The Wannabe Economist

Less than 1 day to end of exams.

Had a pretty good day so far, in fact. I woke up from afternoon nap a while ago. Had shark drink. Just eaten beef noodle.

The only thing negative is probably i haven’t studied / read much for paper tomorrow. 3 whole hours, i really am expecting something out of the world.

20 hours to go

My heart is pounding furiously right now.

I don’t know whether it’s the significant larger than usual intake of caffeine, or is it the school economy rice with expected price of $2.40 with variance of 0 (sampling the order i placed) that i just ate.

Intermediate econometrics paper in 1 hour.

Deep breath, Chongky, deep breath.

Another one bites the dust.

Intermediate econometrics is at 5pm, and this is probably the most uncertain module this semester. Too much content. My brain has never been the type that can remember every single thing.

Let’s just see how it goes.

53 more hours to go

Well, the prof actually did said that the final paper would be harder.

Still, i didn’t expect it to be out of the world. Ok not out of the world. Just that it did took me some time to finally see the trick, and not looking at the notes for more than 2 weeks did more of the damage.

2 more papers tomorrow.

66 more hours to go.

NETS says there is no shortage of CashCards
By Heather Tan, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 15 April 2008 2137 hrs

SINGAPORE: Electronic payments provider NETS said that there is no shortage of CashCards.

This assurance comes after some outlets reportedly ran out of cards on Tuesday.

But NETS said it has ample supply of the current Blue Butterfly CashCards, which cost S$7. This will continue to be sold while stocks last. Currently, a refundable S$2 deposit is payable for each NETS CashCard.

And from 1 May, NETS will introduce the S$10 CashCard which will feature an orange laser design.

With the new card, there is no need to pay a deposit. That’s because, of the S$10 you pay, S$5 is the cost of the card and the other S$5 is the stored value.

There are 4.5 million NETS CashCards in circulation today.

NETS CashCards are available at all Cheers, 7-Eleven and FairPrice Xpress outlets. You can call 6274 1212 for more information. - CNA/vm

via http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/341632/1/.html

I must comment on the language skill of this journalist. It was phrased so well that i was elated for that split second when i read that you do not have to pay a deposit with the new cashcard from 1 May on even though it’s going to cost you $10 at the point of purchase.

That was before my eyes went to the next line and noted that that is because the $5 is the cost of the card.

See, the wonders of language. Even a bad news can be phrased into something good.

I reckon if you’re the careless type like Mrs Chongky, go to the nearest 7-eleven right now and stock up on extra cashcards, just so that even if you lost / misplaced / displaced / dropped / forgot where you put it / lost you still won’t need to fork out $5 to pay for your own cashcard yet.

But i guess making you pay for your own cashcard is the right thing to do. It’s YOUR OWN cashcard after all, right?

Intermediate econometrics does not remind me much of applied econometrics 2 sems ago.

It reminds me of maths for econs in my first semester.

Is it the prof or is it the heavy content + killer paper?

90 hours to go - unofficially last 90 hours as undergrad

This entry was on the wordpress log in page and the title caught my eye.

Nice account on rugby and the “white” attitude towards the sports.

3 days more to the first paper (that’s including today, but not considering that i’m going to spend 2.5 hours of the day at the LDP session, 1 hour travelling back, 0.5 hour washing up, 0.5 hour settling down, 0.5 hour having dinner, 0.5 hour going printing shop and doing hopefully the last batch of printing i need for revision). I don’t remember even doing 5 exams in the past semesters, and here i am, moving up to 6 exams in the last semester in SMU.

Not that i love to brag about doing 6 module, but having 6 exams is simply takng up much of my time this semester. Not just the time going to class, but also the time to do other things because i am just too concerned about how am i going to pull this through week 15.

Of course i hope it’s my last semester here. Not that i hate the school. But given the chance to do graduate studies i would definitely want to do it at an even more prominent school elsewhere. Even MBA in NUS ranks higher.

Alright going back to studies. Running out of time. Am out of steam.

By the way, i thought the content of this news article on CNA is pretty obvious.

I have just declined going for an interview this week.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make. On one hand, this job was part of my childhood dream (another part was to work in Shenton Way… naive thoughts back then). On the other, it doesn’t pay that well relative to the industry that i am looking at. Furthermore, the job just serves as a reminder of my failure to secure even the lousiest funding they provide for undergrad studies years ago. Even the dangled carrot upon joining can’t make the deal any sweeter. How can this sum compare to the amount my mum invested in my education, or the 2 years i have to work and save to make my own ends meet?

So screw it. If they can’t help me to change the interview date then i’m simply too dispensible. Might as well hole up in front of the Ikea table and do some real work. Work that might actually help to pull up the GPA and get me some REAL tangible reward rather than travelling the extra miles for the 10-15 minutes interview (as stated in the email without considering the travelling and waiting and dressing that take up time too).

I just recalled that a couple of days back, Mrs Chongky told me about Pine Garden getting onto the top 50 best cake list on The Straits Times while she was flipping through the papers.

I asked her about her opinion on the lychee martini cake and she claimed that she didn’t eat it so i should be asking myself that question.

Unfortunately, despite paying from my own pocket (which i seldom do nowadays =P) for the cake, i don’t remember much. Other than it tasted like the canned lychee. With a disappointing taint of alcohol taste. Nothing like the lychee martini that i had at Gina’s party. Yup i’m not a martini person and i hardly order martini, but i do remember the occassion when i had so much martini that i was rather happy the entire evening.

Then Mrs Chongky wondered how come Canele didn’t make the list. Hmmm…

I haven’t been to wordpress dashboard for such a long time that i was pleasantly surprised with the new look and layout when i log on today.

Switching to wordpress is a decision that i haven’t looked back. I have used diaryland and blogspot. Sadly the features are just too basic, or require a certain level of technical competency on certain computer languages that i had not acquired from 15 years in school. On the other hand, wordpress has all the features on the dashboard laid out so conveniently that you can just scroll, click and there you have it.

Basically things have been pretty much the same. Except that this is my study week and i’m not surely going to mug till all my hair fall off. Not that much has fallen off, but i still decided to go for a hair cut and buy new shampoo so that my scalp can be washed more thoroughly (at least that’s how i feel with the shampoo).

No more excuses to not study i guess. I have gotten my haircut. Eaten dinner twice (an early one and a late one). Drank enough motivating drinks for the day - 3 small KFC soda and 1 bubble tea.