All right all right, some vids to entertain u guys. You have watched some of these before. Below contains magic / illusion that may be abit gross/abnormal blah blah. Watch at your own risk. (And pls do note that quite alot of these should be set-ups.)

All right… my 1 week recess break is coming to an end soon. However, I had not spent my time productively, squandering away the time instead on such stuffs like surfing the net, chatting online, sleeping amongst other things. I had actually planned to start doing my marketing assignment 6 days ago, and yet look how it turned out! It is still sitting on my desk, pretty much untouched. A major contributing factor must have been my relative dislike of the module compared to the others that I am taking up this semester.

Adding on, I must really say that I’m a very quantitative guy, which perhaps made my life this semester a little bit better than most other people in the same course. While the rest must be busy trying to mug for the 3 upcoming mid-term tests, here I am quietly confident about scoring respectable grades with minimal to zero extra revision. The result may not always be ideal, but this has always been my way of dealing with quantitative stuffs. Not to sound arrogant or what, but it has rarely failed me in the past. With that, the amount of free time I appear to have during this recess week must have crucial in maintaining my inertia of work avoidance (of anything non-quantitative).

Ok…now onto something that has happened for the past 2 days. Went for the BBA Finishing School for year 1 students, 2 days, each 9 hours long including lunch time (which wasn’t alot). It was very content intensive, some common sense, some not readily obvious, with lots of tips and insights into how to tackle certain aspects.

Topics include the following:
- Marketing Yourself to Employers through cover letter and CV writing
- Dining Etiquette
- Corporate Dressing & Business Protocol
- MAPP Workshop
- Assessment Centers
- Presenting Yourself at Interviews
- The Art of Networking

Glancing at the list, you may think that hey, certain things are common sense after all, but beyond that, deeper insights are plentiful. Why do you think they provide the workshop otherwise… I can only say that some of the sessions are very painful, especially dining etiquette. For BBA students yet to go through this, I’ll leave it to you to find out more yourself when you attend. For others, you probably wouldn’t be able to get something like this for free.

Of course, this workshop was a huge bomb that set me thinking. This, along with a personal problem I’m facing right now, places my future in very uncertain terms. At times I really feel lost. I do not know if my mental strength that so often pulled me back up will be of any help now…

前景似灰暗沉静，迷迷茫茫，黯然不定
困扰于命运枷锁，艰巨考验，迷离幻境

Hmm, sian today Mid-Autumn Festival must go back to school. Morning went to mac to meet up wif Gary Joy and Susan. Wah eat 1 full extra value meal with free burger then Joy still bring mooncakes for us. The 4 of us like only eat 1 only… end up hafta deposit the others at my home. For some reason Joy’s fren from SIM is going to our biz library wif her fren. So… we went to sch tgt. Econs tutorial… 2 hours you know. sian. Anyway I didn’t even do the tutorial. Just looked at it and tried to figure out what izzit asking, and then during the group presentation I tried to understand what was going on. For that part I tink I did a pretty good job

After sch went to Joy’s home to be “answer key” (after retrieving the leftover mooncakes from my trusty refrigerator. Hmm, was quite sian there since i finished all my quantitative tutorials alr. Borrowed her marketing textbook and tried to read. ARGHZ cnt even finish 1 chapter… I swear that textbook is sleep inducing… Not only my copy ok… even though I have no bed to lie on here. Haha, i actually redid some qns from the latest gek tutorial to fill in the missing blanks that I have not bothered to touch on. And I still finished it sooooooo fast. AND THEN I played with my calculator, counted to 8000 before I grew sian. And so, I’m actually blogging here. haha. But I tink ok lah, Joy trying her best, and can see some improvements, but the classic cost * cost thing still comes out for her management science tutorial for 1 qn.

Wahseh, one of Joy’s bro (think is Jason) also from NJ sia. All come from there, pure arts combi also. Only my combi so weird cnt even make up 1 full class. Hmm, dunno what to write le. Oh yes… I still haven started on my marketing assignment… ouch… was supposed to have started 2 days ago… God bless.

All right, after the initial stretch of EPL, let us now take a look at some (shallow) review from me.

On general form, Derby is bottom as expected. But look who else is in relegation zone - Bolton and Tottenham! I had expected Bolton to start struggling after Big Sam left the club, but such immediate disaster wasn’t exactly expected. But if such scenario is anticipated, that of Tottenham dwelling here shouldn’t have been. With a squad that slowly amass a semblance of some stars, Tottenham had been in the hunt to push into the elites of EPL for the past 2 seasons. Come this season, they have only now gathered 3 points against Derby, and draws with Bolton and Fulham, who inevitably, lies just 1 position above Tottenham.

