Things I want to tell you about

But you might not want to hear... Haha. This post is going to be a record of the thoughts going through my mind lately.

Recently, I've been studying investments for my upcoming midterm as I'm currently taking this module, investments and portfolio management. It's fun and it makes me more interested in investing. Well, actually I have an interest in investing in the stock market, which is sometimes buried. It started out when I joined the POEMS stock challenge and I made some positive profits. I didn't make the top returns though. My father then "gave" me some money to invest upon hearing that I was interested in investing. Since the amount my parents gave me is quite little, I can only speculate, and I only dare to speculate on one stock. Haha noob me. I don't dare to buy other stocks I'm unfamiliar with. I've made some modest profits so far but nothing impressive. Planning to research on more stocks this coming summer break. Then while in investments class, I learnt that it's very difficult to beat the market, so I decided to persuade my father to put a sum of his money into a portfolio of stocks in various industries with various dividend yields, which will provide a steady stream of dividend income for when he's old. Haha but he's not convinced. I guess we have different investment philosophies. He believes in speculation and wants me to double my principal in 1-2 years, which is like freaking impossible? If I can do it then I'm like the next Warren Buffett. I told him that thousands of people with phD believes that no one can beat the market but he still refused to believe me. While I, on the other hand, believe in the academics. I would be happy if my portfolio can mirror the index despite the lesser diversification. Then my father proceeded to tell me a lot of stories about companies and financial crises haha. A lot of what he said made sense. Like currently a lot of money is leaving Europe to find investment opportunities in Asia, once Europe recovers, the money will leave Asia and we'll die :( haha. Waiting to see if it'll come true!

Oh yah and I also currently have an interest in buying a ukulele and learning how to play it! Sparked by discussions with Debra and Fang in the AMK library while studying. Anyway my brother plays the guitar very well! He learnt it himself online and I want to be able to play the guitar too. But the strings are freaking difficult to press, despite my zhongruan background. And I heard that the chords on the ukulele are super easy to play plus the ukuleles are all so small and cute. I got this impulse to buy it, like now. But I shall wait and see if it'll pass.

End of my rant -

Expectations

Expectations expectations...

It's recess week and I'm not exactly having a break. Even though I only have two midterms at the end of recess week, I have three project meetings this week.

I didn't get short listed for Barclay's :( I have sucky interview skills, only a slightly above average CAP, no accolades to my name except blogging competitions and not enough leadership experiences. I wonder if I'll get an internship at all or even a job after I graduate. Sometimes I know I expect too much from myself, and I'm not zai enough to go after the things I want in my mind. And it kills me, so much.

Sometimes I just hate to be me cus I almost always can't get what I want in life. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself and I need to get over it and accept that I'm not good enough.

Which to choose? Continue fighting or give up and accept. I don't know...

Anyway recess week sucks cus I feel so stressed :( Haven't been out since Fri. I hope my hard work pays off, I really hope.

V'day 2013

We had dinz at La Nonna, this Italian restaurant in Holland V!

L got me flowers, love love the white roses, they look so beautiful!

Non stop taking photos with the bouquet haha.

My v'day spoils from L. Flowers, cupid cupcakes, mango avocado prawn salad and crabmeat linguine!

Think the pasta is really nice but not as nice as the one at Changi. I love Changi's crabmeat linguine! La Nonna has weekday 1-for-1 lunch ala carte, which L and I want to go for someday.

Finally a photo of us together. Thank you my dear, for being my valentine on v'day. 

感恩

Feeling quite apprehensive now cus I have a phone interview with Barclay's tmrw! I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity. It's like heaven heard me and decided to grant me this opportunity. I have to grab this opportunity!!!! It's so near CNY, I really hope I can do well cus if not, it would set a depressing tone for one of the happiest holidays for me.

I really suck at interviews and sometimes I feel like I was born to screw things up. Do any of y'all have this feeling sometimes? I feel really really scared and nervous x_x So much pressure to do well. But I guess I'm more prepared for interviews after being traumatized by JP Morgan? I really can't handle competency based questions, but I did some preparation and I hope it would come in useful tmrw. Hope I won't sound fake and scripted :(

Tmrw is my best chance and I swear I'll do my best!

p/s life's good and my mum bought a new MJ table and MJ set, which means I can invite my friends to my house for MJ! :D

It pains me to be mediocre

Haiz here I am, blogging my late night emo thoughts again.

