Let the Good Times Roll

Under the recommendation of my sister, my friends and I went for an international buffet at The Dining Room, located in Sheraton Towers. They have an ongoing promotion of 50% off for ladies on wednesday. The price is about $36.50 (after GST and service charge) per person, which I thought was pretty worth it considering it has oysters!! I think any international buffet in SG that has oysters will cost $50 (after taxes) and up.

The cold seafood counter

This photo was taken from Oli's blog! I was too hungry so I didn't pause to take any pictures. Instead, I proceeded to pile the seafood on my plate. When I was full and wanted to take photos, the counter didn't look as nice anymore. The oysters were scattered across the ice and there was no more crayfish. The oysters were quite fresh, I would say they're even sweeter than Carousel's.

Halfway through the buffet, I noticed the chef coming up to refill the seafood counter so we went over to see and saw snow crab legs!! I think there wasn't enough prawns to go around, so they refilled the counter with crab legs instead. However the legs did not taste as delicious as expected. It was overpoweringly salty, and I couldn't taste the sweetness of the meat at all. Perhaps they had to use the saltiness to conceal the un-freshness of the legs? Oh, and I managed to pull out a full crab stick! Photo on the right was taken from Oli's blog again!

The salad bar and the bread counter. Both which I did not try. Whenever I go to a buffet, I would always target the seafood and forget about stuffs like this >:( I love seafood too much! Think I had like 20 oysters that evening? I kept going back to take oysters with fang. I L O V E O Y S T E R S!! Oli told me oysters are supposed to be eaten in one mouthful without biting. Tried it, but all I could taste was tobasco and lemon. I still prefer to bite into the oyster, for the creamy and sweet taste.

Good-looking oysters

My one and only photo of their cooked food. The variety was quite little, but overall decent I would say.

Shawarma

I think it is made of lamb kebab wrapped in a toasted pita bread. It was average! Maxine told me it was eaten by Avengers in the movie so I tried it for fun.

Fondue overflowing with chocolate goodness

Germaine's plate of dessetrs

It was time for desserts!! They had a fondue and quite a variety of assorted cakes. I love the variety. Oh, they have froyo and waffles too! Some of their cakes were quite nice especially the praline cake.

Took a photo in front of the man made waterfall. It's like a glass house and the scenery outside was pretty, though manmade.  

It wasn't long before the restaurant had to close so we adjourned to the hotel lobby! There were comfy sofas there, and I felt like I was on a holiday. We took a few photos using timer!

溏心风暴新加坡版

It was Maxine's suggestion and  I thought this photo really looked the part!

Finally a fun one! That's our normal selves :)

I really enjoyed spending time with them but good times roll too fast! I like how we can just joke around and laugh at anyone freely, just like how friends should be. I had a good time, till the next!

Summer books

Books I've read so far... 2 books on finance, 1 book on psychology and 1 novel.

<Thinking fast and slow> was slowww. It's a pretty insightful book, but there are too many insights... He talked about system 1 and 2. System 1's reaction is instantaneous while System 2 is more deliberate.  It kept on going on and on about the biases in human's judgement (mostly due to System 1) and how we can overcome them. In the end I was just reading for the sake of finishing it. However it's definitely a good book on psychology, it was helpful in letting me understand behavioral finance, an emerging field.

<A random walk down wall street> is a book to read if you want an introduction to the world of finance. Reading it made me feel like I was attending my FIN3102 (Investment Analysis) class again, so it was relatively easy to read. It was like a revision of the module I took last sem. He covered more ground as well, like how to allocate assets when you're old, and some other minor theories not covered.

<The Accidental Investment Banker> opens the black box to the world of investment banking. IB is the most lucrative area of finance. I've heard of the legendary salaries the people draw, but they only take in the top graduates. After reading this book, I'm sure I would not be interested in IB. I don't think I'm good enough for any bank to hire me anyway. However it was good to know how the industry works. Basically investment bankers are salesmen  selling advice to CEOs. The author also talks about how banks are becoming more greedy and bringing IPOs to the market even though they do not think it's a good issue and would not buy the issues themselves

Finally <Madame Bovary> is a book written in 1850s. It was quite difficult to read due to the tendency of the author to describe the a lot of the scenes in the book. As it was written very long ago, I find it hard to visualize the descriptions. However, I can really connect with Madame Bovary in some parts. She finds her life disappointing compared to the lives of the protagonists in the books that she read. I feel it all the time too and I'm glad that I'm not alone. And how sometimes, you yearn for something so much and after you obtain it, it becomes boring and you wish to break away, but you can't. Hmm I can't describe. Overall it was a good book.

Hoping to read another 2-3 books before school starts!

My ukulele journey

Guitar X Ukulele with my brother playing the melody and I, the chords




I started learning the ukulele in March this year. I could still remember Fang, Debra and me talking excitedly about playing the ukulele in AMK library while studying for our midterms. Then meeting Gang and Siewfong to go Ukulele Movement to buy our ukuleles after my Investment Analysis midterm. Anyway I hate the guy at UM, but that's another story.

I'm glad that I took it up! Cus I feel a very strong sense of satisfaction after I master every song. Above are the songs I've learnt so far. Pardon my singing, it's not good and I'm trying to improve it. Think I'm the best in <I'm Yours>, cus I spent the most time on it so far. It was my first song and there was a steep learning curve that I had to overcome. It includes learning to pick with my fingers. I'm used to using a pick due to my ZR background so it was hard for me to transition to fingers. However, after much practice, fingers feel the most natural to me now :) Then it was the strumming, all the updownup downdownup rhythms flooded my head while I struggle to tell my hand which stroke to play and which to not. The worst is coordinating the chords with singing.

