Chill, Don't Worry

Watch this, think back, ponder on the lyrics, and find meaning in all this.



Justin

How's everyone coping?

I guess one important thing is that everyone is busy with their own stuff, and being that we're being separate and in 3 different parts of the world, maybe we can just keep in touch? =)

Jia you ppl, it's not easy, but let's do it.

Justin

how we got together

was doing some photo editing stuff, and this photo caught my attention. this is how we got together. A group of accountancy students.

first we did marketing project as a team. probably our first major project in our university studies. did alot of discussion, coordination of workload, research, argument etc. disputes and disagreement here and there, but they never succeed in breaking us up. thanks to justin for his creativity in coming out with the group name: thinkbox. unfortunately he was in toilet when we decided to take a photo in a spur of the moment. we are having a board meeting as you can see :)

may's and yilun's head are so aligned, tilting to the right at about 20 degree. lydia and yinday are so bubbly, sticking out their two fingers towards my head. if you see carefully, you are able to see everyone's teeth except mine. why? coz i am special. haha! oh, another special feature of this photo is the reflection on the table. we shine so brightly that even table can reflect us.

i love this team. all the best in your life and studies guys and gals :)

Average Day

The highlight of the day was dinner with the NTU people. I was rather hoping to try something new, what with having eaten at Yoshinoya during lunch but ended up eating at an establishment run by a Singaporean named Lau Pa Sat that sold Singaporean food. Zero points for creativity and $7 for Bak Chor Mee. Not impressed. I mean, seriously, I did not travel almost the entire latitude of the northern hemisphere just to eat Singaporean food. Sheesh. Having Sze Chuan Ma La stuff may not have been very nice, but it was something new. Leave this " I miss home so much" stuff till later in the trip, when we have actually forgotten what it tastes like.

Anyway, it seems that none of us miss Singapore yet, especially Waisan, who just arrived yesterday. So lets just talk about my average day.

Attached are photos of my breakfast, workplace, and things I see on my way to work. The underground rooms for rent are an interesting cultural artifact. Apparently, when the students here graduate, they migrate to Beijing and other cities to look for jobs. Since they have almost no income, they are forced to rent beds in these underground rooms for 200 RMB per month until they are employed. Pretty tough lives, and hard to imagine from where we come from.

Parking here is also solved in very creative ways. Like the rest of the transport system here, there are no rules present to the casual observer. At first sight, you may see a car parked on a curb, but upon closer inspection, what you will see is that these are designated parking areas. The buildings were built long before anyone thought that there would be many cars in Beijing and no car parks were built, now, creative solutions have been found. Not very good for the cars but definitely a brilliant solution, given the overall costs.

Anyway, I also included pictures of my workspace and my breakfast, just to give you a better picture of my life here. A picture of us buying fruit is also included, the girl on the left is my roommate and both of them are really good at picking fruits. The rest of us usually tag along to carry the fruits back.

Guess that's all I can write about today, tomorrow we set Waisan up for Beijing, lets see if anything interesting comes up

Underground rooms for rent

Company Fruit Raiders

Breakfast

Creative Parking Solutions
My Workspace

Piling Things Up

Night out at Lush and other things

So I finally went for dinner with the Mexicans at Lush yesterday. It turned out to be a pub which is a gathering place for expats and there were a heck lot of them. They were having Quiz night which really let me feel just how varied the backgrounds of the people were. There really wasn't that many questions, and these were Trivia questions, that no one knew answers to and you had people helping the host with French pronunciation and the Spanish name of a Mexican guerrilla group. It was the first time I was in such a community and it made me think of team dynamics. Ok I guess I have been a little too obsessed with my work but it really let me see just why companies would want staff from many different countries. Speaking English again was a relief, I have been pretty worried that the standard of my English would deteriorate during my stay here but things are looking better as I am starting to gain a toehold in the expat community and I am able to travel far enough to meet the other NTU people.

I had a pretty interesting conversation with Tang Nan yesterday about the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, which sadly, would be an improbable destination during my stay here. Turns out that the japs gave the Chinese inferior steel for its construction, which would have led to disasterous results and blamed Chinese scientists for using poor methods to test the steel and refused to give refunds. She also spoke about the fact that every Chinese empire that got strong over the last 5k years engaged in expansionary policies and with all that the world has been doing to China, payback time would be long and busy.

