Syrix's Sty

@ End Start

2010-07-13T23:17:00.002+08:00

After reading my blog post nearly 1 year ago, it seems like tons of things have happened.

Let's just summarize.

Implemented a full $1.3m project myself! Finally from start till end.
Won some company awards, Spot , iChallenge, etc.
Got my first full bonus since working.
Become more zombified in the process.
HDB flat prices rose, income cap still at 8k ( alright not really due to me)
Pay increased 11%.
Colleagues quit.
QUIT MY JOB TO DO TRADING! (Partly due to pt 6->5,7)

YES! Finally, after contemplating for >1yr. I've decided to quit. My last day is on 29 Aug 10.
I will dedicate more time to my life and spiritual well being.

@ Semi Annual updates

2009-08-29T23:34:00.000+08:00

Been 5 months since the last updates...it's been getting longer.

Actually, I didn't think of updating my blog. Thought of leaving it here to die. Then I wanted to find my personality test result and came back here. Upon which I read more past posts and find that blogging is a way to keep track of your life. Like i read about how i complained about stupid people in the workplace 2 years ago. And now I've accepted it with a laugh.

So far, I'm getting more sick of work. Yes it's as usual. 3 years since working, I've not found the utopia I'm looking for. I wanted to quit. To do trading or business. Something on my own. But there's something hold me back. Age + future committment.

Not getting young, and need tons of $ for future use.

But i think today, I've decided to screw this 2 reason. The most I'd just be happily living status quo. Nothing bad, since I don't sense much need for a change from other party.

I'd love to quit come this Monday, but I prefer to wait out the AWS. Now my goal is to be a 4 months zombie in my work place. I hope conscience can take a break during this 4 mths to make me feel better.

Anyway, I've read through my 3+ yrs of posting and found not much joy in my life. Seems like I'm lacking something seriously important.

Trying to make that my priority actually. Not easy. The seed that falls among the thorns and got choked out..

@ Quarterly Updates

2009-04-02T21:23:00.003+08:00

It's been quite some time since my last update.

Really been busy at work, nothing to think about except what remains to be done tmlo. I don't like it. Perhaps a year or two is fine, but not for the next 30 years. Passing life so fast without doing anything useful or meaningful, working for a company that is just dead by itself.

There's alot to think about, how should life carry on from here? I know there are people who thinks stability and working should be part of life. I don't disagree, I respect their view, but this is just not my view.

If you look back the few years you've worked, what is memorable? Staying late to rush a project timeline? What in the end has the project done? Has it helped anyone? Has it ever made a difference to anyone's life? Answer would likely be no, it would only add to the revenue which came back as a number, cold hard number on the P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement.

It doesn't make sense to carry on, especially working till 9 pm everyday without rest or time to make a difference.

@ New Year , old resolution

2009-01-11T22:06:00.003+08:00

It's nearly 2 weeks after the new year started... what has changed?

The markets have rallied and fallen.
War has risen in some part of the earth..

The uncertainty of the world is getting more certain... what had been stored for a lifetime can disappear in a flash. This reminds me of a verse

Matthew 6:19
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

In my life, I've been obsessed with the accumulation of worldly wealth. Always forgetting the big picture, that these are just worldly possession.

I'm not saying it's not good to make $, but the purpose of making $ should be geared towards the right objective.

Proverb 14:31
He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

Matthew 6:2
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

These are 2 things I'd need to try to achieve this year.

# Book 6

2008-12-12T23:50:00.003+08:00

A new book i've finished reading. Very common sense and easy to understand. Anyway, that's how it is with Buffett's way of investing. Easy to understand, but not easy to achieve. Based on the easiest concept but hardest execution.

How can I know how the management of a company thinks? I've never got a chance to talk to them!

Anyway, here's the cover.

@ A Child's Hope

2008-12-08T21:40:00.010+08:00

I've just registered to help a child on World Vision, a Christian organization that helps children around the world. I'm glad I finally did it. Have been thinking about it for a long time. It is actually just $50 a month, something that I could have lost on 1 bad trade. (In fact, 1 bad trade sometimes set me back by as much as $200) Or the amount 2 people could have spent eating out at a middle range cafe.

Anyway, I couldn't get all the information after I registered as she's removed from the webpage immediately. Here's what I could salvage from my Firefox cache.

Her name is Birhane and she lives in HIV prevalent area in Ethiopia, I hope that by sponsoring her, I'd give her the necessary hope and means to carry on living and hear the words of God.

I'm sure this will not be my last sponsorship. As I get richer, I believe we should help the needy and in a way this will honor God.

"He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God" Proverbs 14:31

Here's a song that I've found to match this whole sponsorship thing.

@Creeping up on me

2008-12-02T22:07:00.004+08:00

Slowly, but surely it's creeping up on me. My life is gradually being pulled into this dark abyss. It is slowly clouding my view and making me think all about it..

Yes...it's WORK. I realise that i'm having more OT (usually 7pm leaving) and by the time i'm home it's already 9 after dinner. I'm slowly forgetting about the value of time and the amount of work that translates to my bonus.

As someone who likes to calculate, let me calculate something for all you workers out there. To find how much it's worth to pia your life away.

Assume a very smooth career path with which you get promotion every year?
Assume a $3.5k pay and lets compare the slacker and the hardworking guy.

Slacker
Year 1 to Year 5

Standard 8.5 hours a day * 22 per month * 12 = 2244 hours
Annual income = 3500*12 + 13th month + 1 month bad bonus = 49,000
Bad wage increment with 2.5%.

Total wage after 5 years = 49,000 + 50,225 + 51480 +52767 +54086 = 257,558

Pay per hour over the 5 years = 257,558/(2244*5) = $22.90

Chao Pia-ster
Non standard 12 hours a day * 22 * 12 = 3168 hours
Annual income = 3500*12 + 13th month + 3 month bonus = 56,000
Good wage increment with 10%.

Total wage after 5 years = 56,000 + 61,600 + 67,760 + 74,536 + 81,989 = 341,885

Pay per hour over the 5 years = 341,885/(3168*5) = $21.58

Tada! Who wins?!

Note it's a 10% increase every year!!! Thats quite impossible even for now...and with that kind of rate you're still losing out!

Why not put these time to better use? Even tuition gives around $35 per hour!
Leave your job on the dot and give 2 hrs of tuition per day. You'd be earning more!

@ IPTV and Work

2008-11-23T14:16:00.003+08:00

Amazing this is like the only time I have some thoughts on IPTV. Despite being in this line for 2 years+.

Was browsing through an advert online on this product that streams HD stream to your PC and mobile. Still not quite sure how it works but set me thinking about IPTV.

IPTV is going to be the kind of application which is going to be pricey at first and slowly goes into free-mode. Kind of like how technology evolves anyway. OS are turning open sourced, web driven OS and applications all for free.

IPTV will be a common implementation in the years to come, it shall be the norm, not the fanciful in 10 years time.

Which set me thinking how valuable my job and experience will contribute in 10 years time. If I can dig as much $ now from it, never shy away to boast this niche market and earn while the trend is still intact.

You never know if this job will be like the life of a footballer....retire at 35!

# Wham bang flop plop...ouch

2008-11-03T09:24:00.003+08:00

Gotta write this down asap before I forget the whole incident.

A few days ago I was still thinking how is it possible to fall down a flight of stairs. The first mis-step would cause you to fall but then subsequently it can be stopped after a few flight of stairs down.

George Soros always have this. I'm fallible...

Today I was about to go down the stairs for work, and checking my bag if I rem my access pass. Then I took my first step down the stairs.

When I saw my foot was not about to land on the 1st step, "SHIT" and the next thing I know I was flat and sliding down the stairs..

I could still rem every step i slid down, trying to stop my fall. It wasn't really fast, I still could have seen every step i fall by. Until I reached the bottom.

It's amazing and now I understand that why sometimes movie blank out audio to concentrate on the visual. Because...while falling, that's all I could focus on. I see vividly my fall, yet hear nothing. I wondered if my ah ma heard me falling..haha

Well, I believe things happen for a reason. God gave me this fall to tell me that it's possible to fall down a flight of stairs, to wake me up from the Monday blues and let me think of how we're all needing his grace every moment to stay alive.

# Book 5

2008-11-01T15:52:00.005+08:00

Finished this book by our homegrown writer/fx trader.

Nothing particularly great. It offers variety of techniques that were briefly touched on. (And the last technique is news straddling, something that's so gonna get you banned from your market maker broker).

Some chapters were emphasizing that stop loss will vary according to risk appetite and individual preferences.

so...?
Why do I even need this book if I don't need to be taught how to set stop loss? How far should a trade turns against you before a seasoned trader consider bad?

It's like saying, seriousness of injuries varies on individual's pain threshold. It's not bad to lose an arm if the guy can take the pain.

DUH! It's obviously bad to lose an arm...

7 Winning Strategies for Trading Forex: Real and Actionable Techniques for Profiting from the Currency Markets: Grace Cheng

@ How events change your age...

2008-10-27T00:03:00.000+08:00

Recent turmoil has wiped out trillions of value in the stock market. This set me thinking how they were actually helping to offset my age and length of work years.

People who started working maybe 4-5 years ago and had invested in stocks or any other instruments would find themselves back at the same financial level as I am now. Meaning to say, their assets now would only seem like they have worked only 2 yrs ( just like me)

In a way, this gives me a good opportunity to catch up with those who have gotten in front and now fallen back behind.

It's good, coz i've gain a good few years. Better than spending money on SK II! I'm 27, but have the same financial power as someone in early 30s...cool.

# Stakeholder in UOB over the weekend

2008-10-20T22:31:00.001+08:00

My first time owning a part of a bank.

Just barely 3 days before I said goodbye to it today.

Easier than FX I think. Feels not so jittery.

Let's wait for another dip.

# Sunset BBQ and Grill

2008-10-12T20:24:00.003+08:00

I think that's the name of this place..which I went.
It's at Seletar Airport, inside Seletar Camp, some ulu place that only those with car can access...

Anyway, I wanna mention this chicken wing they have..

It's the spiciest chicken wing I ever had!!

They have level of 1 to 30 for spiciness.. and I'm so konked out at level 10.

Just 1 bite of it...you'd start sweating, tearing and face turns red.

I never ate the rest after that bite...Its total craziness.

# Book 4

2008-10-06T23:12:00.002+08:00

This is actually a book which I read long ago..just remembered to put this in

Easy read , just interviewing a few traders around the world.

Inspiring for a while...before I get back to Engineering..

@ The world is unfair

2008-09-26T20:06:00.000+08:00

Ecclesiastes 7:15
In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.

Ecclesiastes 8:14
There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 5:8
If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still.

@ Why not!

2008-09-18T20:06:00.008+08:00

I'm always a promoter of Why Not?! And it's been accurately described in my personality test, as an INTJ.

Seriously I see many possible things and I believe that with the right conviction, most things are possible. I've seen my fair share of pessimists who think I'm talking crap but I seriously don't care about what they think. If I share my idea with them and they reject, then don't copy mine when it comes true, such people are those without backbones.

Sometimes I think, why are there people who's happy working their whole life? Think of the 10k days you have to work. Tiring your life out, spending your limited asset (time) on

filing paperwork and doing extra work on unimportant things.
coming up with 20 ideas only to have them all rejected due to a change in project plans
Archiving your email and then looking through them again
Testing a software and then retesting it again due to new upgrades ( for engineers only)

Why not do something and change your life?

Think of it this way, time is something that cannot be bought. If you work hard your life, from 9am to 9pm ; you're exchanging a chunk of what cannot be bought(time) with money ( whose value changes due to inflation).

Its about time I do something about it...

@ The day roles switched over

2008-09-14T22:30:00.003+08:00

Was walking by Meritus Mandarin on Sat and saw a few ang moh pasting up posters on the temporary wall that was set up around the hotel. Its really quite rare to see ang moh doing such things as usually you'd associate some other race doing it.

And the damned thing is, that we're trying to come up with reasons as to why they are doing it instead of some other race. So some reasons we came up with were

They're the wall deco specialist flown in to do it
They're the actual designers who wanted to do it themselves to ensure quality.

Damn I say! Why can't they really be the one hired to do these stuff? Just like some other races...