Well, the topic for tonight is about me being mediocre. I always thought I'm above average. I consistently did well or better than average in secondary school/JC. In secondary school, I did really well. I would study really hard for tests and when teachers announce the top marks for tests, I always thought I had a chance. Occasionally, it was me. I reveled in doing well academically. Then came JC, of cus I didn't do as well as I did in secondary school but I feel I was always above average.

Now, university is like another playing field all together. The competition drives me crazy! I think I studied as hard as I did in secondary school/JC but I don't get the same results. I always always get B+!!!!! I hate B+! Why not A- instead? I think at least half of my grades are B+? Every sem, I try and try to get above B+! Well, I achieved it in Y2S2, but still, unsustainable!

Now I'm trying to find an internship for the coming summer hols but to no avail and it pains me so much! I applied to soooo many banks eg. Morgan Stanley, Citibank, UOB, JP Morgan... But none of the banks got back to me except JP Morgan?? I was quite honored to be short listed for a phone interview cus JP Morgan is like my dream company!! If you are hired and accepted into their analyst program, they will send you to New York for a six weeks training (OMG NEW YORK!!!! Plays *Empire State of Mind*). Then they will rotate you in different offices each year for three years, one of the offices you go for a year has to be out of your home country (OMG OPPORTUNITY TO WORK OVERSEAS). However, after the phone interview, JP Morgan hasn't got back to me since. Haiz. And there isn't much bank internships left for me to apply :(( I don't want to settle for some "finance internship" in a non-bank company where all I'll do is admin work?? But it looks like I'll need to settle, unless some miracle happens :(

I want to get a high powered job after I graduate. I want to work as hard as possible (pia) when I'm young. I want to know where's my limit. I want to be rich and successful! I don't want to be stuck in some company doing admin work (might as well don't get degree right?) But now, all of it seems so difficult, so fucking difficult).

It pains me to be mediocre. So fucking much.

p/s and of cus I know life's just not about being successful but it matters ALOT

Korea's best - Patbingsu

I've decided to start blogging about delicious food in Korea since I was there for 4.5 months. I'll try to blog about my favourite place for getting a certain food in different categories each week! Each blog post is strictly based on my own opinion, so don't rely on it fully!

The food item to be discussed this week is ... 팥빙수! In English, it's patbingsu! Every time I eat something delicious, like fried prawns and I say it's damn nice, my friend would chime in and say something like "Singapore's cereal prawns are nicer". The same thing happened for fried chicken and seafood. However, I think patbingsu pwns all the other ice kacang in Singapore, including those Taiwanese shaved ice etc.

Patbingsu is shaved ice, korean style. The original flavour consists of milky shaved ice which is super super super smooth!!! I can't describe how smooth it is but it's the smoothest shaved ice I've ever eaten! There be red bean paste on the top coupled with a few glutinous rice ball, often 2.

Here are some pictures!

#4

This place is called snowmounteen and they serve patbingsu in a cup. IT is found at the basement of Lotte Young Departmental Store at Myeongdong! I think it tastes average for korea's patbingsu so I rank this the least delish out of the four I've tried! It's still better than Singapore's ice kacang though!!

#3

 Next in line is Meal Top (밀탑)!! It's located at the Hyundai Departmental Store at Apgujeong. They have strawberry flavoured patbingsu but I still like the original best :D

#2

Patbingsu at E-dae! The name of the place is called homilbat (호밀밭). It's slightly difficult to find compared to the previous two but it's nice! I can't remember the exact taste already cus I had it so long ago but the watermelon was really sweet! My friends and I were hoping that they would use the $22 korean watermelons. I think it has the best green tea patbingsu too :D

Here's the address: Address: 서울 서대문구 창천동 4-77

(Seoul, Seodaemun-gu, Changcheon-dong 4-77) 

You can use google maps to help you!

