a salary.

But yet, though money is the fundamentally important part of our everyday lives, we are not taught about money. It is with this viewpoint which got me interested in finding out more, which is why I joined the whole insurance internship program. I will proceed to learn about all the financial products and tools, and know them well enough to use them to achieve my own goals in life.

Hence from today onwards, I will make my life more productive. I will read more and learn more, starting from the insurance sector. I met my mentor today at Great Eastern, and I’ve gotten information on two insurance products from him. Once I understand the thing fully, I’ll be in a better position to decide for myself what I want.

So from today, my journey begins.

I’ve just read an article titled “I hope Singapore government punish them” by The Online Citizen, and I must say that I felt really disappointed at my own country. For us to claim that we are first world when we are treating people from other countries like this is something that I cannot fathom. We cannot and should not claim ourselves to be first world when our own system is so inadequate that compromises on the lives of many migrant workers.

This situation is not something new. It has been going on for a very long time. It is time to enact legislation that heavily penalizes agencies for bringing migrant workers here when there is no jobs for them. It is time to make sure that each application for a job comes with a work contract where the employer promises work for a worker before he is allowed to come into Singapore. It is time to punish the unscrupulous, those who want money at the expense of others.

How many times do we need to read about migrant workers paying thousands of dollars to come over to Singapore, and they ended up with little or no work? How many people must return home in debt, their dreams dashed, simply because their luck was not in favour, that they have simply believed in the wrong man?

Ask ourselves if we would want this to happen to us, and we have the drive and determination to not do it to others.

But I ask. If we do not have so many jobs, then why are our government encouraging more foreign workers to come into Singapore? Yes, Singaporeans do not do certain jobs, hence we have to allow for such foreign workers. However, if the demand is more than the supply, then it is not a fair thing to take whatever demand there is, even though jobs can’t be matched to them.

Ask ourselves, as a society, have we done wrong? Yes we have. It’s a pity we still think we are world class. Bleah.

As with all semesters, I’ll talk about what I’m going to do for these few months. The first week of school is ending in one day’s time, and this week has seriously disrupted my plans for my university education.

Originally, I planned to take MA2222 in sem 5, and the other 2 Financial Mathematics minor modules in sem 8, which will allow me to graduate with a Minor in Financial Mathematics. The plan was that I clear MA2216 as an overloaded module last semester, which I did. This semester’s plan was to clear an Arts Gem (General Education Module) as an overloaded module, and next’s sem is to clear MA2222.

However, due to the new rule that I can only bid for my 6th module in round 3 onwards, I didn’t manage to get my arts Gem. Hence I have to move it to the other semesters, and I’ll most probably move it to sem 8, hereby replacing one of the final 2 Financial Mathematics minor module. Hence I will not graduate with a minor in Financial Mathematics. Anyway a minor only appears in the transcript and not in the degree scroll, so less one module is not going to hurt me much. I’m taking it for information anyway.

The other move I can take is to drop the whole minor. I have cleared enough electives such that I do not need those 3 modules to make up my graduation credit count. Of course, this is subjected to my plan of attending Industrial Attachment, which will give me 12MC of credit. If I do not go, I would have to take the 3 modules.

Hence, for the first time in NUS, I am taking a 20MC semester! Shocked? Don’t worry, I only overloaded once. The first sem was 19MC, 2nd was 21MC and the 3rd 24mc. Hence this is the firs time I took a proper semester with the correct workload.

However it feels a little slack because my timetable, for the first time, is packed in such a way that only 1 lecture is after lunch. The rest will finish before lunch, and my lessons are all back to back with no time to rest. Such is the cruelty of only having 1 slot for lectures.

The first week is going to end off normally, though I will have to do a tutorial since EE2006 had to start tutorials in the 2nd week. All my other modules start in the 3rd week. 2 of my modules are once every two weeks, so in a way there is not much rush in completing tutorials.

