Sleepless Bus Journey

I used to feel proud of my ability to sleep for the whole bus journey from JB to A/S. It is a torture for some people who hardly sleep throughout the 10-12 hours bus journey from the south of Malaysia to the North of Malaysia. Having to stay in a space of less than 1m3, with limited leg space, sometimes bumpy bus is someone who stay and work far away from home need to experience. Some people that i know would try to cut down the frequency of going back home so as to avoid the needs of traveling long hour by bus.But this is not a fear factor for me and i have been traveling back home once a month for the past 11mths since i started working.

To add on to the suffering journey is the need to travel from Spore to Johor. Though it is only seperated by a bridge with Spore & Msia customs each at both end,you hardly imagine the time you need to spend to cross the bridge when there is a traffic jam. And it is very common, for you to spend one hour for the journey that only seperated <2km away. Time spend including the bus waiting time (unimaginable long queue), custom clearance (another unimaginable long queue) + 10min from JB custom to the larkin bus station.(a bus terminal for long and short journey bus). Everytime, whenever i reach the Larkin terminal, i will be drench wet because of sweating( not kidding..)

You might be wondering why i still prefer to travel back to my hometown from Johor instead of the hassel free journey by boarding the bus from spore?? One ( and used to be the major)factor is because of the cost of traveling back from Johor is much cheaper ( as of now traveling back from Johor cost me RM60 while traveling back from Spore will cost me SGD54). Going back frm Spore cost more than twice more expensive. The 2nd factor is that it motivate me to work harder, earn more money so that i can escape from this ran race society. I wonder how many of you ever think of the following:
1) How many hours have been wasted by all M'sian who travel through n forth between JB and Spore?----Everyday, there are more than 40,000 msian workers travel from JB to Spore. Considering each worker spend (2hr+2hr) through & forth, 40,000* 4hrs = 160,000hrs. (actual case the total would be much higher)
Do you know 160,000 hrs is equivalent to 18.3yrs? How many 18yrs do you have in your life??
I think now you know why i said it motivates me to work harder. It is because of the feeling: 1)I feel that im very lucky for not facing this trouble and 2) Everytime, i feel pity for those having to travel 4 hrs to work and feel angry at those who make this happen..both msia & spore goverment....no matter what is the reasons behind this heavy jam ( be it political or economic concern )both should look into solutions to expand or rebuild the super old bridge which is also a symbolic of the tie between the two countries. I do not know when can this happen, but i hope it can be in the shortest time possible. These 2 reasons push me and give me energy to achieve greater height in my life.

Now i realise that im out of topic...but im not as the moment i wrote about traveling frm spore to JB to board the bus...the fire burns in my heart....i think that's how i train emotion control capability ....no pain no gain .

I guess i will post another tread as i forsee it will be another long post in order to summarise what i had gone through in my mind while traveling back home last week.......

Another Lonely Weekend ---Hoya its' pondering time !!

Why i felt so lonely these day ? Is it one of the characteristic of Aries with the personality of Popular Sanguine and Powerful Choleric? May be these days,there are not much "fresh" things for me, as usual routine work, liasing with vendors to expedite the delivery of our packages, chased for documentation from our suppliers, updating equipment list bla bla bla....sound boring isnt it ? But this is the phase one need to go through at the end of the engineering phase waiting for the vessel to sail off and hopefully by then will receive my project completion bonus as a token of appreciation from the management to all the employees who stay loyal until the ship sail off.......this is my 1st ponder.

At this time round it is also the most critical time for all employees as it decides who will stay and who has to leave the company. Not not for me, the "little prawn" who just learned to swim in the ocean of the working world. But it worth to stop & think about the criterias that the management value most to determine who stay & who not staying. --------This is my 2nd ponder.

This is a cruel world,those who are chosen to stay will start thinking of negotiating for better salary/remuneration package while those who have to go will need to hunt for job. So, this is the most unstable stage in a company ( i think i need to explain that there are a few project phases namely : Conceptual > Bidding > Engineering > Construction > Commissioning > Production) ...u get to see new employees joining the construction team or commissioning team everyday...where it also means that someone from engineering department need to be relocated if there is a suitable position in the company else good luck to him.