#1 DENG DENG DENG! The last and the best!!!! Patbingsu from kyeongsongpatjib (경성밭집). I don't know if my romanization is correct x_x

I miss it so much already!! I brought L to eat it too and he agreed it's super nice. It was so nice we wanted to bring it to Singapore but we couldn't figure out how they make the ice so freaking smooth!! And the red bean is effing delish as well. The glutinous rice ball lose to the E-dae one though. Be prepared for a small surprise as you plough through the ice. Haiz, the thought of only having this when I go back to Korea makes me a little sad :(

My friends and I also tried the green tea one but the original one is still better!! It's not as smooth and we were guessing that the weather froze the ice back and it became unsmooth. Not sure if it's cus of the weather or there's some problem with the recipe.
How to go there:
Go out from Exit 1 Sangsu station on line 6 and keep walking straight until you see dunkin donuts. Turn left when you see dunkin donuts. Continue walking and look out for 경성밭집! It should be on your left!
You can visit this blog for more info

This concludes my best patbingsu in Korea post! Be sure to try it when you're in Seoul and you won't regret it! Oh, and I haven't had patbingsu in summer yet, I bet it must be freaking shiokz. There should totally be patbingsu shops in Singapore. Paris baguette doesn't count!

2013 > 2012

Been putting off writing this post cus I don't feel like recalling 2012 events. The events that happened before I went to Korea felt like a distant memory. And did I mention that while I was in Korea for the last few weeks, I felt like my days in Singapore were a long time ago? I can't really remember how I led my life in Singapore. Ohwell, now I'm back and I'm updating this post right before school starts.

2012 started off with me pretty committed to NUSCO. I was the Social Secretary and the Assistant Marketing Director (co person-in-charge) for NUSCO's concert comm. Being in the concert comm was a pain in the ass cus I really had to do something, unlike being a SS, which all I need to do is to buy snacks for members to eat during the weekends. I was in charge of sponsorships and how I dread drafting letters to companies who would really love to slam the door in my face. I really really hate sending letters to persuade them cus it's like a lost cause. I sent like 30+ letters and followed up with calls but only very little companies got back to us. I tried my  best but in the end we only managed to raise $1,500 in sponsorships, which was quite little compared to previous years. I was just so glad it's overrr! Danhong really helped me sooo much! She's like the main person in charge and I'm the one helping her. The poster was a disaster as well. Paid $80 to a supposed professional designer and she came up with crap. So glad SF helped us! :D I really really liked the poster he did! I think it pwned all the other NUSCO concert posters. Magnifying Minorities came and went. It was good, except we performed in SOTA. Then I passed on my position to Ziyi. I guess I didn't really do a good job as a SS. Sad to say, I think I did average cus at the end I was just very sian and I wanted to quickly finish my responsibilities.

Subsequently, the holidays came and I did an internship stint at MINDEF. It was pretty okay and I learnt more excel skills. Also, I was offered a job by MINDEF :D My phone got confiscated once cus I kept sneaking my iPhone in. I wanted to use my phone so badly but I only had a camera phone. The internship was meh.

I also obtained the best results since I came into NUS. I was really shocked but I'm super grateful!!! I still can't believe how I did for the modules I took. I hope to maintain my current CAP and breeze through honours year (hopefully)

Then I went to Korea! I love Korea!!! It was so fun and all the food is so damn delish! Singapore Korean food can't compare at all. I can say that Korean food has the same place in my heart as Singaporean food. SEP in Korea has really taught me to be independent. I cooked and washed for myself. Settled stuff and made decisions on my own. I was pretty homesick at first but I got used to the new independent me at the end! I didn't want come back. I only wanted to come back to escape the cold, so that I won't need to wear 5 layers of clothes, 2 layers of socks everyday and still freeze my feet off. L came to find me for the last 9 days of me being in Korea and it was sooo fun with him being around!

So, I'm back. I miss Korea, the independent me, the frosty cold weather and finally the food!!! I think I've really grown a lot over the year.

For 2013, I hope to become a better person and to have more faith in myself in whatever I do. And finally, I wish to be less competitive and to not think so much!