These are the modules I’m taking this semester:
EE2006 Digital Design
EE2009 Signals
EE2010 Systems and Controls
EE2012 Analytical Methods in Electrical and Computer Engineering
SSA2211 Evolution of the global city state

For EE2006, the lecturer seems good and I think I’ll be most interested in this module. I think with that my specialization in year 3 should be more or less decided.

EE2009′s lecturer is good too. I was able to listen and absorb for the two full hours.

EE2010′s lecturer is not too bad, but maybe the content now is a little dry so I’m day dreaming at times. The content till now is mainly the basics.

EE2012′s lecturer can really make me sleep. Sometimes I do not know what’s the point in telling us some technical examples, when he’s trying to teach probability. Hopefully things will become better.

I’m going for my SSA2211 lecture later at 6-8. Had a long break since 12 noon.

One week is going to end. 5 more weeks to recess week and the dreaded mid term tests!

Yosh. Going to work hard.

Today was a very enjoyable day even though it was quite tiring. After school in the morning, I went to The Cathay to get tickets for Ponyo at 3pm. I was watching the movie with an old friend. She’s not old actually, cause she’s 21 this year, just that I haven’t seen her for like 6 years since 2002 when I graduated from my secondary school. Throughout the years we didn’t really keep in contact much, just the occasional MSN conversation.

Last week I put a sentence of the lyrics of the Ponyo song on my MSN personal message and she just asked if I watched it. Since no one wanted to watch with me, and her friends also did not want to watch with her, she asked me to watch it together. Initially I was a little nervous, because I don’t know how it’ll turn out, since we didn’t see each other for 6 years. “Will it be awkward?” was a question I kept asking myself.

But I guess I have to start getting used to meeting old friends, else all my friends will eventually leave me due to a neglect to stay in touch. But I am glad I met her in the end, and it wasn’t awkward at all, fortunately, because she’s as chatty as usual. Not much chance for silence, which I was dreading it to happen.

Ponyo is quite a nice movie. I can’t say it’s very good, because the guy made better animations like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. Ponyo’s plot is very simple, a young love story between a fish (sakana) and a human, resulting in Ponyo becoming human forever. I think this is the last animation that the guy is going to draw, so it’s quite a good movie to catch. It’s funny most of the time too.

After that we just walked around PS entertaining each other, and finally going for a meal at Ajisan’s. Ajisan’s had this Hokkaido ramen on its menu, so I tried the seafood ramen. There’s scallops (though not as good as Azabo Sabo’s), crab meat and squid.

We then walked to Bugis just for the sake of walking and kept talking the whole time, saying very bhb stuff and I got suaned most of the time. I think got this lady beo me when I was having dinner leh. Lol.

I was really glad for today’s movie outing.

I went out yesterday with my JC friends, particularly to celebrate the attainment of our targets in the past semester. 3 of us hit out targets, and hence we’re subsidising a meal for the other two people in our groups. Hence we went to a sushi buffet at a place called Sushi Kikuzawa (I hope I got the name right) at International Building.

For buffet lunch it costs $29.90++ per person, not inclusive of drinks. It comes with one set of sashimi, and then all the sushi you can eat. We didn’t order initially so the chef just made us different kinds of sushi, and I think I must have ate like 25 pieces of sushi via this way, exclusive of 2 handrolls. The amount of rice was sickening.

We also had 2 sets of chawan mushi, some takoyaki, miso shiru, and pudding. We ate the poisonous blowfish (fugu) sushi twice because we didn’t know what it was initially. Only after we ordered it then we realized. Well, I’m still here. It’s really tasteless.

My favourite sushi was those with the blow torch. Somehow the blow torch brings a nice chao ta taste and smell. After the whole thing, Zong wanted to have another chawan mushi and I wanted the mini udon, but we were told that the kitchen is closed, like 30 minutes before the stipulated buffet end time. Anyway we were already quite full, so we left. It was an enjoyable meal, but I don’t think we’ll be going again because there are other buffets to explore for the other semesters.

After the meal we walked down Orchard road to go to Cineleisure because we had tickets for Red Cliff 2. On the way we were stopped by two energetic direct sales guys. (Again???).