After that phase, things picked up. I learn things a little faster. Now my biggest struggle is to sing well and play at the same time. Hoping to over come it soooooon.

Throughout this journey, I'm very glad I have my brother to guide me along. Even though he's not patient at all, he's a great help so far, helping me with rhythms and teaching me new songs. I also have to thank L! He spent a lot of time after our dates at my house, helping me perfect my coordination and singing. Finally I'm glad that I've Fang, Debra and Oli who are also interested in playing uke. They keep my motivation up! And our weekly/biweekly sessions helps a lot as well!

Everyone should learn the ukulele, it'll make your life a lil' happier :)

My search for meaning

I watched Monsters University last night and I liked it!! Mike Wazowski is damn cute, and I like how determined he is to achieve his goal.

An epiphany I got:
I would rather have a short and dazzling life rather than a long and monotonous one.

I wished I could be one of the heroes/heroines in a movie. The protagonist in any movie always has a strong purpose or passion and almost always manage to emerge triumphant. Everything seems to fall into place in the end...

I wished that kind of life could be my life, but my life is not a movie. I'm following what other people have done, get a university degree, go out work.... then die. I'll die without making any impact to the world at all. But it's a sure track of a good life. By good I meant like having enough money to go around. However, this life is monotonous!

If only I have a passion or something I'm good at! Then maybe I would have the motivation to pursue those things. When will I have the motivation for office work? Sigh.

Currently my goal is to be rich and successful, but what happens after? Is it meaningful enough? Questions that bug me day in day out.

I have no answer

Remembering my Secondary/JC school days

What triggered this post is this Thai movie called "A Crazy Little Thing called Love". It's a Thai movie and it's available on Youtube. Go watch if you haven't!! It's quite good, even though the middle is a bit draggy but I stayed on cus the male and female lead are super good looking! The plot has the same theme like 那些年 but I like it more cus I can connect to the female protagonist better!

Anyway the movie set me thinking about my secondary/JC school days. Think I have been in a "reminiscing phase" for a few weeks already. I keep wanting to relive my Korea exchange days recently. Maybe it's cus of work... and impending full time work next year... Work ties me down and I yearn for freedom that exchange offered me >:( I know it's impossible to relive those days but I yearn for it so much it makes me sad. So I was saying to L that Korea is an ex-boyfriend that I'm trying to forget but I keep getting reminded of those happy days together. Today's movie exacerbated my situation.

Those secondary school days were glorious. My best partner in crime was Munling, probably cus both of us didn't want to go home early. My parents had just re-launched their careers and spent majority of their time at work. During sec1/2, there would be no one home when I returned home from school, so I had all the freedom to stay back in school for useless stuffs. I was very interested in participating in class mgmt stuffs, so ML and I often stayed back to decorate the class to try to win awards/prepare for homecoming. If not, we would go with half of the class to hang out in compass point. We acted like we had all the time in the world. We would call each other for long hours. I would just sit on the floor, holding the corded phone and talk about god-knows-what to ML for about like 2 hours? Who knows what we could talk about for so long? & I had the phone numbers of the gang of friends at the back of my mind. It was also trendy to have a blog! I remembered I always wanted to have blog but I was so so so scared of getting judged and people laughing at what I said. I only had the courage to create a blog in sec3!! Oh, how self conscious I was. I'm glad I did cus now I can always look back at how I thought :)

I really want to relive those days. I don't want to think about adult stuffs cus it makes me stressed. I still want to be a teenager with no responsibilities. But... I know it's impossible, so I'm just hoping this phase would pass soon.

Does anyone feel the same way?

p/s I might blog more about the past, bear with me :/

Young and Beautiful

Had this little moment which I enjoyed tremendously today. Thought I'll just share it with y'all :)

I was all alone at home and I just woke up from a nap on the sofa, facing the clock on the wall. Decided to play this song "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey, a nice song which I discovered on Spotify.  It's also one of the theme songs for The Great Gatsby. So there I lay, on the sofa, with my phone next to me, and the song playing. It was just me and the song, and I stared at the clock letting the seconds pass.

It was the first time in years that I fully grasp the length of a single second. Music in my ears, thoughts on my mind, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Haven't been in this pensive mood in a while and it was good. Made me appreciate my life amongst all the hectic nonsense in this materialistic world.

Anyw I loved The Great Gatsby. It's still on my mind even though I watched it on Sunday and I really don't mind re-watching/reading the book again. Jay Gatsby is my hero.

Fickle

On certain days, I wake up with a go-go attitude, thinking of things like "I want to succeed in life", "I want to be rich", feeling like I have chosen the right course and field. On other days, I wake up doubting myself, whether I chose the right field and if I'm suited to certain working conditions.

I had my orientation today, it was all good until I went to my department. Suddenly I felt that I had no freedom with impending work. Can't have my afternoons free to hang out with L and friends. Suddenly, those afternoons felt so so so precious, so much more precious than gaining interning experience/pumping up my resume and I felt depressed.

Is it me, or I get depressed easily?

I can't wait for the internship to end. However, I was originally looking forward to it.

Really, I'm a person so full of dilemmas, my thoughts filled with love-hate relationships. I don't know if I'm normal. Haha.

& suddenly I feel that being able to knock off work on time is a BIG deal.

Oh well. I hope these feelings are only temporary and I would get used to the internship life sooooon. Wish me luck, I wish to enjoy this last internship experience...