After watching the news just now, I realized they were indeed the actual designers....(Thought I saw a familiar face)

But ...that doesn't mean it won't happen in the next 50 years right?

# $3

2008-09-07T01:47:00.004+08:00

So what is this post about?

Just some mega inflations.....things that used to cost $1 now is costing $3.
Well, you can't say it's inflation actually, more of a demand supply issue.....so what are the product in discussion??

Yes, they both now cost $3 at NTUC!!!!

I'd say the luncheon meat is more worth...haha

# My Health Status

2008-09-05T19:08:00.004+08:00

Today went to SGH to get my health screening results ( which was paid for by my old generous-but-losing-money company).

Everything is well, I was even amused by the fact there's a line on the report that looks like this....

Appearance: Good
Age: 27....
Blah blah

How did the doc judge my appearance? Hmm

Well, you can say everything is well and some are even in excess...

I'm sure you'd have guessed it ...

# Book 2 And 3

2008-08-29T23:47:00.003+08:00

Finished another 2 books in army. Quite nice.

The 1st book talks about randomness and how people tend to think they are right instead of being lucky ( and even insists on their ways stubbornly, until they meet with some downfall). It was a nice book and you generally get great reviews on most website. Read it to find out more.

The 2nd book talk about how to use the Commitment of Traders report on big boys' position in the market to detect trend changes. The 1st half of the book explains the concept and the 2nd half merely takes different charts from different markets to show examples.

Fooled by Randomness, The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Commitment of Traders Bible
Stephen Briese

# Book 1

2008-08-07T10:35:00.004+08:00

Alright, from now on, I'd post a simple 1 whenever I finish a book.

@Regret

2008-07-21T22:22:00.003+08:00

Ever had this kind of feeling when you remembered to do something, but didn't do it cos you think you'd have the time later or the chance later? Until it's too late...

That sounds quite serious...but it wasn't that serious in my case.

I've this nice wall paper of wallstreet on my laptop. I forgot how I googled it last time from the net, but it's a nice drawing of wallstreet in its older days.

I always remembered that its one thing I didn't backup for my job transition. But I always thought that I could google it again when I change job so I didn't bother even when I remembered as I was backing up my other data.

Now...ORBI GOOD! Cannot find anymore! Those that I found have this big watermark splashed all across it.

Anyway, if any of you guys manage to see it..please tell me..

Its the one below...

# My New Job ...and my future

2008-07-18T19:48:00.006+08:00

Been at my new coy for 2 days. Totally different experience.

One thing's for sure...these 2 days seems like 2 weeks to me. I wonder how come my last month went by so fast.

The company policy is stricter than my old coy, haven't seen much loop hole to exploit so far. Only managed to con a handphone out for myself. As time passes, I should be able to dig some out.

But at least I see more prospect for promotions and pay increment here. That's good to know, I'd be here for 2 years before considering my options again. And to think of it...I'd be 29 by then.

What happened to my $1m by 30? Haha

30 years down the road, I'd most probably look back and laugh at all my ambitious goals now. And die a normal old man 60 years later, with no one to remember me..

Oh man, that sounds so sad..

Is it possible to happen to you too?

@ Way of living

2008-07-13T00:31:00.003+08:00

I realized there are typically 2 ways to earn a living, no matter in what trade, after I talked to this taxi driver today. It just strikes me how similar driving taxi is to trading (in a way).

The cabby I talked to said he prefers a long trip, earning around $20 per trip. I was telling him he could make a few trips within Yishun and get more $ within a shorter timeframe. That reminded me of trading, positional vs scalping. Get a nice long trade with 100 pips or enter 10 times with 10 pips.

Not only this, it applies to all aspect of business. Few large profit compared to numerous small one. Selling thousands of curry puffs compared to selling 5 cars.

I realized I'm in more for the small profits.. Eg, scalping seems to suit me more, I'd rather do things on commission based rather than 1 fixed huge salary, running shorter distance rather than a long one, splitting up several items into a few trips rather than carry them all at once, making slow progress in work hierarchy than working 5 yrs for 1 major jump. Once you show me the big picture, I feel sian that there's so much to achieve.

Well, the reason I could think of is, small increments lock in progress/profits and they seem to be more motivating than working for 1 big jump. Doing smaller things let you do more, have more time to try different things, and you get charged/paid accordingly.

After all, life is not just about working your ass off. Take the time to learn something new. Jack of all, master of none is actually fine by me, as you are exposed to more aspects of life.

# A smaller MP3 player

2008-07-06T14:34:00.004+08:00

I've just gotten a new mp3 player from Sony, the E025F, which has a 30hr playback time, FM radio and the quick 3 min charge for 3 hr play.

Another reason was due to the fact that I thought it came with the MDR-EX90SL earphone, as shown in this site. But then I got a cheapo earphone instead.

I didn't get this stylish expensive earphone!

I thought 2 gb was enough for listening and that mathematically it fits the specification of the player. (Assuming a 4mb mp3 at 4 mins, it can hold 2000mb which translates to around 33 hours, just nice for the duration of the player's battery). But when I was transferring songs in, I feel that there's not enough space to include all the songs i like.

But anyway, it's good enough for me to bring out the streets, better than my iPod 3rd generation bulky classic.

@ The Internet Is Down

2008-06-30T21:40:00.002+08:00

Just got home from having dinner with Jon, who's back in SG for his perm job starting tmlo.
Went to look at a few stores in Chinatown looking to startup a small hawker stall business. But the amount didn't quite add up.

General calculations need 120 bowl per day to break even. Seems hard for a place like Chinatown complex. So we KIV the plan until a better location/rent is found...

So I went home and tried to log on to internet but it was down. Or rather the modem was not detected.

I believe most people will have this kinda feeling, lost and aimless without the internet. Suddenly I found myself thinking of what to do. It always seem so natural to log on when you're home and surf some net and play some games. The PC just felt different without a connection. Even as I was playing my single player game, I feel isolated knowing that my PC is not connected to MSN/BT and nothing was coming into my system.

In fact, I believe the loss of internet does prompt me to think of alternatives to entertain or enrich myself. I actually did think of picking up a book to read or just listening to radio to relax.

I didn't do it in the end, coz after the reboot my modem worked and I'm now blogging this down.

# Hongkong pictures

2008-06-15T00:23:00.002+08:00

Finally the pictures are up.

Thanks to dear for captioning them and uploading them.

It took 2 months of hard work and is now finally up. It has been a tough journey but it all paid off...

:)

Here's the link.

# Caught straddling finally!

2008-06-10T22:30:00.003+08:00

Finally, ODLS disabled my account for trading the news. And there's no way back. I gotta move on and I won't be using their metatrader for now.

It just happen on Friday when I straddled the Non farm payroll. Guess it was due to the fact I hit both of my straddle orders and that triggered their system to mark me. Shortly an hour later my account was disabled.

Writing in to them was met with hostility. In any case, I never liked ODLS customer service. When you compare it to City Index, they really are the dao ang moh bunch of people. Anyway, there was no way for them to allow me to continue using MT4 and suggested I moved onto another platform with a dealing desk + slippage.

So I took out all my $ (including those earned easily with news trading) and I was actually worried they might pull some trick to say the wire transfer didn't get through. I got my money today.

Anyway, now I'm left with no broker to trade on. Except CMC market...which I don't really like.

Well, I'd be looking at ATCBrokers next, since they offer MT4 bridged to an ECN. But it's with higher spread.

Well, maybe this is also God's plan to

Let me stop earning easy/illegitimate money
Concentrate on my new job to come.
Take the right approach in life.

@ I signed a change of lifestyle

2008-06-04T11:33:00.003+08:00

Yesterday went down to ST to sign my contract. Basically, perks are not as good, no more free new handphone but taking over older ones which previous employee uses. That means I'd be pressing my face against a handphone with an oily screen.

After which I went to AMK hub to get a sunglass for my dad. He has gotten cataract and I think it's time to get him a sunglass for his work out in the sun always.

Watched Prince Caspian and find it majestic and touching as with the 1st Narnia Chronicles.

Anyway, let's get back to my change of job.

I see it as a better opportunity to shine since the deputy director has high hopes on me and seems to value my service. I hope I can humble myself and learn from them all. As my auntie said, working in a company which HQ is based in Singapore always offers more path than 1 that has its HQ in France.

And may I be reminded of these 2 phrase whenever I'm tempted to slack or flare in my work.

Ephesians 6:7
Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men,

Psalm 149:4
For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.

@ Change in life

2008-05-29T15:12:00.002+08:00

Ok, I've decided to take on the job since they upped another $100.

So now I've told my boss, and waiting for a counter offer from my own coy ( which i know is never gonna come).

I'd be signing the letter on nxt Monday.

It's still a dilemma to me, as I think about the prospect I'd have there. I've heard there are people who takes 5 yrs and doesn't promote. And I've heard people who promote almost every year.

I believe I'm an average worker so that gives me 3 yrs? But it's still all a gamble.

After this switch, there's most probably no turning back. I should be stuck in this industry forever. And I'd need to work hard and really go to work every day. No more holiday at home doing my own stuff.

Is this what I want? Switch and work hard whole heartedly? Or slack at my current job while doing my own things.

I'm not sure actually. Feeling abit confused.

@ My Job Offer

2008-05-22T23:32:00.002+08:00

I've just got my offer from ST. They've even upped another $100 when I rejected them. How many more $100 can they up? I wonder...

Basically the pros and cons of switching...

Pros
1) More pay obviously...I see a 33% increase in overall annual pay. Which takes in typical bonus and stuff. Without bonus, there's still a 25% increase.
2) I suppose I'd have more recognition than here, where my boss only favors those who can talk (BS).

Cons
1) Loss of flexibility, there's no more staying and working from home. No more slacking around and getting $ for free. My pay per hour actually drops.
2) Move from MNC to ST is like downgrading. The name just isn't as strong.
3) Tons of rules to follow, I don't know how well I can survive in a govt company. I'm rebellious by nature.

Still thinking...what should I do? I wonder if there's a chance of upping my pay again.

#Places (not) to go for makan

2008-05-19T23:05:00.003+08:00

Well, was thinking about some places I've been to for makan. Not alot but there's some that I feel is seriously not worth the bucks and some I feel it's great and I don't mind paying the extra.

This is solely my own opinion and in no way meant to promote or ruin any restaurant's reputation. If you happen to represent any of the restaurants, please evaluate yourself before taking actions on customer complaints like me. Thanks

Places to go

Chicago Steakhouse at Cineleisure

Good pricing
Good quality food too. Steak is done nicely to your order.
Great service attitude
Nice ambiance

Cafe Cartel Bishan

Good pricing, no service charge
Friendly staff
Doesn't feel like you're being chased away after your food. I don't know but some places after you've finish eating and everything has been cleared, there's this kinda feeling you're not welcome anymore.

Manhattan Fish Market Plaza Sing

Nice food
Pricing is ok. But i've got a 10% discount sticker..which you can get easily by asking the staff for it.
Good service (at least the last 2 times i've been there.)
Allows you to linger for a while.

Waruku at Kuppage

Nice pricing for food. ( Quite big serving)
Some staff seems like real japs. Gives kinda abit of ambiance.
Nice deco, you might be lucky to get a room or those jap style seatings.

Places NOT to go

Swensens Northpoint.

There's a staff there called Daniel and his attitude is the worst I've seen.
Bad portion of food. Not worth your bucks
Slow service staff.
Due to reason #1 & 2, I've decided to ban Swensen island-wide. I wouldn't be going in any other.

Long John Silver

As usual, I'm not sure you guys noticed who usually work in LJS. I'm trying hard not to judge. But they are really slow.
The food is getting smaller and the presentation is getting worse.
Not to say prices are higher. Where's my $3 value combo meal last time?
This symptom #1 seems island-wide. So that's an island-wide ban

Shukodo Raffles City basement

Bad pricing, service charge when it's marche style!
Staff are not interested in taking your order. Esp the omelette's rice and sushi counter. It took me 5 minutes of waiting before they attended to me. There wasn't anyone else there!
Tons of seat inside but you're made to queue this ridiculously long queue.
I get better service going into a jap restaurant with the same price!

Billy Bombers Hip Diner

Hip = Sucker
Big price for small plates.
Thou the redeeming point is they sometimes give you a voucher so you can be a sucker again.