So you get to see employees talking to phone during office hour apprently it is not about work as they tend to walk out of the office for phone call or will close their office door ( for those higher rank one )while talking to phone...i need to say that the higher rank you the more dangerous you will be at the end of the project. This has been the topic for us during our lunch time for the past 2 months and i believe this will still be the main topic for the coming few months. Peoples are trying to look around for job opportunity since company couldnt confirm whether they are going to stay or leave....so human nature to look for safety place to park themselves b4 it is too late start to take control. Why the management allow this unstable to happen ? How to avoid this unstable from happening ? (The ans lies on the number of new projects we will secure in the coming few months...but one thing to stress is that there is no need to have so many employees at the beginning of the project. It is only in the later stage where more people are required.) So, how to keep the people at this point of time ? -------This is my 3rd ponder.

My next concern is what next after this project ? -----My 4th ponder.
I will be meeting with the HR on coming Monday morning to discuss about the training program that im currently enrol. But sad to say,i know that nothing is laid out in the company plan yet at this moment. Seriously, i dont mind if they dont have any plan for me but provided im allow to choose for / decide what i want to do next. I have been thinking of this for some time. And now i think i know what i need so that after the training program (now is the 11th month of the 2 yrs program) i have equipped myself with sufficient knowledge + experiences to negotiate for better remuneration package/ career path for myself. It is related to my 1st ponder of how to increase my own value, it applies to my current company and also to other companies in the same field. For the past 11th months i have many chances working with engineers from various back ground ( (1)pure design type, (2)those with offshore or sailing experiences )and i discover that it is very important to have offshore / sailing experience ( experience to operate the equipment / systems of vessel ) for someone who will be doing design of the system and buying the packages on for the vessel. Now that i come to appreciate the experience of those who have sailing / offshore experiences as it comes in handy to decide / justify the quantity & type of equipments we are buying ( apart from fulfilling the international/ local regulation). When come across a problem, those who have working experience on board the vessel can imagine ( there is a clear picture of the location of the equipments, thus the estimated quantity, type of equipment etc) in a split of sec .But i didnt say that the 11th months working in office is a waste of time as i come to appreciate the need of working offshore/ on board the vessel after i gone through the engineering drawing which sometime i really couldnt understand even after a few attempts. But from the drawings and specification i learn to what to pay attention to when dealing with certain equipments. So i believe i can quickly recall the drawings that i have seen before next time when i come across it onboard the vessel. It is like going through the questions 1st b4 reading the long comprehension.
But will i have the chance to go offshore ? What am i going to do next ? All will come to know after Monday discussion with the HR in-charged. The discussion is just the beginning , there are still long long way to go ...but atleast i take the 1st step to approach the HR..Cheers n i will need to start planing for meeting on Monday morning..LOL!! Finally something fresh come to my mind ya...by the way tomorrow still will go to company to settle some stuffs as i promissed to send to my lead on Monday...Bo pian , sendiri cari punya pasal. LOL!!

WhAt Am I DoInG aT tHiS TiMe StIlL HaVeN Go 2 BeD??

Woke up 2 hours ago n now still couldnt feel the need to go to bed...mati liao la tomorrow need to go to work le....Hopefully by writing donw something boring then it makes me easy to go to bed...haha sorry to those who read my blog ya..

I felt so lonely, so "free" this weekend....though i am down with flu since thursday, i insist to go to work n go out to hang around during weekend & now i am still struggling with my running nose. Sight! This is the ending of
" Bu ting quen gao de hai zi" means someone that never listen to advice to rest when feel unhealthy...

But i am who i am.

Hm..Sat, i spent whole day with peipei hanging around in friends' house n her sister's house...Nothing to do, so after lunch at 130pm at Kou Fu foodcourt, we went to Giant n then JP to shop..at the same time to digest the food that we had....we were so full. To me the GSS ( Great Singapore Sales ) is not something attractive as i dont shop ....or i only shop when i have in my mind what to buy..typical men habit...Oya indeed i went shopping is partially because i like to observe human behavior..Opps dont think "yang bukan bukan"...really i am interested to watch how people communicate with each other be it with their friends, bf or gf, how parents treat their chil n in return how their chil treat their parents...you can see them all in a shopping center.

So hang around the shops hanging , 50%, 40% ,30% discount (min 2 pieces), the word min 2 pieces usually will be written 10 times smaller than the Discount...u wont notice until u get close enough to the tag...This is what i hate most !!