Somehow, such talk awakened nationalistic feelings within me that I never felt for Singapore. To be totally honest, my stay here has pretty much erased Singapore from my map and I feel more Chinese than Singaporean. It really makes me feel that Singapore is so insignificant, no one would miss it if it were gone. And it's true, think about what MNCs would do during the next few years, no point staying in Singapore anymore, HK and Shanghai are much much better choices. Time to make plans to move if you want any future at all. Staying in Singapore will no longer give you better jobs and you already are second class citizens in Singapore. China makes a greater effort to treat its people better and will definitely treat its people better as it gets richer. Even physical security cannot be guaranteed as well in Singapore. I now understand why Singapore feels insecure and drafts its people but lets put it this way, it's futile. The way Singapore talks about our neughbours make them seem like threats but China basically think of them as tiny annoying bugs waiting to be squashed.

There seems to be only one reasonable option. To run.

Mexican Ordeal

Now that I am awake and done stoning, let me tell you guys what happened last night that got me this tired. I went to get my temporary residential permit done in the police station yesterday, where I met two Mexican girls, one of whom had lost her ticket. Since they were right in front of me in the queue and trying to speak Spanish to the policeman, I asked if they spoke in English and managed to help them translate their case so that they could be understood.

What happened next started the little treasure hunt that brought us across the whole of Chaoyang( A district in Beijing I suspect is larger than sg). You see, police stations only care about their own precinct and we were in the wrong precinct. Luckily for the them, I had just found out about it the hard way when I went to the wrong precinct, less than a kilometer away, to get my permit done so I directed them to it and asked them to call me to let me explain it to the police officer there.

That is when I found out about another annoying law, that is that losing something and having it stolen are completely different. I was previously unaware of it and gave an account that made it sound like it was lost, resulting in a very pissed off policeman who made the girls wait until I went down to the station after work, where I had to explain things to them again. It took some time before he finally lost patience and directed us to yet another station, presumably the area HQ, to get their statements taken.

The people in this station were much much more cooperative, probably because they had enough of us hanging around after office hours. We managed to get their statements taken and got really really happy that it was about to be over. The ordeal started at 3 for them and it was nearly 7 by then, and they were really excited. Of course, things are never that simple. We had to go to yet another station, this time near SOHO, a 45 yuan taxi ride away.

We were lucky to have had dinner ( A very enjoyable one with my roommate, but that's another story for another day) before we left for SOHO as by the time we were done it was 10. 7 Hours and 4 police stations just to get a note to say that the tickets were stolen. Now you know why I'm tired?

Anyway, it wasn't all bad. It had been some time since I had seen nice towering office buildings and SOHO was beautiful. I took some pictures with the Mexicans and I'll try post them up once I get them. It was really nice to finally meet people from South America too, especially in a place like Beijing, speaking in English was a refreshing change as well.

Anyway, sorry for the rather rambling post, its what happens when you spend too much time just hanging around.

Yilun in Beijing (8th July 2007)

House Drawn Carriage

Kickass building

Road Junction

Apartment Lobby

Bangkok Airport

Company Fruit Supplier

Cool sign

Anyway, as you guys can see, I got the bluetooth thingy today. You can now see the kind of condition I have been living in for the past week. I also went to get a book today. Prices here are about the same as those in singapore and the selection is puny. Nevertheless, I got a book that I think covers the bases of buying stocks pretty well that will allow a more systematic approach to such activities.

A highlight today was getting to meet Tang Nan's ( My flatmate) friends from this scholarship program she's in. Basically, I got to meet Phd Candidates from Tsinghua and a bunch of eople doing their postgrad studies. It was really nice to meet these people and I was really lucky to do so as there is little chance other than this to meet people like them as our worlds are totally different.

Anyway, a week here has been enough for me to understand the importance of cutting pollution. Beijing would be a great place if not for the pollution. The air is so dirty it feels bad just tobe here. Never before have I felt the effects of pollution in such a great scale. If we continue to neglect our environment, we would really have very little to live for. Only today did I feel the full impact of what Jeffery Sachs said during the BBC Reith lecture, if we don't take care of the environment, we have very little to live for. The pollution has made this otherwise very nice city inhabitable. We must do all we can to clean this up and keep other parts of the world clean. The rains swept the dirt in the air away when I came back, I never appreciated breathing fresh air more in my life.

Yilun in Beijing (7th July 2007)

Busy day today. Went to get my ATM card done and went to quanjude to get ripped off having beijing duck. Most eventful thing has to have been getting around all by myself all the way to tiananmen square today. Honestly, the place looks pretty grand from the outside although I had no time to take a look in it or the forbidden city. Hopefully, I'll be able to go in there soon.

Anyway, people in Siemens are at least as warm as those in EY. I took the company bus to hepingmen for the duck and was, as expected, pretty lost. I had little choice but to have to ask my colleagues on the bus, none of whom i had met before. Of the three people I asked, two gave me more detailed instructions than what I asked for or dared expect and one even gave me her namecard. It feels good to know that there are such helpful people when you are travelling alone in places you have never even seen before.