Dragon Gate Vivo City Tim sum buffet

Not worth the price. Food is sub standard. (Thick skin for 'har gao', small prawn inside...many more eg). I'd rather pay more for nice food than eating those.
Slow service. It took me 2 hours to get my siew mai. I asked every half hour for it. And someone would pretend to be looking into it. I gave them 30 min grace each time until I had to flare before I get my serving.
Seriously the bad service and food is enough to deter me from going there ever again!!

Alright, I might left out some..can't think of all those I've been to all my life..haha.

But seriously don't flame me! it's just my personal thoughts!

(Then again...who reads my blog anyway!)

# End of my 2 week vacation

2008-05-16T21:48:00.003+08:00

Haha, somehow the title sounds funny.
Cos I've always been having vacation even at work?

Anyway, to sum up this week's trades and what I've done.

I think it's better summarized by days.

Monday
Brought my ah ma down for a hair cut. I'm glad I did something for her in this 2 weeks. Had my own cut too. Coming back home and looked at the charts, but did nothing due to my previous losses. Went for dinner with dear.

Tues,
Woke up and watched tons of HK drama. Decided to do news trading for GBP. Got a nice 40+ pips in 2 mins. I love news straddling. It's stress free and easy.

Wed
Went for interview and proposed my pay which was a shock to them! haha. Well I was just trying my luck, guess they'd come back with a counter offer. Let's see how. Met up with Chris at somerset for lunch at Chicago Steakhouse. Bloody worth! And then went walking around for a while before going home to play DotA...haha

Thurs
As usual, there's no news to be traded. So I kept myself busy with watching shows. Yeah my 2 weeks of leave..wasted like that. Ended up meeting my JC classmates. Feels kinda nice, like back to 10 yrs ago when we were still schooling and talking crap in canteen..Was thinking about how time flies...

Friday
Got a call from ST to notify me I've been selected for the job. But next week will know the $$$ they offer me. Seriously, I'm looking at a change at least in the 1st significant digit for my pay. Which I kinda have hope of...as I was told by someone that the max cap for my position is that amount. Traded a news for US housing starts and netted 12 pips.

Overall, news trading seems good and doesn't take much of my time. Less stress and commitment. Also with my puny lot size, I'm sure my broker is not going to ban me. Unless I go like $10million per trade.

And it's kinda enough to make a small bonus, this amount of trade can easily cover my living expenses per month. Which is nice considering the lack of risk on my part.

Now I'm thinking of going into a risk free carry trade involving 2 brokerage. Hmm..have always been wanting to try it but never did. Maybe it's time to try it soon.

# Trading Summary of the week

2008-05-11T23:11:00.002+08:00

Alright guys, 1 week have passed.
My full time trading is in 1 word...

Negative!

After the 3 trades in the first 3 days, here's my other trades...

Went short the GBPUSD at 1.96. This was using Hector's breakout pull back continuation pattern, which had my stop loss set at the last high of the pullback at 1.9635. It hit 1.9645 and went all the way back down to my TP at 1.955. Before going much more down all the way to 1.950. Bad luck, SL was too near, but who's to judge what is 'near'? This is a loss that I could take without really blaming it on my bad emotions. Anyway, it still didn't do me good mentally.
Playing the news for industrial production on 7 May. Went for 5 pips profit. Once again the retracement was scary and I exited for a handful of pips. Thou in the end it didn't go through that much. Only lost out maybe another 10 pips. It rebounded.
EUR/USD, price was retracing up after hitting lows of 1.5283. Was waiting for it to retrace to the 38.2% retracement of the rise from 7 Feb to 22 Apr. That was at 1.5425. Closed out at breakeven after seeing no momentum. It eventually went against my way to reach 1.5485.

Summary, no catching of falling knife. As reflected in last post example and this 3rd example. It doesn't go well unless a reversal has formed.

This 3 trades were better. I could talk myself into exiting and the 1st was actually a good call with some bad luck on SL.

But it has stopped me from trading for a while to regain my composure.

I've discovered that when I see myself as a full time trader, I'm usually impulsive to get into the action quickly. That led me to lose quite all the $ i earn from trading the NFP last friday.

It would seem I'd be better as a part time trader, setting prices in my mind and really waiting for it to happen before I enter. And I want to trade smaller lots with bigger stop loss to give myself more room for error and the market for movement.

Adios, more to come in the next week of trading.

BTW, I'm going for a job interview which I hope to negotiate my pay up to 40% more than current one. I hope it get through well.

# Alert, violation of emotional sector

2008-05-07T11:13:00.002+08:00

It's the 3rd day of my day trading.

To sum it up.

Bad discipline, emotional overrun.

First trade entered for EUR/USD. No bias for trade, based on overall trend and picking off a tiny uptrend line support. Upside profit margin wasn't high, nearing resistance just 30 pips away. Shooting for 30 pips with 20 pips loss. Bad ratio.Entered before London starts, thin volume and doesn't see the direction of the next fx market session. Stopped out for 19 pips.
Second trade, news trading of GBP services PMI. Entered after news released worse than expected. Slow initial burst. Entered and it went up 13 pips but retraced back to 7 pips. emotionally affected and closed it out at 7 pips profit. Bad move, since data was good for my trade. In the end the move ended 40 pips in my direction while I netted only 7 pips.
Last trade entered at night after I came back from movies, it went to my trade plan price. (note it's price, it had surged up earlier and now it's dropping to my initial price) I took a long, and it was like catching a falling knife. What was I thinking?

In all, a 45 pips loss, at $4 USD per pips...painful.

Nevermind, I still have a few pips up my sleeve. Lets see how it goes.

Why Do people quit their job?

2008-04-30T10:24:00.002+08:00

Recently I've read in Business Times an article that did a survey on why people quit their job. More often, it's not solely due to the $$.

There are several factors highlighted in the article.

Low pay is definitely one of them
Low perks too!
No recognition from bosses.
Some even quit due to low bonus
Limited career prospect.

Hmm...why does this article so aptly describe my feeling?

Anyway, I'm going on a 2 week leave to test out a new career! So... I'd know after this 2 weeks whether I'd be a professional trader or a professional gambler.

# Missing the big picture

2008-04-22T20:36:00.003+08:00

There are some people in this world that have an obvious lack of intelligence when interpreting sentences. They can't take jokes and view everything so seriously. And flare at their own slightest misinterpretation. Following that they'd show you all the vulgar signs and ignorant sentences.

Seriously is there a need? I don't think I've ever shown something so crude to even friends whom I've just known. If _|_ is considered a slight irritation. Then I'm not so sure what I'd get next.

Well, I won't get offended if it came from some 15 yr old. But from a grown up, you judge then.

Seriously if that's the response I get, then I really have to re evaluate the qualities of some people.

# Thank you dear

2008-04-20T18:26:00.002+08:00

Had a good day today with my dear first eating out at Dragon Gate Restaurant ( this is bad thou, I would recommend no one to ever go there again), for tim sum buffet and later some walking around vivo city.

Dear got me this as a gift.

# Back from HK ...

2008-04-19T14:46:00.001+08:00

Well, basically nothing excites me there. And I'm just too lazy to blog about it.

So there won't be any updates to my HK trip.

# Hong Kong Trip

2008-03-29T10:38:00.002+08:00

Alright I'd soon be going to Hong Kong from 2-8 Apr. Anyone if you have nice places to recommend please write down in the comments.

I'd be posting photos and entries in my tour blog so keep a lookout if you're interested!

# My First Credit Card!

2008-03-14T20:19:00.004+08:00

I just got my first credit card after working for so long..haha

This is it!

Oki now next step is to spend enough to redeem free tickets...haha

@ What Am I Again?

2008-02-25T22:31:00.002+08:00

I know there's been tons of test I took for myself, but I just like taking these test to see if they really reflect what I am. Here's an extract of the description they gave me, point which I think are true are in green.

The Portait of the Mastermind (INTJ)

Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition, it is the contingency planning or entailment organizing role that reaches the highest development in Masterminds. Entailing or contingency planning is not an informative activity, rather it is a directive one in which the planner tells others what to do and in what order to do it. As the organizing capabilities the Masterminds increase so does their inclination to take charge of whatever is going on.

It is in their abilities that Masterminds differ from the other Rationals, while in most of their attitudes they are just like the others. However there is one attitude that sets them apart from other Rationals: they tend to be much more self-confident than the rest, having, for obscure reasons, developed a very strong will. They are rather rare, comprising no more than, say, one percent of the population. Being very judicious, decisions come naturally to them; indeed, they can hardly rest until they have things settled, decided, and set. They are the people who are able to formulate coherent and comprehensive contingency plans, hence contingency organizers or "entailers."

Masterminds will adopt ideas only if they are useful, which is to say if they work efficiently toward accomplishing the Mastermind's well-defined goals. Natural leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once in charge, however, Masterminds are the supreme pragmatists, seeing reality as a crucible for refining their strategies for goal-directed action. In a sense, Masterminds approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff, and always devising contingency plans in case of error or adversity. To the Mastermind, organizational structure and operational procedures are never arbitrary, never set in concrete, but are quite malleable and can be changed, improved, streamlined. In their drive for efficient action, Masterminds are the most open-minded of all the types. No idea is too far-fetched to be entertained-if it is useful. Masterminds are natural brainstormers, always open to new concepts and, in fact, aggressively seeking them. They are also alert to the consequences of applying new ideas or positions. Theories which cannot be made to work are quickly discarded by the Masterminds. On the other hand, Masterminds can be quite ruthless in implementing effective ideas, seldom counting personal cost in terms of time and energy.

In the broadest terms, what INTJs "do" tends to be what they "know". Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia). INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Ulysses S. Grant, Frideriche Nietsche, Niels Bohr, Peter the Great, Stephen Hawking, John Maynard Keynes, Lise Meitner", Ayn Rand and Sir Isaac Newton are examples of Rational Masterminds.

@ What I have learnt

2008-02-20T18:42:00.002+08:00

I realised that it's been 1 month since I last posted. Nothing much have happened but there's alot of thinking that's been going through my mind that I feel should be documented down. These are changes that took place after I start working.

Some Lessons Learned

1) Throughout the last 2 years, I've gradually learned to accept people as they are. There's too many types of people in this world. Some who are slower than you, some whom you think doesn't even have the basic common sense, some who're beyond understanding and unreasonable. Of coz there are people who are cleverer than you, but generally I tend to have some displeasure over those who are lousier than me ( in my own judgment).

But that is life, that is how the world works. There's no way we can change it and as human it's our ability to adapt and improvise. Which brings me to the 2nd point of lessons learned.

2) You need the help of everyone you know, once in your life at least. That means, do not be too mean to anyone. Do not burn the bridges and show kindness as you would want others to show you. Hence it's no use flaring up with anyone you find a irritating. There'd be a time when you need their help. Your every little actions count towards your own testimony.

I'm still trying hard to achieve this. Emotions are not something you can control at will, but I'm trying. Please help remind me whenever I lose control! Haha, hopefully not.

3) After reading the book "The purpose driven life: Rick Warren", I found a new outlook to life. It's a very good book for people like me who place too much emphasis on the material gains in life. In the book, it's said life on earth is just a preparation for the eternal life after death. Ok this might seem too preachy for some of you, but seriously when you take on life with such an outlook, it changes everything you do. (Please do not misinterpret this outlook as "Waiting to die since this life on earth is not important"). It does bring back more morality and guidance to my life. Such as doing things honestly, owning up to mistakes, no taking of illegal shortcuts and stuff like that.

4) Well, this point doesn't seem a very valid one, but it's something I personally feel. That as an employee, your life could be the same 15 years down the road. I don't see any explosive change, you'd be left out of many things you wish could try. Which is why I'm going to quit my job soon to achieve something on my own. It might seem a bad move for my career, esp if that something fails and I'd be already 28 with not much working experience. Finding a job would be so much harder. But it's something that's always on my mind if I do not try. So i've decided to give it a shot and live with no regrets! Anyway, in the end it's just all about money isn't it. At most I earn less, but I'd have done something I wish to do.

So here's 2 announcement

1) I'd leave my company after my bonus (most prob May 08) and do 2 jobs for 6 mths( 1 for my aunt company and 1 as a trader at home)
2) I'm going HK this Apr 2-8 with my dear. Hopefully the weather's fair there and we get to experience the full splendor of HK.

