Weekly Update!

Been a week since I last posted. In fact, exactly 1 week. Ok. Anyways, last Munday when Clarisse borrowed my cam and I couldn't take pix of Echo Music? Well this is what she borrowed it for.

Flowers for Joyce, picked by yours truly, ME
Actually it's given by the entire futures control group. I just made the choice.

Joyce the newly-wed with her flowers.

Clarisse with flowers that are not hers.. ^_^|||

On Tuesday night, picked up her mum and 2 sisters, and following day, met up with someone impt.

He's one of the best teammates I've ever had, with a strong initiative and sense of responsibility.

His career path has proven my trust in him to be justified. Previously, he was at a start-up hedge fund as an intern. 1 out of the 3 fund managers pulled out and went to join Citigroup as a hedge fund wing (the only one in sg so far). And when he left, he pulled this friend of mine Tarik along with him, so once he graduated last year, he secured a job with citigroup.

Basically their group is only 2-man, operates like a private hedge fund, but uses citi's support and admin infrastructure, plus citigroup supplies them with the clients. Well I got some good advice from him on how to start a hedge fund. I thought that it would take time to boost, but he told me that performance outweighs experience hands down. So... I got a lot of work to do. My target is to be able to make 2-digit percentage returns per annum even with 6-digit sums. That's my current short-term goal.

Anyway since I was at his office at Centennial Tower, took some pix of the nice fountain wall behind Millenia Tower.

Pan Pac in the background.

As I went for the appointment, Jie took leave and went to pick up her 3rd uncle and aunt herself. After that, was a very overtly 客气 meet the family session over at Bishan, as my parents went over to say hi. Small talk ruled the day, as everyone exchanged words to know each other better.

Following day, we all headed for a shopping spree cos of the following reasons:

1. GST is increasing in a few days
2. Friday and Saturday are bad days to shop, and there's hardly any crowd on Thursdays.

Us, very seriously enquiring on the exorbitant prices of Purple Gold.
I'm quite convinced it's a novelty that will go off in time, but the elders think otherwise.

Us acting silly in the shoe dept of Takashimaya S.C.
Me, Tingfang, Zefang, and Jiefang
I had no idea she was making that face until I uploaded the fotos.

Aft I sent the elders home, the 3 sisters went to Far East and got some clothes, and a bag from my father's old friend's shop. He gave a whopping HALF PRICE for the bag.... lol. But it's kinda funny cos most prob his stuff is from China. But considering it's impossible to shop every inch of China even if it's your home, it kinda makes sense.

Friday was a day off, and I attended to my admin stuff, with appointments and all.

Saturday morning was a trip to Botanic Gardens.

We arrived at the visitor centre at 8, and we walked around the place until 1230, when (once again) I brought the elders home and they scurried off to more shopping. lol. Anyway didn't complain as I was busy too. Busy with heartache.

Sidetrack------

well the night before (friday) I got a call from Jie at 10-ish to tell me that she just got home (from her boss's Bday dinner) and the 2 sisters spoilt my comp.

To illustrate the gravity of the situation:
My comp is a 5 inch touchscreen Sony Vaio U71P, just imported from Canada 2 weeks ago. It looks exactly the same as my old U50 from Japan, except the specs are better. Pentium M 1.1ghz with 1mb l2 cache instead of Celeron M 900mhz with 256kb L2 cache. The ram is 512 instead of 256. The hdd is 30gb instead of 20gb. The screen is SCRATCHLESS unlike the old one which has been scratched quite badly due to writing on screen (i use it to take notes in sch).

What happened was they didn't know how to turn it off, and not wanting to waste electricity, simply pulled out the plug. (heart screams) After sending the elders home on Sat, I rushed home to take everything apart with tools to test - result is, motherboard is blown, and processor is WELDED into the motherboard and cannot be transplanted. Screen is also blown by the electrical surge. Things I salvaged and put into my old U50: the 512mb ram. And I'm supposed to feel better already, I'm still trying pretty hard.

And I cannot show my pain in front of them, as the 2 sisters already kena scolding very bad with me saying it's alright. Of course I'm not worried about whether Clarisse will compensate me, of course she will want to, but the problem lies with the availability of avenues of compensation - this thing was produced in 2003-2004, and is no longer available, new or used. I was lucky to find one 2 weeks ago, and item was in good con cos it was used as a GPS station in a car. He changed cars, into one with an internal GPS, thus this is sold halfway across the world to me.