Yes, but this time they were selling Disney designed notebooks (paper kind. Not laptops hor), and they asked us to pay at a price we would like. All in the name of helping people who are not able to find jobs in the recession.

I understand the need to support people in recession. I proceeded to ask him how it is going to help these people. Apparantly the money is going to help the company hire more people to do direct sales. In short, it means if we buy it, we’ll actually be encouraging more people to be on the streets selling things I do not need, because I’m supposed to pity those who cannot find a job. Note that we’re not actually helping to create value jobs, but we’re creating jobs of no significant value to our economy. And it all works on pity.

Another interesting point to note, is that if direct sales is such a good job that we should help promote it, then it should mean that there are many people who would buy the products. As such, shouldn’t the company hire more people to sell? This is the first time I heard that company needs money to hire people. So they are hiring not because they need manpower, but because they can use this pity people have, make use of it, and earn some money.

Uber unethical, in my opinion.

Yet fools still buy them without thinking.

Anyway, we didn’t buy of course, and we just headed to the cinema to watch our movie. In my opinion, Red Cliff 1 seemed much more exciting than Red Cliff 2. But I guess it brings an end to the whole Red Cliff saga. Nothing much to comment about it. I still enjoyed myself.

Hence ends my day out with my JC friends.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

This is a quote that I’ve read from this book called Life’s 100 Great Quotes, printed by Great Eastern. My friend Alan gave me the book a few months ago, and I got another one when I went for the Entrepreneur Internship Program. I find that it is quite meaningful.

I’ve always looked back and regretted on the actions I have done, why I did something when I could have just did it another way. On hindsight, everyone’s a genius. However 20 years ago I didn’t have anything I could regret since I was only 2. But I feel that the quote is meaningful, because what I didn’t do now, would potentially make me regret because I could have done it and my life could have changed. (Like why didn’t I talk to the mrt girl who was looking at me. Lol. It’s a joke)

But seriously, why not take a moment to reflect on your life and think about what you want in life? Set a 90 day goal for yourself. Do something you won’t dare to do. Take some calculated risks. Go for a course you were feeling apprehensive about. Sometimes it invigorates you.

I’ve just came back from a Business Camp in Jb which lasted from 2nd Jan 2009 to 4th Jan 2009. The whole 3 days was quite fun and enjoyable, and the food was actually to my liking. The Business Camps conclude my lessons for the holidays as part of an Entrepreneur Internship Program by the Advisors Alliance, part of Great Eastern.

Throughout the whole month of December, as well as the Business Camp, I have learnt many things, especially on the insurance sector, and it has really opened my eyes. Sad to say, people still have a misconception of the insurance sector, and thinks that insurance agents are dubious people out to just get your commission, and they’ll lie and keep things from you just to sell you insurance. Well, the fact is the government is regulating the insurance sector through MAS, and before we actually are eligible to become a representative of an Insurance company, we have to go through a series of tests to get some licenses. There are also things that we have to do before we can actually sell a product, and we have to sell something based on the customer needs.

Having learnt so many things about the insurance sector, I have seen how insurance is actually an important component of financial planning, and how insurance is actually very much a necessity. In a nutshell, insurance is like a transfer of risk from a policy holder to the insurance company. You pay a sum of money, so that in the future when something happens, we have money to tide things through. To be more precise, I have seen how Whole Life policies actually settle plenty of problems when one dies prematurely.

Insurance is also something that should be constantly relooked from time to time as part of financial planning, especially when one goes from different stages of life from a person to a husband to a father. The money needs grow, and hence the sum insured should increase as the person takes on more responsibilities etc.

In short, Insurance is very interesting and I’ll learn more about it for the sake of my personal financial planning.