#When Time is on your side

2008-01-23T13:06:00.000+08:00

Time is probably the most powerful thing anyone can have. With time, you can do more things, achieve more dreams and not to forget, ride out any storm in the market.

Yes, lately the stock market has been crashing like no tomorrow. With STI dropping 6% in a day, the worst since 1987, everyone is in a panic mode. This is crowd behavior, when everyone runs, you run.

But if you have time, if you take a side step and look at the whole picture, equity is on the overall a bullish picture. Thanks to inflation and money creation, that increases money supply and rises price. Ride it out for 10 years, and you'd get at least a return that's as good as in the bank puny interest rate. But hey you made no loss then!

That said, it doesn't mean that any youngster out there should just plunge right into the market now, thinking they have the time. It's good to be able to ride out the storm and even better to enter when the storm has ended, so you only enjoy the calm after the storm.

FED just made an emergency rate cut by 75 basis point yesterday 9:20pm SG time. (I was having Pontian Wanton noodles then). The market opened higher today, but confidence is still not there yet, everyone is staying on the sideline. It might slow the rampage but I'm sure it has not ended.

Something came across my mind as I wrote this. A scene in my head...sorry I've watched too much resident evil stuff....The current situation is like...

When zombies are still caged from far in their glass doors (think US and its subprime), we're all feeling relatively safe and of course those super chickens will start running away ( those that prefer to exit before anything happens).

The rest of the population would think the zombies are under control, and continue living their life. (In Asia) Analyst will say the zombies can't get far, and prospect looks good. Then the glass door broke, and now zombies are everywhere, (whao, now we're scared and everyone is dumping their stocks) . So came Alice to save the world (FED? Haha, sounds odd that FED is Alice) with her dual berettas (think rate cuts).

Coast clear? Would you now venture out to pick the spoils of war, like those items on the deceased(cheap blue chips)? I wouldn't, who knows there are still zombie out there? But there are those who would ( entering now to balance out the bears, but still get pretty burnt) and end up being zombie food. Well, that's good for us, as they are sacrificing to feed these bastards. (instilling confidence into the market slowly).

So when would you come out again? When you see there are more people who have ventured out, and you'd not be the prime target. Even if the zombie come again ( the market bulls), you'd have a pretty good chance to escape with little harm. (Let the market have a week of consistency first maybe).

Oh ya, and this brings us back to when you have time on your side. That you can wait out till the coast is clear.

I wanna be Hiro Nakamura!!!!

@ Ponteng work

2008-01-15T18:54:00.000+08:00

Today I ponteng work again. Did a night job yesterday ( sort of a 10 min job from 2-210am) and I slept till 1015am today. Was waken up by a call to join in some application troubleshooting at 1030am.

The call took 2 hours and ended up with no conclusion. As expected, I seriously dunno the workflow of my job. What am I supposed to be doing exactly? Solve problem or escalate problems? During the call I was doing simple network sniffs and varying some conditions. It's so simple that any 16 yr old can do it.

I had originally decided to go to work today after my call ( decided before I went to sleep ytd, and before I check my mail) But I got damn pissed at my stupid Dorky boss that I decided to sleep out the later half of the day.

The story goes like this....
I received an inquiry on some projected effort estimate if they wanna change something in the application. It's just asking, nothing official, so I just mailed the developers and replied what was conveyed back to me. So now this idiotic piece of french speaking shit came along and sent me an email with all BOLD and size 20 fonts saying something like this...

"You should NOT give out effort estimates without asking Cow or me! This is part of commercial negotiation and blah blah...and this must NEVER happen again!!!!!!!!

Cow, please bring this up in next meeting!!!"

Finish reading this I am damn hot! Even as i write it now I feel damn hot. So what's wrong dude, why do you jump to conclusion always? I am not negotiating anything with them, no price no offers. Please read what I wrote!!

I also wanted to reply something like " Are you looking for a fight?"

Wah lao eh, totally added more shit to my already not so good mood.

# Crappy 8800 GTS and VIA Chipset

2008-01-12T14:15:00.000+08:00

Oh man, the title of the post already sound so geeky.

After 3 months of using my PC, I finally found out what might be the possible cause of my PC hanging.

It's either due to a crappy 8800 GTS card, which i think is giving problem to everyone who owns it irregardless of the mobo used, or it's due to the incompatibility of the card with my VIA chipset on my M2V mobo.

This sucks. I intend to use this PC for at least 5 years. Which meant I've got 4 years n 9 months to go.

And in 4 months time, I MIGHT go into full time trading to try. Which also gave me more worries if my PC hang during critical time.

Since this combination is not working, I'm thinking of getting a new PC and selling off my parts. Thou I need to sell it separately to people so that they don't experience the same problem as me when all pieced together.

Any interested takers for my parts? Haha, I guess not...

Anyway, for those who wanna know more, here's the link to my problems.

@ New Year's Wishes & Resolution

2008-01-03T11:11:00.000+08:00

Everyone is writing about new year's resolution. I've realized how overused they are. Becos for me, it's not quite a resolution but a wish. Seriously how many ppl have managed to change the way they work/behave just by setting a resolution?

Resolution would be something that you need it so badly, want it so much that you'd work damn hard for it.

Wishes are those you can live without but would be good to have. For this new year, there's some resolutions and some wishes for me.

So here's a list of my wishes for the new year

Spend more time on exercising. *Note this is under the wish column. Hahaha.
Have more boss's appreciation in my current job. Task me with more important/useful job pls.
Increase my knowledge of financial instruments outside spot forex.
Get a trainee trader job outside the IT line. As long as I have someone to learn from, I don't mind if the pay's low.
Have more contacts with old friends.
Setup a blog for my trading journey
Read more bible * Opps...i'm not confident i'd read it everyday, so here's under the wishlist.

And here are my resolutions!

Take at least 1 week leave to conduct a 'full time, no joke, no messing around' trading.
Make a good decision on whether to take 3 months off to do full time trading at home.
Look seriously into my career path and plan out my next 20 years.
DO WHAT I PLANNED!

Looking at my 2007 New Year's post, I guess I have achieved some of the stuff I wanted to be. Mostly being taken more seriously, maybe becos as you age, you get more stable. So not much of a joker at the wrong time. Cool. Let's review next year how's my yield for 2008 again.

@ Purple Axe

2007-12-19T00:55:00.000+08:00

This is not the sequel to Golden Axe. This is the color of my company, which is going to axe 1/2 of the team.

I am very likely on the list.

Well, 4 out of 6 chance. I believe there's 2 who are safe from the axing list. That's 66% chance of being axed.

It's good in a way it force me to do trading. Like my MSN nick sometime ago. 'Potential is released only when there's a dead end'. Hopefully I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway, I'd still be looking for a job, maybe more seriously. I'd buy newspaper from tmlo on. Online job search sucks. Not much choice.

Btw, my wisdom tooth surgery was a success. It doesn't hurt at all!

# Golden Axe !

2007-12-16T16:50:00.001+08:00

Whao, I wonder how many ppl recall this Sega title. It was a hit those times..

Today was sick with mild tummyache so stayed at home and was onto the retro theme with my dear. Showed her this game initially, and then I started off to look for emulators and finally found 1 that support multi-player through TCP/IP and we're off playing this old retro game online.

Fun! The familiar sound of the drum beats and the simple gameplay makes me wonder why I am such a sucker for graphics now. Simple 16 bit games were enough for me when I was a kid. I think games are still fun when played with people. That was what I missed...

Some screenshots..

#Paying back the company

2007-11-24T00:38:00.000+08:00

These few days I've surprisingly worked at home. There were things to be done and programs to be verified and documents to write up. So I've spent the past 2-3 days working at home till 9-10pm.

I felt good thou that i managed to do something on my own, that it was done from the start to the end. And not that I take over some guy's shit and tidy it up. And then let the guy take all the credit.

This guy is actually some ang mor who's damn fussy about the way things look and would go all the way to ask you correct cosmetic errors that take up alot of time. Really hate him and I'm not showing him any face.

Well in fact I don't show face to anyone, even my boss, nowadays. So that sort of makes life easier for me. You treat me well, make me feel like working and I work. Else it's just normal working hours.

As always, my posts are always rebellious. Maybe I'd get better as I age.

# Hellgate Review. Hellgate Review. Hellgate Review

2007-11-11T15:22:00.000+08:00

Just got my hands on this game a fews days ago, it was a major launch in Funan by the company IAH. This is supposed to be their mega earning game, their blockbuster to reap in profits. But I see it ending in a whimper.

Why? Because this game is overhyped and it sucks so badly there's no replay value. For now, I'd just want to finish up my singleplayer and get what it's worth and then uninstall this 8gb monster.

Here's my 2 bytes worth

Buggy game. Quest markers do not update themselves when it's done. Eg The turret activating quest. Some reported chance of being stuck in main quest. Word of caution : 314 Mind's quest : Do not die after you destroy 314's ego. Else the portal is gone forever.
Repetitive maps and monster. Simply put...10 kinds of monsters....255 colors. You meet the same model of monster every level, just that they are given different colors for different levels. You see the same map tiles too. I guess there's only like 16 tiles that get pieced together either this or that way.
Bad storyline. I don't even know what they are trying to deliver. I'd just accept all quest and go for it without knowing what picture they are trying to paint.
Same quest variation, different cock and bull story. All quest can be broken into 3 kinds.

Kill xx monsters.
Find a place
Retrieve item from boss.

Bad UI. You can't drop things, you can't split item into smaller parts...
Bad character design. Being a loot'em all game, I always find items that I can't wear. Make this too much like RPG. Takes away the fun of finding some uber item that you'd need to level up 10 times before you can wear. And pumping points into unwanted stats.
Unbalanced character. Only Blademaster can make it. Being an evoker is reportedly the worst class you can be.

Overall, I am thinking of even stopping now with my marksman at level 15. I am sick of seeing rainbow monsters over and over again. At least Diablo had more monster variants.

Screw this game. I am glad I didn't buy the collector edition at the launch. Else I'd be a collector of expensive junk.

Ratings 3/10

# Simple updates

2007-11-06T21:11:00.000+08:00

Alrighty, been long since I really update on what's happening in my life. Always been talking about general stuff and my thinkings.

So.....first thing on my mind is that I just got my cubicle. After 6 months in the company officially ( minus the 6 months of training) But I am not very used to it as it's all walled up and there's no one to talk to. I feel bored and there's nothing to look at. All the walls around me. Gotta bring some stuff into my cubicle soon.
Budget $10 for dolling up my cubicle.

Secondly, took a step back and adopted a more relaxed way of trading. Starting with the smallest lot and then pyramiding when I earn every 40 pips. Seems to work better for me. Anyway the USD trend is DOWN DOWN DOWN. Nothing much to fret about. Short the USD and you most likely can earn. Cool.

Looking at the overall picture in life, I realized that I must put in some effort to change. Else I'd still be the same in the next 20 yrs. Got to talk to more friends, organize more gatherings. Life's more than staying home and fragging the ass off some bots. I'd need to be more confident of myself too, I guess the way I speak to ppl at times show that I am not sure of myself. (That happens when I try to raise bugs and it always didn't get taken seriously). And lastly, not be the grumpy old man and think everyone is out to harm you. Haha, it's inherited from my Ah gong i guess. Which is why I never truly treat strangers well until a long time later. I am more self protecting. Or you can call it conservative? Shrug..

And oh ya, today's Samuel Ngiam birthday. I wonder why he didn't take a day off. I'd have done it. But here's a Happy Bday to him. And to Minh two days later!

# The Sinking Island

2007-10-28T21:18:00.000+08:00

Will an island sink due to too much weight? If there's 6.5m people on this tiny island, would it sink? Or would I suffocate first.

I am starting to understand why there are people who leave this tiny island for other country. I am feeling it too. It's not becoz there's a lack of love for this country. But too much love to see it ruined by the government. And since there's nothing much we can do, leaving is the best way of escaping reality.

I love my country only when I hear familiar accents and customs. Not when some foreigners bring in customs like cutting queue, pushing and jostling. I am ashamed that they are of my same race, another annoying thing is their freaky accent which makes this a mini Land of the Dragon.