Quanjude sucked. Their Peking ducks were force fed and oilier than Exxon Mobil. turns out their core competence was force feeding instead of duck, they served all 12 dishes in an hour and expected us to pay 4700 rmb for thirteen people. SO not going there again.

Going there did let me travel half of Beijing alone on public transport. My familiarity of the place is growing by the day. Taking the train really lets you cut through Beijing really quickly. Travelling here certainly doesn't make you feel like the place is 20 times the size of Singapore. Makes me wonder why Singapore has been unable to control its traffic situation when a city with as many cars as Beijing can.

Talking about Singapore, I think that Singaporeans are way too arrogant and controlled by the pap. They are NOT doing a good job. Taking the train today, I saw a woman who collected plastic bottles. Guess what, she could afford to take the train home. Not possible in Singapore. In fact, there are much fewer people collecting cans and bottles here than in Singapore. At least the Communist Party ensures that its citizens do not starve. It also manages to keep prices low for the people. And did I mention that even at 0.40 rmb I don't have to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus? I am usually lucky if I wait only 10 minutes for a bus in Singapore.

The only bad thing is the pollution. Its impossible to live a healthy life here. Haven't even been able to find a gym either. Definitely not a place I would want to settle down in but still a heck of a place to be. Just wish Sandy was here.

Sent Yi Lun off to Beijing

Sent Yi Lun off to Beijing. Going there for Global Immersion Programme (GIP). There goes our MENSA member, now our average IQ as a group has dropped tremendously.. hee..


The earliest couple to reach Changi


The other couple...


The 3rd couple..


The 4th :)


Eat! Go Beijing cannot eat liao!


Oi! why steal my food! nvm la.. your last chance maybe.. to eat carrot cake.. :)


The sexy Lydia hee hee


Group Photo!!


Wanna see the whole album? It's here

Coca Cola - The Coke Side of Music

This video is funny :)

If i have the coke i will drink it with Beckham.. Haha!

ThinkBox Outing to Cafe Cartel @ Raffles City

We had dinner together at Cafe Cartel @ Raffles City!

Had a little miscommunication, Yinday, Lydia, Chi and I met up at City Hall MRT and we headed to the Cafe Cartel @ Raffles City. Yes, we assumed that this is the Cafe Cartel Yi Lun was referring to since its the closest to the MRT :) We queued up and got the seats, then we realized that Yi Lun was actually referring to the Cafe Cartel @ Marina Square.. Dum Dum (if you watched Night at the Museum).. Poor May gotta drag her feet from MS to Raffles City.. haha

Here's some photos:


Lydia's miserable portion of food... NEVER order grilled chicken ya..


from left: COO, CEO, CFO


The four Muskete...e..r... eh... The four princesses (gals...) ...


Ribs!!


Pork Chop!!


Yinday got the most coverage, since she might need to take UFO out of the world again soon hee..


Eyeing me since the start of dinner.. Blame on my delicious-ness..


So Sweeeeeeet!!


GOOD!! ya right...



Yin Day is so fortunate to have two lesbians by her sides


Seems like Lydia is quite unpopular.. haha!

OK! That's all folks, stay tuned for the next outing :)

Tokash

Discoveries

I think this is my only blog post here so far. I know its weird, I rather enjoy emailing you guys but I almost forget that this blog existed until May asked me to write. Anyway, I've been making pretty interesting discoveries these few days.

Other than discovering that we are pushed less hard in EY compared to everywhere else, I have discovered the joys of facebooking and the reality of consulting. (What I have seen of) consulting rocks and Thinkboxers will all be able to do a really good job at it. Its basically glorified report writing and presentations, just like in class. Of course, the knowledge needed really seperates the great from the good and this is why MBAs are so important for the top firms.

Meanwhile, I have been dreaming of my grades again, those in my dream this time were much better than what I dreamt last sem so I hope that this also means I'll get a better grade this sem.

I know what I have written is boring but as a reward for those who have put up wirth me for so long I shall now reveal a kickass site for those who want to work in the finance industry, accounting included. Glocap.com has a list of really good jobs for the industry that you cannot find anywhere else, provided you are willing to travel of course.

The meet up!

Hihi everybody!!

Yesterday was a great meet up. Too bad yadniy* and Justin wasn't there!!

Settler's was..... intellectually stimulating.. And we found out that being Mensa isn't so great either - cos YiLun sucks at eye-hand coordination. (Hehe, joke joke)

Oh and KS is the greatest Mr X of all, because he was helping us nab him when the 5 other stupid fools were thinking of what transport to take.