Back to the camp, it as all fun and enjoyable as we watched videos, created a compilation of videos, as well as analyse case studies. We also had an Amazing Race in the vicinity. We also listened to those people in the business as they share their stories, especially how parents object to their son going into the industry. I must say that it is probably still a concern for the current generation. But these people are the success stories, and they really worked hard to be where they are. Imagine earning 1000 a day. But you must really really work very hard. There’s always a catch to things. There is no such thing as easy lunch. Only after you have worked hard in the initial years, you’ll then be able to enjoy the income and lifestyle. I’ll most probably not end up as a full time insurance agent. Personally I don’t think I’ll be as determined as them in working full time, and I have an interest in what I am studying now too. I’ll probably do it part time just to get some additional pocket money.

There’s also lessons to learn on perseverance and entrepreneurship, which is beneficial as it is not only confined to the insurance sector.

I’ve enjoyed myself for the past few days. Time to take my last week of holidays and go back to school.

There’s a recent facebook group by NTU students that is going on a recruiting spree to petition NTU to allow for the S/U option to be exercised after the results are out. This is due to NUS changing it’s policy to allow us to exercise the S/U option after we got our results.

A little background information for the uninitiated. A typical undergraduate takes 5 modules each semester and each of the modules are graded. They count towards our final grade and hence each module is equally important. The S/U option is called the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory option, and allows for a certain module to be graded on a S/U basis, hence it will not affect our final grade, called the Grade Point Average (GPA) for NTU students, or the Cumulative Average Point (CAP) for NUS students.

In my opinion, I feel that both scenarios have their respective advantages or disadvantages, and it is a matter of what you prefer. Some people may like it that they can decide to S/U a particular module after the midterm examinations, and hence do not have to spend time on that module. They can then spend time on the four other modules, and hence have a greater chance in improving the scores. This would also mean that in the NUS system, we typically have to work harder for all the modules so that we can have a comparison, and decide the S/U the lousiest one. The disadvantage in this sense is that you have to work hard in all modules, though one can claim to give up on a module and S/U it afterwards.

The advantage of the NUS model, something that is well loved by most students, NTU or NUS, is that you do not know which module may end up being the worst one, and hence you can exercise the S/U option correctly. What if the module you dislike is the one you got an A for, but the one that you had the utmost confidence in turned out to be that nasty B? I guess I need not explain.

However, reading the facebook group, it has come to my attention that the NTU administration feels that changing the system to follow NUS will “compromise on the quality” of the degrees.

Personally, I feel that my NUS degree has not been compromised. Had NUS not changed it system, I doubt my CAP would change much. I will explain why.

The only part where my CAP will change will be the last semester. Just like the scenario I gave above, I actually had a module I disliked, and it ended up being an acceptable grade. Had I S/Ued before my examinations, I would have lost that grade. However, another module which I thought I’ll do not too badly for, actually was the one I S/Ued in the end. However, the difference would probably be quite negligible after the end of the four years when the proportion of difference this grade would make would decrease.

Why would I not be affected for the other 2 S/U options I have left? The reason is simple. I’m now in my Year 2, 2nd semester (in 2 weeks time), and I can S/U all my non Core modules from now on. I’ll have one Arts GEM (General Education Module) and one Singapore Studies module to clear, and I would probably S/U both. I doubt that my humanities side is strong enough to give me a grade that will actually pull up my CAP. The rest of my electives and breadths have all been cleared.

So then, I doubt it will compromise on the quality of my degree. That said, note that only the non-core modules can be S/Ued, and our degree is given based on the core modules that we learn. Seriously, do you think that Understanding the Universe contributes to the quality of my Electrical Engineering degree? I doubt that my future bosses would seriously consider that to be the basis of whether I am capable or not. Since the core modules form the backbone of our degrees, then how can it compromise on the quality when the modules to S/U are the non-core modules? Especially so when the other modules are just there to give us a greater exposure to other fields. Exposure and nothing else.

In conclusion, I feel that the NUS system has more advantages, especially since it takes away the element of a gamble. S/Uing a module before the results are known can be considered a gamble. You’ll never know if you’ll lose or win. But although it has more advantages, I do not think 3 modules of gambling will make such a big difference in our scores, taking into consideration my own situation. Hence whether to change or not will not make a difference to me if I’m in NTU.