Not only that, just go out one day and you can meet pretty much lots of aliens as the ang mor calls it. How much does it irk you that you see some foreigners jostling for seats meant for OUR senior citizens.

Imagine 6.5m people. When we are only at 4 now. That's like adding 1 more foreigner to every table seated with 2 people. You might not be able to imagine this. But when you get on a crowded train, a packed kopitiam, or queuing for something, just add 1 person to every 2 person you see.

That's sucky....I don't mind if it's a natural population boom. But not an import of crappy shit ppl from other land. What's more, they ain't that great. Talent my ass!

But I guess there's always a golden age for every country. Ours is past, and I see more useless leaders coming out. With useless and theoretical policies that doesn't work in reality.

Woe to my country for the declining leadership.

# Only when it's gone...

2007-10-23T22:14:00.000+08:00

Closed my Metatrader account a few days ago, ending my mainstream trading platform. That was the best platform I have tried and it's easy to trade on it. But I closed it anyway becoz

Getting kinda stressed from trading. Not cut for it? Or simply no time to really learn the skills? Gotta start smaller....0.1 lot time on my ShittyIndex.
USD going down, the hedge on my ShittyIndex platform didn't pacify me much thou.
All these while I dun trust the brokerage I was with. Paranoid. So test see can withdraw or not. But I must say it's very fast, withdrawal done within 2 days via TT.
I felt like concentrating on my work. Been too slack with work lately.

So after all transaction cost, spread by bank, my returns for the 3 months of partial trading was 33%. Note that this is a leveraged return, I was doing mainly 1:10 on my account. Which meant in reality my return will be 3.3%. Extrapolate it and that amounts to 13.8% pa. Ohhh nice too. Haha thou I don't think I am a consistent trader yet. (50% of my profit came from the Aug credit crunch panic)

So now I am stuck with my alternative trading platform which I don't really use, but signed up for its free USD$100 promotion. Put in USD$400 and u get USD$100. Good bargain. Even thou the rate was 1.52 and now it's 1.46 there's still some money to be made ( about SGD$120 free). But I am starting to use it now, just made 2 trades on it.

It's only when my Metatrader is gone that I miss its instant execution and ease of use. Using ShityIndex was a bad choice. The flash is slow...the spreads are high... but one thing that's good is that there's no swap! I am not sure why, but this effectively gives you the chance to do a perfect hedge while collecting swap on a platform that gives you. The spread incurred would be covered in 10 days. And the rest is a risk-free carry trade.

I wish I could go back to using Metatrader again, but the thought of spending SGD$60 on transfer cost is putting me off for now. (And it doesn't make sense for me to w/d all and deposit back the $ again within 1 week) But now I am perfectly confident of my broker not being a scam.

I guess only when something is gone you'd realise how much you have grown accustomed to it. Like now I am sick of my job, but it's actually a good job that allows you to go at 10am, surf some net eat some teabreak, knock off at 5pm.

I really want to be thankful and work harder. But I felt that I was getting no where supporting crappy product and being the middle man.

2 developers going through me to discuss bugs ?? I help 'A' to mail 'B' and 'B' replies asking me to get a log for him to troubleshoot. Then say it's not his problem. 'A' then ask me to get him another log and look at it. Then I convey from A to B that it's his problem. Then B say it's not a problem.....

It's really demoralising working for such cause...

@New source of revenue?

2007-10-08T19:35:00.000+08:00

Met up with some financial advisor this weekend and discussed about investing in unit trusts and funds. She was good and showed nice returns on all her unit trusts. I believe people tend to believe positive numbers more than negative numbers. I was temporary sucked into a world of fantasy where returns were going like 50% or more.

But then just do a search on these funds for the annualised 5 years return and you'd realise that 2007 is a good year of growth. (Which I am not very sure how long it will last).

Looking at the amount that needs to be invested and the management fees that goes with it. It made me realise that actually I am doing fine with my forex. If 30% return per year is enough to make me happy. I already had 40% return till now in 3 months. Which lead me to be less afraid to trade(might be good and might be bad)

Anyway, should I go into investing in unit trust or increase my forex trading exposure? Putting in $5k to unit trust or just putting in another 2k into forex?

The good thing is that trading is under my control while unit trust isn't. Thou most likely I'd be able to earn from the unit trust than from forex as my skills ain't honed yet.

Might be investing 20% of my spare cash into unit trust and just leaving it to grow some little money. While I continue to trade on forex to hone my skills. I really want to be able to grasp the market well.

Anyway, brief update on my job. Boring and unused. Tasked so little things I actually feel sick of going to work due to bad recognition. And sorry, I hate taking orders from my colleagues who enter the same time as me.

# My New PC & troubles

2007-09-23T21:49:00.000+08:00

The Good

Got my new pc and spent $1064 on it. With $15 on a cab fare, that's a total of $1079 for a new PC. (Excluding labour costs)

Here's the specs.

AMD Athlon X2 4400+
Asus M2V Motherboard
2GB Kingston DDR2 667mhz
160 GB Hitachi Sata 2 HDD, <8.5ms 7200rpm.
EVGA 8800GTS 320 MB ( This alone took 1/2 the PC cost...at $465)

The rest are just parts from my old PC.

Cool, I can smoothly play Fear, Doom, at 60fps minimum. Haven't tried BioShock yet, been preoccupied with ...

The BAD

The Win XP on my old harddisk booted up on 1st try. And everything was smoothly plug and go. Except...I realised that the old OS was on a Single core Hardware Abstraction Layer Kernel...(HAL) Which meant that my dual core was actually running at 2.3Ghz...(AND i still thought it was fast initially!)

That lead to a repair installation , which screwed up my Sata2 drive and all the games I had installed. Also it screwed up my IRQ and stuff...making alot of conflicts.

So I decided to reinstall the new OS on the SATA, better than having it on the old ATA100 drive.
And comes the nightmare....

There were 2 part of the nightmare...the first part was actually quite crap when I think of it..thou it took me 3 OS reinstallation to realise. Whenever I installed my OS and patched it to SP2, everything is fine. But when I put in my motherboard drivers, installed it and reboot, then would come a LINUX!?!!? error.... and then I would find no way to deactivate this error...only to reinstall it again, troubleshooting it slowly...this time I installed only 1 driver from the motherboard disc...the LAN driver and it screwed up too. Later I googled using my laptop, to find that this driver comes from Linux origins and I suspect its this that's causing it.

Reinstall it again and I tried the normal VIA chipset driver.. Damn it's still the same...so what's the cause???!!!

Actually, it's coz I forgot to remove the CD out from the drive after install. I guess the motherboard CD has some sort of Linux boot cd effect. Damn it!

Now comes the 2nd part, to cut things short....my ADSL modem doesn't work. Every time I installed, I can at most connect once to the net before the connection disappears. Tried fixing this for the past 6 hours. Sometimes I think if i am so determined at work, I would be doing better.

Then I found something on the technet. Which describes like the problem I am having now. Screw microshit. If you look at this link, you will see that there is NO RESOLUTION!

Anyway, now it's okie again. Do not ask me why and how. Its so fragile I don't dare to even touch it now. Leave it as it is...please just let me connect for the next 5 yrs. Once a day, and I am happy.

Phew...now back to reinstalling my games.

# My desktop died

2007-09-22T11:29:00.000+08:00

It's Sept 20...okie make that Sept 21, 1am. When my PC just died on me. Totally shutdown and the power LED was blinking. Then it can't be booted up again. When I say can't be booted, it means that the whole PC doesn't even twitch when I press the power on. Its like there's no power to it.

I checked the motherboard and found that there's led to the board, so i suppose the PSU is working. But I see some leakages on 1 of the motherboard capacitor. It's a goner....

This is worse than losing 100 pips in my trade ( ~ $300).. This is losing 300 pips in 1 shot! Damn..
And now there's a dilenma...

I could spend $450 to get back a similiar desktop...simple functions..no fanciful games...or $1000 for a desktop that can play some cool games. That's $550 more for playing games.

And how many games would I play?

Crysis
Bioshock
Fear
Gears of War

Let's do a better breakdown of the cost analysis.

Intended life span: 4 Years
*Cost per month for low end PC: $9.375
*Cost per month for high end PC: $20.83
*Additional cost per month: $11.45
#Cost of playing games/hour: $0.57

*Assuming no maintainance cost.
#Assuming I play games only during weekends. And each session about 5 hours.

That's cool! 50 cents per hour to play games....hahah cheaper than Lan shop!

Okie, I managed to convince my "kiam" mind to buy the gaming PC from the analysis..haha.

@ Some work for moi? No.....

2007-09-11T20:43:00.000+08:00

Humans are adaptive creatures. And Newton's law of inertia is true. What I have been doing so far, I have adapted and is doing well. (Which meant looking busy while there's nothing for me to do). Whatever work that comes my way, I have the initial 'urrgh...no way' and push it off whenever I can. (An object at rest tends to stay at rest until acted upon by an external force)

The external force came. Remember the previous post I said my boss is going on a holiday? Well, the bigger boss took over and now I am tasked to do a few things. In fact it's another major bomb! I have to build another distributed server myself! Woohoo! I hope I have enough time to build it. Coz it took me 3 months for the previous one!

I can see more work coming, at least tomorrow will be a day of work. But then as I have been slacking for quite some time, there's this tendency to reject work and don't really have the drive to do it. But I shouldn't be thinking that way, since Ephesians 6 mentioned:

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free."

Alright, I don't really like that slave word in the front but I think it basically meant the same thing. So I shall work as I am paid to. And to serve wholeheartedly when needed.

#Updates

2007-09-08T12:49:00.000+08:00

It's been quite long since the last update. But here a brief update on my trades so far, managed to get some profit and met my August target. End of Sept target is near but my trading frequency has dropped. I no longer trade to meet my target, I am going to trade for the knowledge and skills first. Afterall, it's been less than 1 year since I was introduced to forex. It's still a long learning phrase. Like what every professional trade would say, 'Take care of your trades and money would come naturally'.

One lesson I've learned again yesterday is NFP is a sure big mover. (Duh, I learned this too last month, but fear just erases everything.) Could have already met my Sept target yesterday. Anyway I am not complaining, learning this would ensure that when I have more capital in the future, I would be able to swipe everything I missed out now in 1 trade.

Again, updates on my work. It's depressingly boring as usual. Lately, the past 3 weeks, I have been tasked the same thing. To help in UAT testing and support. I somehow get this feeling that my image in my boss's view isn't very good. I am not tasked to do harder stuff and always given those that I can finish in a few hours. Well, in a way I brought this on myself. I never had tried to fight for doing harder stuff ( Coz harder stuff means faster resolution time means staying overtime to finish it which I don't want)

My boss is going on a holiday the next month...till Oct 6. Damn I foresee a totally zobo period where I can just slack at work till 5pm and go home. It's sometimes sian when U see ppl have things to do but you are just there reading your own pdf.

# Trading and God

2007-08-16T21:11:00.000+08:00

The past few days I have stopped trading for a while, partly with the fear that grips me whenever I try to trade in this volatile market. Yes it might seem simple that on the general the trend is going 1 way. But for volatile market, this also meant at times you suffer a 50 pip loss against the trend before you see it rebound. That alone is too much for me to stomach.

During these time I was back to reading the Bible and slowly it dawned on me that whatever I have was given by God, and the initial distraction in trading from my life and work was a temptation from satan. It's ironic that I turned to the Bible to calm my fear and to HOPE for profit, only to be seriously influenced to slowly believe that $ is not everything but God is. I am glad it turned out this way because I had always believed in that there is God but just that I never had the character/determination to behave the way God wants us to be.

I hope that I will have more wisdom to listen to His words and more self conscious to carry out what is right in His name.

For now, learning to take losses and winnings as what God deemed fit to give me, has helped me to cope more with trading emotions.

@ Analysing my situation

2007-08-10T08:29:00.001+08:00

Been hit pretty bad by the recent volatility in the FX market. With the credit fear spreading thru USA and a Tier 1 France bank freezing redemption to its funds in Euro, all carry trades are going thru a period of high volatility now. Everyone is unwinding their trades and buying back the Yen before jumping back in again. At the time of writing, EURJPY has fallen from grace by 400 over pips in 1 day. To give an idea of how much that amount is, it could have given me a 50% return on my capital in 1 single trade.