Closing words of advice: Do not pull plugs out straight away, especially if your comp is a laptop, and the plug is linked to lots of other devices. Our list was: printer, 3-piece speakers, 2x phone chargers, 2x camera chargers. When the main plug was pulled out, an electrical surge was created which blew the laptop. Same effect as lightning strikes in older days - now buildings are equipped with surge protectors, so lightning is no longer a problem.

Yup, they don't have computers at home. Which might appear shocking. But it's a matter of choice cos Clarisse's dad is a multi-millionaire, but he chooses to live like a pauper and doesn't buy luxury goods either for himself or his children, so that almost all his money is spent on education and loans to friends and family in need. I respect him for that - a life of conscious choice.

------un-sidetrack

Ok, get ready for a burst of colours with the pics I took on the trip. Most I won't name cos there are way too many names to remember.. It's like studying if I try to remember those names, like dendrobium follifile, ibetus youcannotremembermynamus, etc.etc.

Here goes.

Heliconia walk. A whole stretch of Heliconia bushes.

The Heliconia flower.

Nice palm-family tree, rising above the canopy.

Lotus Pond

Ducky family

Nice pic of a single ducky

The lotus flower: 出污泥而不染

It's damn blardy difficult to catch a pic of a butterfly. The above shot was taken with 3x optical zoom (maxed) and me stretching into the bushes like some wierd yoga position. And it still came out blur, after having to wait like 3 min or so for it to stop flying and rest. Oh yes, I also followed like about 50 meters from where I first spotted it. -_-|||

A totally *bleah* flower. Forgot the name.

This one is named after Kofi Annan, ex-UN Secretary

Quite frequently, new hybrids are discovered at the NOG. When VIPs pay a visit, these new species are named after them. There are many named after prominent politicians from all over the world, and also after royalties such as the Princess of Jordan, or the Crown Prince of Japan, just to name a few.

The 3 sisters.

Zefang on left who's just finished high school exams, and gotten entry to 北京示范大学, the top school for traditional Chinese instruments. She's professionally learning the 中阮, I'm quite sure the 2nd word is wrong, but it's that pronunciation.

Tingfang, or tingting as we all call her in the middle. Panicking right now cos she just finished Junior high exams and is waiting for results to be released like tomorrow (Tuesday). She just finished her exams in the morning that she flew over... lol.

The really interesting thing is that 3 sisters have 3 different Chinese slangs. Tingting has a Taiwanese slang cos she watch way too many Taiwanese dramas. Zefang has a Beijing slang with lots of curled tongues cos she's been there for 8 years. Clarisse has the slang of her hometown, cos somehow she's been here for 9 years and hasn't turned Singlish. Xiaoyu her bestie is from the same hometown, but her lingo has been qutie severely Singaporeanised.

Jie at a waterfall

Tingting with a flower in her ear. ^_^
She's a little tall at 166, but her age gives her the permission to act cute.

Flight of Swans in the middle of Swan Lake. The really wierd thing is we only saw 2 pathetic swans in the lake; I remember the place used to have a huge flock of swans - but that was when I was 9 years old on a school excursion. a whopping 14 years ago, that's how long I've not been in the park.

Except in December last year, when me and Mr. Jeffrey and Dikun walked thru the park after dinner, in the dark, scaring couples making out. Didn't see much either as it was really dark.

The whole bunch of us in Heliconia Walk.
Leftmost is mum.
Rightmost is 3rd uncle and aunt.

Whole bunch of us at entrance of NOG (National Orchid Garden)

That night, my parents gave everyone a treat at Tung Lok Seafood restaurant. I've been influencing my parents over the past year to have a different view of the word "class", forcing them to realise that really nice food in a lok kok setting is really not very classy. So yup the result is Tung Lok. I wanted to give the treat, but my parents insisted they did.

The whole bunch of us at Tung Lok East Coast.

The 3 sisters

The 3 ...erm... octopuses.

Sunday (yesterday), we took a 2-day Singapore Sightseeing Pass, with 6 different sightseeing points. We went for 3 yesterday, so 3 more today. About to set off now. I'll blog about it maybe after everything, maybe next week cos I'm damn friggin tired everyday... -_- zZZ