Hm,the num of peo flocking to JP is just like normal...Amazing we spent about 3 hours in JP n headed to B. Batok to Pei's sister house. The time we reach B Batok, it was already 5pm. So, hanging in Pei's sister house for about 45 mins we then went to had our "dinner" ...haha early dinner bcause at 7pm Pei's sis going to fly to Aus for vacation...but i know it will not be the only " dinner " i will have on that day...After the "dinner" we visited Min Chunn & Sze Wei's house also at B Batok....their apartment seems ok la...acceptable condition ...

ayo feel sleep liao...so i think i achieve what i want lo...feel sleepy finally..so 88 ...haha dont want to write down all the slack things that happen this weekend

Check out my Slide Show!

IT IS ALL ABOUT INVESTMENT----SUBPRIME REVISITED

I have just found out this article from the website that i myself also forgot when i eventually subscribed to it.....anyway, it is a free subscribtion but you must be able to judge (own time own target own believe) the information that you received ...anyway i think that this article is worth sharing and to give a thought whether you are a keen investor or beginner like me or just want to keep abreast with world economy....so go throught the article and think of it my friends.

Before you start reading, may be you want to know about the Editor profile, you can find it from the link below:
http://tycoonreport.tycoonresearch.com/about_editor/teeka

Teeka Tiwari
Sub Prime Revisited
Editor's Note: Teeka is in sunny South Florida preparing for his first Live Seminar that takes place this weekend. I found the below article that he wrote back in February of 2007 warning about the impending sub-prime melt down, and thought I'd share it with you today.

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Very interesting news today coming out of HSBC! They announced that their sub-prime credit mortgage portfolio is vastly underperforming expectations. (Sub-Prime borrowers are borrowers who have either impaired or less than stellar credit ratings.) In fact, their non-performing sub-prime loans ballooned an additional 20% above expectations from $8.8 Billion to $10.56 Billion. That’s BILLION with a capital B!

The horrendous thing about all this is that the brainiacs at HSBC have expressed genuine surprise about the rate of deterioration of their sub-prime mortgage portfolio. Had they read The Tycoon Report, it wouldn’t have been a surprise. Dylan Jovine laid out in crystal clear detail last year exactly what we are seeing today, and he did it just weeks before the real estate market started to show visible signs of cracking.

What they also would have read is that all we are seeing now is the other side of the cycle. Real estate lending follows a highly predictable boom and bust cycle.

Let me explain. The beginning of the real estate bull market cycle is the lowest risk time in which to lend money to sub-prime buyers. This is because in a rising real estate market, buyers that get into financial difficulties can simply refinance at a higher valuation on their homes or simply sell their homes, usually for more than the mortgage amount owed.

This is the time in the cycle when the smartest operators will loosen their credit standards dramatically because this is the only time in the cycle where this approach is a no-lose strategy for the above mentioned reasons.

Problems start occurring later in the cycle, when real estate exits its ascension phase, enters its flattening phase and then goes into its descent phase.

The pros in the space, by this time, will have long sold off the sub-prime portion of their credit portfolio while at the same time will have dramatically tightened their lending standards. The Munsons in the space, faced with a declining credit portfolio and declining earnings, begin to loosen their standards even more to try to recoup the lost income from the non-performing section of their loan portfolios. In essence, they “Double Down” at the EXACT WRONG TIME IN THE CYCLE!

They pile on more and more risk in the hope of a real estate turnaround or, more likely, in the hope of being able to securitize the loans and dump them in the mortgage-backed securities market.

We are clearly now entering the descent portion of the real estate cycle. This is the absolute worst time to have exposure to sub-prime mortgage loans. The reason is that, as a lender, you no longer have the principal protection that a rising market provides.

You now have to rely on the credit-worthiness of your borrowers (hey, they are called sub-prime for a reason!) Additionally, you have to rely on a strong economy to provide jobs for the people who borrowed money from you.

So, what happens when housing prices start going down and mortgage payments start going up?That’s the double whammy that mortgage lenders are faced with right now. Millions upon millions of sub-prime borrowers utilized adjustable rate mortgages.

Now, that’s great when rates are going down, but when you have 17 straight rate hikes by the Fed, you feel that one right in the pocket!