Been caught in the web of ups and down lately, making big and losing big. My capital has been preserved and I still account for 5% returns till now. Coincidentally, today happened to be my 1 month anniversary in opening my account. Initial aim was to reach a 20% return by today. (Oh well, I TRY to take it as a learning experience)

However, given the current state of panic and mentality that I am in now, I think it's not appropriate to trade such high volatility pairs.

Moreover, I have no clear view of the fundamentals now. There is no serious direction the market is going, which meant that stop losses are likely to be taken out by the high volatility and then go back in the intended direction.

After thinking about my situation , I guess the major flaws in me are

Seeing losses too heavily, which prevents me from entering a trade when I see that it is the right time. As I have been hit by losses too frequently these days.
Being disciplined in a volatile market. Stop losses get hit faster within 5 mins of a market impulse reversal. Then continue to head back its original direction. (I have lost 80% of my profits this way)
Greedy to jump on a trend even it has seen its momentum declining. You can call this itchy finger.
Always trying to hit my set target of 20% per month. Believe this, this is what lead me to my itchy fingers and tight stop loss. I have to get rid of this mentality to double my account by Dec. Else I would always be under pressure to perform and make more silly mistakes.

For now, I would try lesser lots to regain my confidence and judgment. Lesser lots would mean less stress and better judgment.

Another thing is that lately with all these trading going on, it has screwed up my single tasking brain and I feel that I have spent less time my with Dear who has been giving me good encouragement all these while. Sorry Dear I will try to spend more time listening and accompanying you!

I guess its time to shift my view further back to see the overall picture that trading isn't everything. (It's hard to do this, everyone who knows me know i am quite $ minded) What's more I have a good job. (Which is also partially screwed up by this trading adventure of mine. )

For now I shall take today off from trading. Think nothing about it and let the weekend cool the market and myself. Do not be in a hurry to earn, but in a hurry to enter the right trade.

# Happy Bday Singapore

2007-08-09T16:45:00.000+08:00

Today is National Day ! Used to love watching parades when I was young but now can't even be bothered to listen to it.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Sg!

@ Bringing me closer

2007-08-06T22:40:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I wonder if its His way of bringing a lost sheep back. These few weeks I've probably read more of His words than I did in the past year.

I am not sure how to put it into words. But I have tried to be a better person ( its hard to remember teachings, but I suppose it'd come with time as I try)

For now, I'd try to remember this as a start.

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart. [c]
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."

# Nerves of steel

2007-08-01T23:39:00.000+08:00

These 2 days I have been training my nerves on the roller coaster ride for EURJPY. It's amazing...(or rather scary) that this pair (as well as all the other carry pairs) is so volatile these days. There's no way a pair could drop 100 pips in 20 minutes. But it did.

Which is precisely the reason why I was having a nervous wreck this afternoon. I thought for the 2nd consecutive day my loss is going to be another 3 digit. Lucky ( luck should not be the word to be used in trading, but yes it's luckily) the trade went back into my favour. Thou I had to close it off after a $30 bucks gain. I couldn't take the ride anymore. 2 hours of up and down....at 1 point my loss was up to $250. That point hit the lowest support and went beyond it.

Theoretically once it break thru the support level it will go for a free fall to the next. Which is what really made me anxious coz it's passed 10 pips the support and my loss is so much that if it carries on free falling, I am doomed. I am not sure why I made the decision to stick around and wait for a rebound. It wasn't logical but emotionally it's hard to let go of such high loss once more today.

Which is why I said luckily it rebounded.

But EURJPY is not a pair for the faint hearted these days. 100 pips in 20 mins are so common, if you caught on all the right waves, you could double your account in a week.

# 31 July 2007 The worst day in this year

2007-07-31T21:30:00.000+08:00

This has got to be my worst day in 2007. Nothing is going right from the morning till night.

Morning was a bad day when greed took the better of me. And sanity striked at the wrong time. Greed when entering an overbought trade and sanity when it's about to hit reversal. Meaning I buy at the highest and sold at the lowest. Damn, cleaned out my 2 weeks of profit in 1 morning.
I swore I would never ever open a trade in the morning. Coz according to statistics, 80% of my morning trades result in a loss.

Then I got the call from my boss to install some program which I found out my dear colleague had conveniently mailed me the night before without even notifying me about it. And then I had to get to Jurong from Orchard in 30mins time. If only this hasn't happened, I'd still have the time to monitor my trade. I closed it just before I had to leave for Jurong at 130pm. Fuck, coz the subsequent rebound could have lessen my loss.

Then what apparently was a simple task become a nightmare when the program I uninstalled could not be reinstalled back due to some Active Directory error and I never knew what happened. Troubleshoot till 7pm and it's over to the developers to help out.

When I thought the worst had ended, a call came during dinner telling me my handphone could not be fixed and requires a change of mainboard at $350! A K750i mainboard cost $350? What about a totally brand new phone?! And if I reject, I have to pay $16 to collect back my old phone. I decided not to collect it anyway since it's crap to pay $16 for a phone that is beyond repair.

Total loss today is so much that I dun feel even motivated to work tmlo.

# Gatherings are good for health

2007-07-29T20:12:00.000+08:00

Met up with Jonathan, Kok Cheong, Mr & Mrs Leong today for a long awaited CPE gathering. Guess the last one was in Feb 07 or something. Anyway it's coz Jon is back from China for 2 weeks and I guess there no better time to arrange than now.

Too bad Kenny couldn't make it coz he had stomach upset. Rice table was definitely pissed with the 6 hungry ghost ordering like there's no tmlo. Alot of times our orders were not delivered , either deliberately to delay the amount of stuff we can order or they really forgot coz we ordered alot!

Anyway I liked the gathering coz it brought back the old carefree days of sitting, talking and eating. When time don't seem so rushed and people talked about all kind of stuff. It's fun to have such gathering once in a while and definitely is good for your health!

Maybe the next one would be in Feb 2008 when Jon is again back from China.

@ Confidence

2007-07-21T17:59:00.000+08:00

I realize this word is very important as it leads to many positive effects such as...

Being less nervous and anxious while in a trade. As you are confident it's going to go your way. Morever, you have a stop loss set and the worse is to take that hit.
Allowing you to enter trade with more decisiveness and hence not missing out on potential trade gains.

Yesterday I had 2 chance to play retracement of EURJPY from a low of 167.30 but being not confident and scared of losing money, I choose not to enter the trade. The first retracement was abit risky as it was free falling and I had no idea when it will stop. But by looking at the support level of USDJPY I sort of thought that was the level it's going to rebound. Yet I didn't enter. Later it went up 40 pips to 167.70. Missed 40 pips...missed 100 bucks.

Waited 1 hr later and the price dropped back to 167.30 while I thought it might drop beyond that and being Friday the last trading day. I did not want to leave a position unclosed till 2 weeks later. I didn't enter and now it's back to 167.70 once more.

I guess taking a trade needs to be confident. Once you think it's suitable to enter, then just enter and wait for what unfolds. There will always be chance to earn back and as long as you make more right calls than wrong it's fine.

Like I always say in Winning Eleven,
Shoot on sight and pounce the rebound!

Adjusting gung ho level for next trade....

# 1 Week Aniversary

2007-07-18T21:43:00.000+08:00

Yeah it's my 1 week anniversary with my trading account. There's been ups and downs. My first trade was a loser already. I still remember the 1st trade I took, my face was flushed with blood and excitement. I was totally getting irrational. After this week of training, I've improved abit and I must say that the Bible helps in trading. There's just so many useful phrases inside which can help to calm you down and get back to the rational thinking mode.

Anyway, a brief update on the last week. Have made some $ for the last week. Had 95 pips gain for last week.

This week the market is flushed with mixed news and Eur/Usd seems to be on a way to retracement as I predicted in my previous post. Most likely the major reversal next week will be missed by me as I go for reservist.

Anyway, one lesson learned last week ( actually many but I can't recall them off hand) is that there is always chance to make $. Never jump into a impulse trade. Wait patiently for the price to hit within your rational predicted level. Many times I have seen prices soaring only to enter at the top.

Took the day off trading today but saw the GBP/USD rally to 2.0548 during noon. I was tempted but I didn't jump in.

Back to analyzing the market while waiting for Bernanke to finish his speech. That's when my next move will be.

@ A New Experience

2007-07-14T18:01:00.001+08:00

My account was up on Wednesday night and my trading started the very night. It was the 11 July 2007, a date i'd remember if i were to be successful. (Of coz...if fail liao remember for wad!)

It's a very different experience when it involves real money. I understand why ppl say that demoing is never the same as when it involves real money. I used to think I could do it, be cold and treat it as a demo. But I realize it's not as easy, when I am losing $ in a demo, I'd leave it and let it rebound. But when I am losing in a real account, it's been nerve wrecking staring at the pips drop. Even when I try to off my monitor I'd still be thinking how the prices are moving.

But to God's grace I have been able to make some little money these 3 days. However I feel that the way I've been playing these few days is not the way to go in the long run as I have little confidence in my judgment. Choosing to close trade before it reaches my target. Yes the discipline is not there, its more of scalping these few days. Entering for a few pips gain and exiting it.

But even to call it scalping is not totally accurate. I have been greedy yesterday when the US core retail sales (830pm) gave a worse than expected results. I made an unrealized profit of 30 pips but I choose not to liquidate it, in hope of worse news at 10pm for US consumer sentiments. Stop loss was set at break even point and you guessed it, the news went against my favour and I made no profit on it.

This coming week I'd do scalping and straddling for the first 2 days of the week. Hopefully it's enough to build a profit buffer for my confidence. The next next week I'd be going for reservist but I think there might be a reversal coming in EUR/USD soon. Wonder if I'd be missing the big move.

For now I'm thinking of setting up a trading blog so I can keep track of my mistakes and hopefully learn from what I missed out. Maybe the blog will come soon but definitely not next week.

One last thing that I find useful in my trading was some bible advice my aunt gave me.
Philippians 4: 6 "do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition , with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

Then I went on to search for more bible phrases myself and found one chapter that was especially true for me. At least it knock some sense into me.

Ecclesiastes 2

It's a whole chapter so it's too long to be put here. Click the above link to read it. However, the main line from the chapter is

11: Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.

18:I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.

@ My bad nature?

2007-07-11T14:39:00.000+08:00

Guess where I am writing this now. Inside my office's training room. Yeah there's no one here, the air con is cold and most importantly.....I have no will to work.

Yes, I guess since young I've always been doing things for a short while before I get sick of it.

I recall when I was 5-6 years old, I would pester my grandfather to buy me He-man action figures. (Yeah some of you might never have heard of He-Man ...) Anyway they are just plastic action figures with movable limbs. I think they cost $7-8 bucks each but considering 20 years ago, it's quite a sum of money. That would be around $15 now.

Every week I would pester and promise that I will play that figure for a long time. But every weekend I'd drag my ah gong to buy a new one. I wanted to collect them all and find that I have explored every possibilities I can with the old toy.

Right now, it seems the same for jobs. I was full of drive for this new job, I wanted to make a name for myself. But now, after a few months ( < 1 year) I have completely lost it. I started out clean but I'm jaded. Now I am entering another phrase in life. To go into trading.

Would I have substained interest in it for long?

Btw, my funds have been recieved and the last thing I am waiting for is my account to be linked to Metatrader.

# Final step

2007-07-09T19:55:00.000+08:00

Today I have already transfered funds into my account and hope to be able to start by next week. It's been a long way since I first started and I wish I will not suffer too much losses.

Thou it seems that the exchange rate was abit odd. Not sure why I paid an additional $30 to my calculated value. That's a 150 pip difference from the stated exchange rate! 150 pip would have made my 1 month's result!

Well, hope all goes well and the other side acknowledged my $ and don't con me. Coz if they do, it's gonna be a hard time trying to prove or even getting my $ back.

Knowing my paranoid nature, I'd be worrying these few days till it's all confirmed.

@ New Found Passion?

2007-07-01T23:09:00.000+08:00

Been looking thru my USA and Japan photos and found that I might actually like to tour and take photos. But then on hindsight, who doesn't like to tour? Maybe not taking photos but touring is like everyone's dream.