Lastly, bee and I were the black horses!!! We actually won in this similartoCluedo game!! Even though all we do is.... go to the same rooms to steal cards from others and never got into the holy room where Chi was permanently residing in.

Hehe.. Oh and to top it all off, we went to a Thai place with odd atmosphere and drank red wine with peanuts. All agreed that it was truly weird because apart from us, there was only 2 other caucasian women.

The aftermath was a sick-looking Mr Lunny, and happy souls. =)
Great day everyone!

P.S The awesome photo is a treat for all of you. The 2 immensely gorgeous and smart women of Thinkboxers, looking..... sllliggghtlllly... in..to..xi..ca..ted.... HEHE. OKOK, I am of cos kidding.

Good day everyone!

C'mon Toshi

LETS HAVE OUTING SOON!

Haha hello thinkboxers! everybody's so busy! Haha. Its almost midnight now. Finally i get to use my laptop for some other purpose other than documenting system notes for the company cactus! haha. finally, i dont have to use word. TIRED is the word! but since tmr's sat and my band prac is only at 2pm, i get to sleep till noon, and i can't tell you how much i appreciate that after one well and erm, insufficient rest and blisters on my feets thanks to the heels i wear to work everyday. Haha.

We should yes, meet up soon! but weekend please. Maybe saturdays. after my band... it ends at 5pm... or anything! haha. but not next week cause i'm gonna be in tuas! and i totally do not know the schedule! haha.

My mentor is going to test me on cash flows! how! haha. I totally suck at that. he says no point just learning how to document system notes while being attached to him these two weeks, so he says he'll teach me something useful... Cash flows. gonna give me some real life example next week! Oh and he says, FRS is gonna have to be our favourite book to read if we're gonna work as accountants or auditors or whatever. haha.

Yeah! We should go play some games at settlers to relax. working too much is doing no good to the mind and the body. Haha. See you peeps soon!

And since Yilun is having such a good time at EY, he shall take up the task of organising! (:

Sneezing Panda

multiplication for dummies

Pick this up ya accountants, will come in handy when your calculators fail you.

got this from Miss Lai.

Learn this and i will test you when school reopens!!

The holidays

Hey people!~ Hope everyone's doing fine. Seems like only me didnt get the internship! =X

And I just typed out a post.. But some trojan horse hijacked my com and my browser was shut down. Damn.

Haha.. Anyway jiayou ppl for those who have internships! I'm gonna look for jobs at Adecco on Monday..

I've been lazing around, watching korean dramas and meeting up my friends. Life is pure bliss until I take a look at my wallet and dwindling bank account. =p

Take care everyone~

Outing after Finance 30th April 07

Went to eat korean food and play pool at Meridien.

Are we fishing or what? And yi lun's grabbing his stick firmly.. can hit justin anytime.. anyway who take this photo? think the photographer is more interested in the bra at the background.
Full concentration..
My pose seems weird..
The anyhow-whacker
Great day! think there are more photos we took that day right??

This is so hilarious!! check it out! learn from it next time you do not know how to answer a question in exam :)

courtesy of Estee, this is taken from her blog, but i'm not sure where is the exact source, don't think its copyrighted right? :)

Saw this at a blog, and its really cute :) think lydia will like this haha!

kaisheng

Hello thinkboxers! Here are the photos! haha! Not alot. We totally forgot to take photos of the food!!! Oh no. So only have those when we finished eating. haha.

can see the waiter behind kaisheng?? Haha, the one who gave us nerves. BAH!

Machine which was not working.... -.-"

i swear when we were taking this photo the waiter was smiling at KS! haha

justin's banana split with a spoilt cherry.

KS's ribs. Half slab. He claimed he was not full after it.

And Lydia's burger. and photo salad with she couldn't finish and wanted to ta pao...

Hey this cookies and cream shake is really good. But you know, dont drink it alone. you wont be able to finish it. Plus its pretty sweet. haha.

Look at justin's weird hair. If i was him i would have insisted the stupid hairdresser call up the manager and refuse to pay him until he apologises.

So yes, that's all for dinner at Billy's. Haha. KS's and my first time eating there. Not bad. Haha. Actually I think the waiter's a nice guy! Haha. Happy Birthday to YINDAY if you see this. Haha! Too bad Yilun couldn't make it, having tuition and all. Next time next time. Like 30th April 11am YES! It'll all be over soon. Even though I can't help thinking I screwed up my stupid tort question! It was so easy! There was just alot to write. OH NO! I gave away my precious marks just like that! BAH!