Matched with the general credit shakiness of a sub-prime borrower, and you can see that we are setting up for a perfect storm of sub-prime credit defaults. If the US economy were to stumble here, and we were to experience even a mild recession, it could lay waste to the sub-prime mortgage lenders.

We are talking about losses that could run well into the hundreds of billions. Long story short, at the very least, you want to remove any stocks from your portfolio that have substantial sub-prime mortgage exposure. This is an excellent area to look at for shorting opportunities, and I urge you to take a look at this group.

Whenever I go long a group, I’m looking for a sector that is either currently or about to embark upon a period of sustained above average earnings growth. When I go short, the converse of that is true. I want to be short stocks in sectors where the earnings are peaking or have peaked and are about to enter a protracted period of earnings decline.

Perfect timing is a myth. I wish I possessed perfect timing, but I don’t. What I do possess is a strong understanding of the effects of long-term macro business, political and economic trends. When you have a macro trend at your back, it’s not a question of IF you will make money, it’s purely a question of WHEN.

Short of a sudden and dramatic series of interest rate cuts or a new leg of outstanding US economic growth, the sub-prime mortgage market is a dead man walking.

Teeka TiwariChief
Investment OfficerPoint & Profit

Visit the link below to read about the acticle and any other articles.
http://tycoonreport.tycoonresearch.com/articles/605500613/sub-prime-revisited

"The day" can happen any time , any second...

Today 21 Apr 08, while it was indeed a normal day...as usual i went to work at 9am. Everything was the same, i would say good morning to our project secretart, the cleaner aunty and almost everyone that i met , making a cup of hot milo and start my work by checking emails for vendors' replies and new task from engineers whom im working with. Everything just like a normal Tuesday except to Liverpool fans & Chelsea fans it might be a long long day waiting for champions' league clash at 245am ( singapore time) early in wednesday morning...

Today, my boss was not around . He went to Batam on a business trip , and this is not something strange to me as my boss being a person who have to look after a few packages used to travel on business trips to US, Swizeland etc..So i do not have any strange feeling at all and i continue my work as usual. For the past 2 days i have got quite a lot of thing to do , as those packages that should have been cleared in early date all accumulate and need my urgent and immediate attention in order not to cause any impact to the schedule due to late delivery...i am fully concentrate on my clearing my work.

Somehow at about 1030am , i felt someone sitting at the table just behind me (normal office cubical arrangement, U shape cubical) , my boss seat. I found out that it was my Project Manager ( PM) , he was looking for some documents from my boss's desk. This is the 1st time my PM come and look for documents at my boss's desk, may be it is because my boss is not around ( as i said he went to batam) when my PM needs the documents. You might think that it is something normal...i did think so but until something really happen in the afternoon.
Everything still carryied on as per normal after the lunch hour. Around 4pm, when i was preparing the document to get my package lead engineer signature, a few colleagues was talking to each other at my back, i didnt smell anything wrong as it was just like normal discussion happening around the office. So , i went up to the other building and the time i came down, i met with our project secretary, her eyes was red and full of tears. Guest what, i got to know that my PM had just "resigned " !!! Someone who's responsible to look after the project across the Engineering , Construction and Commissioning departments, with over a few hundreds of engineers, technicians and others supporting officers under him had just "resigned" without any prior notice . A position which might take me more than 10 years to reach, can disappear within a day..what an unpredictable company...What was sacastic was that, we just had our project team building on last thursday night and our ex PM ( now) he gave a speech to everyone on that night at one of the restorant in Raffles city , addressing the progress of our project, thanks everyone for working hard for the project. But now, that seemed to be the last team building dinner with him.

When i returned back to the office, i saw people start talking about the sudden "resignation "of our PM...unbelieveble !!! No change to hand over...all at a sudden. But sincerely, though i was shocked by what had happened i do not have much impression about my PM. To me, the closest distance i ever have with my PM was during an informal talk where he will ask about my current situation and progress of learning in the company etc..I felt that it was a waste for me not having chance to learn from him as for me i wish to learn from everyone in my company, in all sort of expect. But i heard that my PM is a very detailed person, he is very sharp in figures and straight forward person. That was my only memory about my PM. I wish him good luck and thanks for all he did to me and i strongly believe that i will meet him again in this industry.