No surprises there, Fulham and Wigan are amongst teams I believe would perform with a degree of struggle. What surprised me is the meteoric rise of Man City and Newcastle. In Man City, it really came as a shock that they took almost zero time to gel as a team. In Newcastle, the defence appears to have been somewhat sorted, and they could put them in a much stronger position to challenge.

Now about the Big 4. Yes the world is shocked by the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea. Now it appears the team faces an uphill battle to challenge for the title the longer their star players are out with injuries. Normally you would expect a Chelsea team to have more than enough cover, but at this point of time, Avram Grant is likely to fail in motivating the “fringe” players.

Now in Liverpool’s case, it is all the same with tinkerman. Week in week out, Liverpool produces performances of supremely varied quality. And this could hurt in their hunt for a first title in god knows how many years. On the other hand, Arsenal had been firing on all cylinders despite losing their supposed talisman to secure top position. Perhaps it was too early for pundits to write them off just a couple months ago.

Finally on Man Utd, a shaky start to the season was soon banished on the back of consecutive clean sheets and grinding out wins while in shaky form. This is such an important attribute to have, the resilience to get maximum points when you are playing badly. Because we all know the quality of Man Utd when they start to find some semblance of rhythm. Its still early days yet and the table could change drastically. But before I close off, I might as well alert you to some players to scrutinize (not like you didn’t already know who!)

Arsenal - Francesc Fabregas, Emmanuel Adebayor
Chelsea - Michael Essien
Man City - Kasper Schmeichel, Micah Richards, Martin Petrov
Man Utd - Patrice Evra
Middlesbrough - Stewart Downing
Sunderland - Craig Gordon
Tottenham - Gareth Bale

Well, it’s supposed to be the start of a week long vacation mugging time for NUS students, considering the amount of mid-term tests coming up amidst the influx of projects we are involved in right after the recess week. So it isn’t exactly a fun week. Plus… we have econs tutorial on mid-autumn festival, wow… nvm, go there eat mooncake… (obviously not free) I dunno how I’m supposed to survive the incoming onslaught, afterall my true personality is very very very slack. Yes believe me that all you doubters!

Funny how I actually think now that DSC2003 being the highest level module I’m taking this semester, as the most relaxed module. Well, there is only a mid-term test and a final exam to contend with, and being a particularly maths-inclined person, I think, there isn’t much of a need to revise anything. Actually, this applies to my GEM module as well, GEK1505. Putting minimal effort in it for hopefully maximum results.

Next down on the list of my preference should be ST1131A - statistics. Simple stuffs for me, but a project to tackle. Then there is managerial econs (BSP1005B). Still pretty ok since micro-econs is kinda maths in nature. There are new stuffs I never learnt before in JC though, so still hafta listen in lecture.

Finally, the dreadful marketing module - MKT1003. Ok ok, no matter how interesting the module can be, it is always depressing to think of the potentially woeful grade that you may receive. The assignments look terrible at best (at least for now) and then there is the stressful case study.

It is only 6 weeks and you tell me its half a sem! haha, too fast… can’t afford to dilly dally like in JC, and this is PAINFUL. Bummer, I haven’t plan out my daily agenda for the coming week…

Okok, I just had to blog about this. Haha, I’m starting to feel the desire to laugh just thinking about it. This is HILARIOUS. During the management science lecture, Joy suddenly took out her calculator and seemed to be looking to input something. Well, I dunno what she wanted to do, afterall, nothing in this lecture warrants the requirement of a calculator. Then she started laughing, and the group was kind of stunned. Guess what! She said she wanted to do something, and unknowingly, she took out her calculator. And the thing she wanted to do was… to… SMS ! At that very instant, u see the row of us clutching our tummies laughing our guts out or in other various assorted positions. How the hell do u SMS with a calculator?! HAHAHAHA, and she can stare at it for so long, saying that she was looking for the “left” button, which was her shortcut on the phone to new message. Thankfully we were at the last row, heh, so minimal distraction to the LT + the lecturer did not really notice. For the rest of the day, I almost felt an uncontrollable urge to laugh when I see someone take out their phones/calculators.

Oh, on a side note (yet again), GEK 1505 test today is super easy!

okokz, some of you probably have realised that extra restricted page on the content list. It is actually used to link various documents, powerpoints, excel solutions and what have you pertaining to the modules I take. I don’t know if this will help anyone but yea… And why izzit protected? Bcos I don’t want just any random person to be able to access my (shoddy) pieces of work. And ya, so access will only be granted to relevant ppl I believe have the sense of integrity to keep it personal. Just ask me for the password, but anyway its quite empty now. I guess it should find most use in management science at the moment. Others if I’m actually hardworking enuf to do certain work on the com…

On a side note, my next CA test is 2mr… hope I do well, cheers all.