I would prefer to take photos so I'd remember and taking nice photos makes me happy (Alright, make that taking nice photos and getting praised for it makes me happy). I have an eye for detail and hence I especially like macro shots becoz you can stare at the photo and scrutinize it, it just makes me happy. Like I love looking at games with nice graphics and can spend a few minutes just looking at the way the pixel moves and the real time lighting effect in a game.

So now back to reality, in order to go for tour, I need vitamin M. How much is enough? When a tour takes up only 1% of my wealth....

# A Beginning

2007-06-28T23:44:00.000+08:00

8 months after being introduced to forex, I finally submitted my application form for a live account today. I would be opening $3k with them. Not a big amount but not small either. I am not hoping to earn a killing, I just wish not to make a loss and take all trades as a learning experience while earning abit of side pocket money. Even break even I would be glad.

This marks a new side quest in my life. To embark on something new and to try my skills in this new area. If this goes well, I would change job and become a full time trader.

But I am letting it trial for 9 months, before my current contract with my company expires and I get my bonus in April. With 9 months I hope to build up a capital that would give me enough returns that matches my current pay.

Now the only thing I am worried about is the reliability of my broker. Thou I have made enough research, any thing could happen.

If everything goes right, I would be able to start trading by end of next week.

# Meeting with MIT guy

2007-06-22T23:51:00.000+08:00

Met up with Mr Seow today for some catching up since a long time. He's the new MIT ah beng, haha totally not like what I used to know him as. Now he funky liao lor, dye hair and wear those ah beng specs. Thick thick big big one...but 1 thing is missing...his face not beng. So it kinda makes me luff to look at him. Haha

Anyway, from today's meetup, I discover that alot of my old classmates are damn freaking pro. PhD, top students in Cambridge and SMU, SAF sword of honor, website entrepreneurs, owns restaurants.

In fact, I can't really find alot of ppl who are earning below my level. Stress man, thou i think for my NUS grp of frends, I am earning not bad compared to my frens who are engineers. I gotta buck up le....26 liao...can make my 1st million by 30 not!?

Earning $ is putting pressure on me man....

# Solution Architect

2007-06-14T23:50:00.000+08:00

Had a meeting today from 630pm-830pm. Tells us how to escalate stuff and what to do in a case of critical outage and stuff. I hear already one big head blur blur. Dunno what he's talking about.

Then the 2nd part of the meeting is future plans for the team. So apparently the bosse have plans for me to become a Solution Architect. Meaning I become ppl who suggest solutions/workaround and then the technical team slogs like mad to implement it. Haha, I was once saboed by such ppl and I am not going to sabo other ppl by any how talking crap that it can be done.

Anyway these few days my eyes damn tired sia, I got a big freaking TV on my desk and I look at it everyday. It's like if at home you watch TV within 30cm you surely get a big yelling from your mama! And now I am looking at it the whole day....replaying the same clips...it's enough to drive me crazy, not to mention make my eyes tired.

Now i am looking for some 蜡笔小新 torrent to download but I can't find any. I need some entertainment and also traffic for my internet. It's been under utilized lately.

# CSC

2007-06-11T23:18:00.000+08:00

Thou I had quit CSC ( Community Service Club) for about 2 years. (Since year 3) I had been receiving emails from the Yahoo groups constantly.

Lately I got a link to some photos taken during the ACID camp. ( Annual Camp for Intellectually Disabled) and clicked on it.

I was somewhat smiling as I looked through the pictures and see that the residents are still looking fine and doing well. It just brought back some tranquility back and calmed my raging mind at work. It's so much more enjoyable spending time with them as they are innocent and unassuming.

Sometimes I would have the urge to go visit them, but then in the end I would always be overcome by laziness. Sigh...

Here's the link if you guys are interested.

@ Got me thinking

2007-06-06T23:38:00.000+08:00

Today some cok thing happened that got me thinking. My boss wrote me an email at 2pm asking me to go HillView to support some STB installation at 4pm. I didn't check my mail of coz, and at 320pm, he gave me a call to ask if I am on my way.

This got me thinking.....

Does this job mean anything to him? Why would he use email instead of calling me?
He could have sent me an sms after he emailed me so if there's alot of details at least I know there's a new email waiting to be read.
Why would anyone in the world use Email to notify others of an event that's gonna happen soon? What was he thinking?

So I went anyway and reached at 5pm. Just nice for my task. Dragged till 8pm and it's not installed yet. I could feel the embarrassment as it took 3 hours and in the end it wasn't fixed. Why am I supporting such a crappy product? Makes me demoralised and lose interest in my job.

On my way home, I was thinking that..... does everyone condemn their own product if it's shitty or do some people actually stick to their product and believe it to work? I guess there are 2 kinds of people, 1 who is like me, condemning own products. The other tries to make their own crappy product work and do their best to salvage. I am not sure which is the correct character to have. But I am not interested in the correct character, more interested in the winning character. I guess ppl who stick to better products have more chance of being successful rather than ppl who believe in a crappy product and trying to make it happen.

Yes the reward might be greater if you make a crappy product work. But life's like trading. Trade high probability trades and win less but more often. Rather than going against the trend and hoping to make a killing.

Remember the trend is your friend!!!

# Did I bring an apple to see the doctor?

2007-05-29T08:18:00.000+08:00

Yep, did I accidentally bring an apple to the clinic yesterday? Becoz the clinic was supposed to be open from 830am but the doctor came at 9am. Did my apple keep the doctor away? But I didn't bring any apple. I checked!

Anyway, was getting irritated with the doctor being late. If not for the fact that it's a company approved clinic, I would not have gone to Blk 627 to see the doctor. There's a nearer clinic just downstairs.

My fever was high at 38.4 degree. Damn whole body was burning and the air con didn't help. Made me feel colder. The doctor gave me a 1 day MC but he didn't give me any medication for my sore throat. Now my fever has subsided to 37.5 but I am having a mega bad throat. And from what I know, mega bad throat gives me fever.

Can't go to work today as I'm not feeling well, today I have no MC. So if need be, I'd apply for leave. Just woke up to check on my expiring forex account. Yesterday the market was quiet. Due to London and NY market being closed. Hopefully there' more movement today. Intend to bring my account to double the initial amount. After that, I'd open 1 more account for trading the daily charts/4 hrs. After which I'd go live.

# Sick

2007-05-27T21:38:00.001+08:00

I dunno why it just happened. Woke up feeling sick and tired today. The night before was okie and I only has a slight cough. Now it's a 38 degree fever and cough and running nose.

Feel damn groggy now. I hope tmlo I'd be better. Or else how to go to work! Why isit that so sway whenever I got something need to do, i'd be sick or have something else to do.

Sneezed! The head hurts

# Learning Curve

2007-05-23T23:55:00.000+08:00

Alot of things are not measured by years of experience or practise.

There are people who have done things for a long time, and they never seem to learn. Their learning ability stops there. That's the best they can go. There are also people who are fast learner and picks up things pretty fast ...and keeps on picking up new things.

For me, I can say that I picks things up fast, but my limit is to a certain extent. Maybe around 60% of all there is to learn. So I am above average but I stop there. It's hard to further improve, but there's 1 thing I can't understand is those people who stop at 30%. How could anyone after practicing/involvement for so long be still stuck at such mediocre level? And sometimes can't even do some basic stuff.

I just don't understand.

# 2nd Day of training

2007-05-17T22:06:00.000+08:00

Yeah the 2nd day of training has passed. Finally it's the last day tmlo.

Thou I have nothing much to teach on the last day, it seems that these people are fine with what I have taught so far and I don't think they will mind if i let them off tmlo at 3pm.

I didn't die as badly as I expected.

Phew...

# Made it thru the 1st day

2007-05-16T20:46:00.000+08:00

Yeah ! 1st day of training done!
2 more days to go!

# Sian Sensei Syrix

2007-05-13T10:59:00.000+08:00

Lately I've been preparing to give some training to SingHell people, I heard they were sarcastic and difficult from Liling, who has given her training previously. Apparently they forked out $2.5k USD for a 3 days training by us. And guess who gives them the training? The regular guys whom they worked with everyday! Obviously they feel shortchanged. There's no golden hair ang moh to give them that feeling of prestige and worthiness.

It's a 3 days training but I only have enough materials to last them at most 2 days. Damn it, there's nothing much to teach as we only have stand alone servers which aren't as good as the real platform and alot of stuff can't be shown correctly. Still I told my managers and they say that just give them more tea breaks and end classes early. Fuck up man! Why am I in such a company where managers simply throw you to die.

Later I am going to spend at least 2 hours to prepare my training slides and tmlo I will have to spend another day capturing screen shots and preparing the system for them. Luckily the training starts on Wed so I have enough time to still prepare abit. Thou I seriously think that I cannot fill up the whole training schedule with them .

Sian....I hate being unprepared to meet people. And no matter how much I prepare, there's seriously not enough materials to last 3 days.

# God's will?

2007-05-07T00:16:00.000+08:00

Yeah, another week has passed. I think I am quite lucky to be able to enjoy the full weekend. As some of my colleagues were arrowed to do some stuff for some stupid guy.

This weekend was quite a simple one, actually, I think all weekends are abit boring coz the forex market is not open. I actually had the idea of requesting to work on weekend so that I could take off on weekdays and monitor the markets.

Since Apr I been wanting to open a live account, but alot of stuff have happened that caused me to delay my account. Firstly, I was in a streak of losing trades that shakes my confidence. Then when I was about to make better trades, the possibility of me going back to the office to work permanently made me think twice. Becoz at the office, there is limited net access and alot of things are blocked by proxy, including my trading program. So there's no way I could log in to close a trade or something. Previously working at Orchard there was full net access and hence it was better.

However, if I do not open any account and test out my skills, I would never know if I could make it and make a full time switch to trading. I need to seriously take a risk at some point of time to go live and feel the difference when trading with real $ .

But when is the right time? When can I enter?

It's all about timing, or perhaps God's will.

# Feeling Frustrated

2007-05-03T22:09:00.000+08:00

Dunno why feeling quite sway lately and things hasn't been really going my way. Okie I know I am abit too paranoid being concerned about little stuff and forgetting the big picture that I have friends, a family that cares and in good health.

But I can't help but feel abit frustrated lately. This I can see it's due to mainly a few reasons.

All my previous Dota games are losing...badly. Why did I have to go into a noober team?? There's a equal chance of me in a better team. Damn it.
My forex trades hasn't been making much $. Consecutive 7 losses.
I've been given a major task at work, to build a platform and I don't even know where to start!! How to even finish it!
I have no vision of what I will be doing next year. Partly due to reason 2.

@ PMS

2007-04-25T21:59:00.000+08:00

I dunno if men experience PMS, but sometimes I feel the PMS syndrome.

Don't feel like working, life seems meaningless at times.

I feel that I always get sian of things very fast, there's really no sustained interest in anything I do.

I need a direction.

Or maybe it's time to go back to church and find some meaning to life.

# Another bday gift !

2007-04-24T21:13:00.000+08:00

This has gotta be my best bday! Haha, never gotten so much celebration from frends all these years. Damn it's a good sign to start with.

Anyway, Minh gave me another working collection on Monday. When she said on Thurs she didn't know it's my Bday and would get me a gift. I know she meant it and I actually told her dun bother it's okie. But she got me one nevertheless.

Thanks Minh.

Here's the same picture but with a different shirt..

# Thank you my dear! And all who came

2007-04-20T23:05:00.000+08:00

Hehe, here's a big thanks to my dear who secretly organised a birthday celebration for me at Brazil Churrascaria. And thanks to all who came! Christ, Qijia, Mr and Mrs Leong, Kenny and Qingwei!

I was kinda surprised to see them there, haha seriously, I felt odd that ppl came to celebrate my birthday. Wasn't really used to it, the 1st time it had actually happened to me! Haha.

The food there's good according to all, glad that it's up to their expectation.

Anyway, here's a picture of me and my dear.

All of us at the end of the dinner!

The card my dear made for me.

Once again.. this is probably the biggest celebration I had!! Hahaha, never had so many friends celebrating bday for me.

26 seems to be a good start!

Thanks guys!

Thanks guys!

2007-04-19T22:51:00.000+08:00

Alright, haha was quite surprised when Liling and Faizal went for coffee break then came back with a cake and a present for me!

Thanks guys! Thou it's a small celebration but it's really nice of you!

Didn't managed to get a shot of my cake coz I was too greedy and ate it all up! Haha, made a wish but can't say right or else not coming true.

Here's the present they gave me! Something to add on to my working collection.

But it's L, I usually wear M. Do I look fat!? haha nvm, this shall be my slack polo! Wear on Mondays for meeting to show I dun care a damn about meeting!

Anyway thanks !!! And oh...also thanks Liling for another present. (Taking over my Project place issue 445,446,447 for tmlo!!!)

@ Beliefs

2007-04-17T21:12:00.000+08:00

I do not know what I am doing might irk some colleagues or people. It's basically a choice of how much you believe in doing and how justified you feel your worth is. I always face this problem even in army, seriously I feel bad about it but I don't want them to condone what the coy is doing. I guess it's a matter of character.

Anyway, here's the whole situation.

I believe I am underpaid, the coy is not appreciating enough, I should be leaving this coy in a year and I shouldn't be doing more hours than I am paid to.(Basically same as point 1)

I prove my point by working during normal hours and I do not accept additional crap thrown at me that requires me to work overtime.

In the event of doing so, I create more work for my colleagues who will have to take over what I do not want to work after office hrs. But I believe that they shouldn't be working their ass off too. Yet some of them are willing to slog and this is when I feel bad rejecting work. But then I couldn't possibly do it since I strongly believe that I am underpaid for all the working hours.

Dilemma, is my sense of guilt stronger or my belief for pay stronger? It will eventually cause me to make a decision .

In army, my pay belief was stronger and I believe it's stay the same way now.

So sorry to the guys who want to slog in this coy, you could have chosen the same path as me.

# A Weird Dream

2007-04-15T11:55:00.000+08:00

Had a weird dream today. Thought its quite worth documenting this down.

The setting was in SG i suppose, I think I was in camp for ICT training or something, the purpose of why I was there is actually vague. I remember living on the 4th floor. The building resembles that of an army camp. ( Could likely be it as I received a call up for reservist this July)

Then I dreamt of heavy torrential rain. Rain that came down heavily, come to think of it, it reminds me of Noah's Ark. Anyway, during the first part of the dream it was just raining and the ground started to flood slightly. Everyone moving around carefully as to avoid puddle of water. I didn't go out and stay in my bunk the few days, I didn't even looked out of the whole building.

Suddenly when I decide to go out to the corridor and take a breather....I saw the flood was up to the 3rd floor!! Out towards the horizontal half the world was submerged in water. Only buildings emerged out from the plain smooth sea.

In an instance everyone were moving their belongings and rushing up to the 4th floor. There was panic as the water level kept rising. 4th floor is the top storey...and there's no other way now to get to any taller buildings. We are stuck.

Then I started thinking of death. I panicked in my dream. I didn't want to die drowning. Then I thought of everyone who had died in the flood. I felt a sense of helplessness, but there's nothing that can be done. I thought I saw a helicopter, but I was skeptical that it could rescue so many of us. I stayed on inside the building, hoping the flood would subside.

In the end, it did but left alot of dead corpses around.

End of story.

The reason I wrote this was because that it's been quite long since I felt panicky and a sense of helplessness. It's good to have that kinda feeling back once in a while, to show me that I still cared about living and surviving. And that life is fragile, it could be taken away by some freak accidents or natural disaster.

Happy Birthday to my Dear!

2007-04-07T23:10:00.000+08:00

Today's my dear's birthday and heres a big

Happy Birthday to my Dear!

Went to a french cafe/restaurant at Balestier road. Which was recommended by my dear's frend. It wasn't as frenchy as I thought it would be, most probably becoz of the owner there who's pretty much an auntie and kept talking to us. It's not that bad actually, she's just trying to be frendly.

Anyway, the prices were sort of high and as expected, the servings weren't really big. But heck, if it's what Dear want to try on her Bday, I guess its oki!

So here's what we ordered.

Pan fried Foie gras

French crispy duck. There's a name for this in French but I can't remember.

Oyster with cheese and onions.

This is what I got for my dear. Wanted to get her a wallet but then the model was sold out. So being a geek myself, I thought this would be a practical and good choice. Can go sch, go gym, go out, go home and use everywhere.

*BTW, the following pictures were all taken with K800i, and I think the focusing is worse than my k750i.

After the lunch we went off to Woodlands to catch a movie and also have dinner. Watched the Reaping but it kinda sucks. Boring and bad camera angles.

Then we went off to take some photos but can't publish them here until approved by my dear..hahah.

@ Lost

2007-04-05T22:17:00.000+08:00

This week has actually been less hectic for me. Things are settling down and less troubles coming my way. Thou there's still alot of new shit piling up for the next phase.

I don't know if I am supposed to take over the role of the Solution Architect. As I have been arranged to go for meetings with these SA and learn from them. In the end, become taking minutes. Kinda crappy. I don't really wanna be a SA because they are the 1st line of attack/defence.

My job still revolves around leaving at 8-9pm. Thou there are others who stay over night and on weekends. But to me, I have a different gauge of a job. I don't wish to work extended hours and waste my time if it doesn't pay me extra. I would rather take that time to read for more certification.

I have to admit I am already switched off and alot of issues I am just hiding it away and lazy to really bring it up and argue. I am tired from even convincing my own coy to fix bugs.

I guess I am not a toughie, when the going gets tough, I get going. ( away)

Hmm....What do I want in life/job?

Lost....

# Another Sat

2007-03-31T09:36:00.000+08:00

Here I am, on a Sat once again at my work place. Gotten used to this life, where every Sat is burnt and I can't do much about it.

Rushing some stuff for my boss before his meeting with CEO at 10am. Now it's already 940am and I can't seem to finish it! Damn, the box is rebooting itself for upgrades and each upgrades takes 20mins. Why why!! I can't seem to get this to work! Please help me. 20 minutes more before the upgrade is done. And it'd be 10am!

Anyway, been a damn busy week for me. I just want a normal job so that I can study some extra things in my free time.

As I type this, I was testing some stuff...and damn there's more regression! It's one step forward, 2 steps back!

# Some thoughts

2007-03-28T23:09:00.000+08:00

Today was a busy day, in fact everyday is busy.

I am getting old, or too many issues are coming up. Becoz I can't seem to rem them offhand. And whenever people ask me about work, I can't rem.

The workplace was especially crowded today with tons of managers running around, like a disturbed ant nest. Everyone was panicky, and more arrows came shooting down on me. Which lead me to leave at 10pm today.

At least I had my 30mins of fun today. Played forex today around 8pm, while doing work. And managed to earn 1k. Why does $ have different value? Work hard for an hour and you get $12. Get some good foresight and you earn $1k in 30mins.

I am seriously tempted to dive into forex now. As my account grew from $25k to $31k from 16 March to 27 March. I will carry on testing my setups and strategy till my birthday. Then I shall give myself a bday present. I will open an account and play part time.

# Upgrade complete

2007-03-24T21:27:00.000+08:00

Today is Sat and I have to work! Damn it...went to Orchard with Liling today to do a obi good upgrade. We are supposedly the experts becoz we have seen the Russians do it ONCE.

Luckily it all went well, only met a small problem which took us some time to solve but it's all working now!

Seriously I have something to confess here, I am not putting in 100% for this job. Look at the time I spent on this job...may seem that I am doing alot. But mentally i am just doing a half fuck job. Nowadays I scan thru issues, just do things without really thinking. Eg the upgrade today I just back up the directory, and off I go upgrading. Never realyl planned anything. Coz there's this mentality that they can't blame me for screwing things up, I am their last line of tech support. If I screw up, anyone would have screwed up too.

Anyway....thought of a way to do brainless forex trading. Under research by Chris now..haha if it works...thats it dude...millionaire before 30. Please let me find some catch ...else it's really too good to be true.

# Issues,defect, function as designed, fixed in 18.5

2007-03-22T20:21:00.000+08:00

For those uninitiated, these are some common words used in my daily work. I see them everywhere, on the excel i open, on the doc i edit and on the words i use.

Life lately has been back to management of defects and attending meetings. I just attended a meeting ytd from 2pm to 11pm. This is crazy, a 9 hour meeting to sort out the issues but at the end of it, nothing was solved.

This project is going to get its ass kicked by the public. Imagine 20 boxes can test out 300 defects in a span of 2 months. How many defects is going to come out on 10000 boxes in 1 week?

Seriously I do not want to be part of the coy when it happens. This is like a shithole dug by some ang mor and I was convinced to step into it. However, there's 2 issues to consider here. (Damn did I just used the word 'issue' again?!)

There's a bond to work in SG for 1 year, I can't just leave the coy and slack around.
I can't find another job that pays better than this one. Thou my per hour wages is lower. But at least there's a chance to earn more now.

Seriously, now I am so tied in between my job, I attend meeting with big bosses and address issues, then I am actually the one to solve the issue after that. My job is actually dangerous as I work too near the lions. One wrong step and I could get eaten up.

I wish I could be like M, who goes home sharp at 630pm and knows nothing much. That's too cool! Since I am not intending to stay long, why should I bother to know so much about this specialised technology? I need to know something more general so that it can be used else where.
But the fact is I have established myself to be not so blur and if I were to act blur ppl can tell. I can't simply say "Oh...I dunno how we can do this" and expect ppl not to bother me again.

Ignorance is bliss....

# Mentally Disturbed

2007-03-18T13:08:00.000+08:00

I think i am too affected by my job.

I wake up in nightmares every day these 2 days. Dreamt of non working functions and complaining customers.

This is NOT GOOD FOR MY HEALTH!

@ Is it my work or my personality?

2007-03-17T11:38:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, I look back on things I have done in this job and I don't know if it's me or the job.

I guess partially its me becoz I can't stand ppl who don't plan well, fail to plan fairly or have a very warped common sense. I always like a system, I am systematic and follows rules and logic and I can't take it when the slightest breech of a system takes place.

Eg: If you tell me that everyone needs to work on weekend but on a rotating basis.
Manager takes note of who has rotated and assigns 1 to a wkend job each time, but he does not do it in order. Meaning that for the first cycle maybe A,B,C,D is assigned. Then next cycle is C,A,B,D. I hate that. Coz there's uncertainty. Tell me it's all preplanned with A,B,C,D! Then I would be happy.

Also, I can't stand it when there's obviously a better way to do things(and maybe damn common sense to me) but they just didn't plan it that way. This happens in work and game.

Eg: DotA teammates does some shit things that I think is totally wrong and without common sense, I get damn angry at these ppl.
Work management plans some stupid things and then it didn't work work the last minute when it's so obvious to me it's not going to work out.

Seriously I am a team player when with good team and not a team player with a stupid one. Hence I conclude I am not a good team player. In fact I am not a team player at all maybe.

Also this meant that jobs that rely on myself are better suited for me.
Eg: Home trader, Sales, free lance programming and Single player games.

# Don't use the fuck word on me 'manager'!

2007-03-16T22:26:00.000+08:00

Today some idiotic manager by the name of YG used the fuck word, not directly on me. But I was damn pissed so i blew up. Here's the whole story

The talk came ard 7pm . Was deciding who needs to be there tmlo for UAT. So a track is staying back tmlo for UAT and it's actually M's track.

So YG ask me to stay and i say it's M's track so ask her. But YG said she went home already. So I was pissed as does he mean that go home cannot come work tmlo? WTF call her la. What prob is it of mine? So he say must help each other out, and ask me like if I want to call everyone back meh? In those guai lan tone. So I naturally pissed off and say 'ya la'!

So he went on to tok some cok and then tried to call M's track ppl but couldn't get thru. So i say i try. Then he say "fucking hell got their number never say , diam diam" Damn i was pissed. So i say "fuck man, u never ask me"
YG: should have initiative mah, like tat vote you out of the game man
Me: Vote out vote out la, if you want just vote me out. I don't care

Then after that he tok about us covering for each other cannot meh, want us work as a team. Then he say wat if M got knocked down by a car den who cover, so i tot it's abit freaking wrong to say such things so i say "then i take over provisioning lor"
YG: Then why u cannot take over tmlo??
Me:Then tmlo if she get knock down i take over la!
YG: You don't come and tok this cok to me!!!!

Fucktards....he's the one who suggested the knockdown so now u come and get angry?

Management is full of shit heads in this coy. All talk and no work.