Koreanmuzter's Zone: December 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

P.R.O.F.E.S.S.I.O.N.A.L

A little bit of sharing from a short talk by NOESIS last Saturday at UMAC-NOESIS Intervaristy Investment Challenge 2011.

[14/12/2011] Dean's List Award Ceremony

How to express my feeling? Felt blessed. Felt thankful. Felt proud of myself. After all the hard work and frustration, I know that they had been paid off. I'm not the smartest person and I don't mind not being one. I don't know about others but I'm glad that I got what I got today with my determination and hard work.

Most probably my last time attending this event in school.

Life as a student for me is not an easy one. As most of you may know, I am involved actively in extra-curricular activities. It's not easy to juggle between studies and AIESEC last year. I had heavier class schedule compared to my peers (after delaying one semester for exchange program). I would woke up early in the morning for classes, sometimes alone in juniors classes. The rest of the days, I'll spend my time working on AIESEC stuff (I was the head of Finance team and also supervisor for the annual dinner of the year). I don't usually go back to my room until at night. I wouldn't say I did it in time management. In fact, my grades dropped tremendously that I wasn't qualified to be in the Dean's list. My poorest grades were for the subjects that deemed easy for others. Honestly, I was humiliated.

Receiving the award from faculty's Dean.

With the Dean.

But I still felt thankful cause I was happy in doing what I want. If I were to be given another chance, I'll still choose a hectic schedule like this; studying what I want to learn and doing activities that interest me. My grades dropped but my learning point was at the peak last semester. Worth it =)

My coursemates who attended on that day. Congratulations to all.

Lastly, I would like to stress out a point; university life is not all about study. It is about learning/doing what you like and interest you the most. 3-4 years is not a short one, neither a long one either. Have a fulfilling journey as a student. You'll miss it soon enough.

With Daniel, top scorers for Economics who is currently working in Ministry of Home Affairs.

Hope this short post will inspires others especially my dearest juniors.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

[10/12/2011] UMAC-NOESIS Intervarsity Investment Challenge 2011

"Where Everyday Is An Investment"

The organising committee always emphasize the above statement. True enough, investment is something you do everytime, from deciding what to eat, which pair of shoes to buy or even which job you want to land on. Investment is about how you use your resources to get benefit in a period of time. More complicated investments would be involving stocks, properties, commodities and FOREX. These are the things I have limited knowledge about but would like to explore further in the future.

So when a friend of mine from UM, Yahya invited me to join him in IVIC organised by UMAC, I agreed. After all, this is one of the few things I can do while I'm still a student. The event was well organized. Kudos to the OCs of IVIC.

Basically the event involves the participants to play the role as a fund manager in our own investment company to invest in stock, currency, commodities and real property market with a capital given of IVD3 million. The whole challenge were divided into 2 stage (Stage 1-4 rounds and Stage 2- 3 rounds) with each round (30 minutes) equals to 1 financial year. Newspapers will be provided in beginning of each round and news broadcasts will be screen sometimes. Market price will change every half of financial year, therefore every transactions have to be made in 15 minutes before situation changes.

Every seconds can change every decisions you made.

I didn't really know about investment so most decision making were made by my other team members. I were more involved in preparing cheque book and updating our bank book. Nevertheless, I experienced what the usual investors experience-ganjeong-ness. For example, there was the time when we decided to focus on China properties, by buying 2 properties in China, when a news broadcast on China disastrous earthquake as when I was preparing a cheque for the transaction. It was like a horror to all investors in the hall, like this:

Photo credit to IVIC fanpage.

My team didn't win that day. Guess lady luck was not on our side. We focused on commodities (gold) but eventually they dropped in the last few crucial round.

A talk by NOESIS on Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) programme.

I did enjoyed very much on last Saturday. I'm glad I did not turn down Yahya's offer. I couldn't say I learned a lot from this event but it'll be a good start off from here. By the way, we didn't go home empty handedly. NOESIS provided us with a 40% scholarship for CFA/CIMA/CIM/CIPD course upon graduation. Thanks team The Intelligent Investors for the awesome time. =)

Team The Intelligent Investors

Me, Yahya and Garrick.

Another collection while I can being a student.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

It's Okay If You're Slow

이드라마가 끝날려면 아직 멀었어 그러니깐 빨리가지 않는다고 초초해 하지마

There's a long way to go before your story ends. So don't lose your patience because you weren't fast enough.

천천히 가면 빨리가는 사람보다 더 자세히 많은걸 볼수 있거든

If you go slower, then you can see more along the way.

둘중에 누가더 크게 성장할꺼라고 물으면 난. 천천히 많은걸 보는 사람이라고 생각한다.

If you ask me who will grow stronger, I think it's the one who took it slow. -Kang Oh Hyuk from Dream High.

Thanks Min Gi 오빠 for the translation!!!

Big Bad Wolf Warehouse Sale 2011

Remember Big Bad Wolf 2010 I excitedly talked about last year? Wolfie has returned this year on 7/10/2011 to 16/10/2011 at Malaysian Agro Exposition Park, Serdang. Being a book lover, how can I not miss this great opportunity to grab some cut-down priced books?

As this time I had allowances from my internship, I managed to spend more this year. I was not really happy of the venue in MAEPS as it was not a convenient to be reached with public transports. Taking a taxi from KTM Serdang to the venue which is not far away costs a whooping RM21!!! Nevertheless, MAEPS was a big venue that able to accommodate more books and people.

I went twice to the book sales itself; once with WK on 8/10/2011 where I heavily carried back 20 books (RM165) and second round trip with my brother and sister on 15/10/2011, resulting another 18 books (RM129). All books were priced from RM8.00 to RM20.00.

I read various genres of books; from fictions to biographies, cultures and self enrichments.

Books for my sister. I'm glad she enjoys reading as I do. But she prefers Chinese novels more. Recently she invested more than Rm100 for Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (crazy).

Comics were cheap; RM3 each but each series comes with only one or two volume so no point of buying. This one I bought got Volume 1-4 and it's Korean artwork so worth to get them.

Knowledge-based books.

Inspiring books (not the Dork diaries). So happy I get my hands on Mitch Albom's For One More Day (RM8) and Rhonda Byrne's Secret the Power (RM14 courtesy from Groupon).

Twilight series (RM8 each) and Shopaholic series (RM8 each)!!!

Big Bad Wolf came back for an Aftermath Sale on 24/11/2011 to 28/11/2011 at South City Plaza, Seri Kembangan where they offered books unsold or spoiled from Big Bad Wolf Sale earlier priced at RM5 and below! Result: I spent another RM47 for 11 books with my sister!

Third round in aftermath sale. RM5 for one book!

I guess I have to control myself from buying more books in a year time and finish up all the readings before the next Big Bad Wolf Sale! But if anyone of you still wishes to get some good books at really low price (not as low as RM8, but around RM20-ish), go to BookXcess located in Amcorp Mall. You'll get good bargains there. Happy reading, folks!

[25/11/2011] 2PM Hands Up Asia Tour In Malaysia 2011 (delayed)

[I'm back to blogging. Yes, I've taken a break from blogging because of work and I'm truly sorry if there's any readers here who are disappointed.미안 해요! I'll try to patch up the pieces I've missed here, so stay tuned!]

24/11/2011 was quiet an emotional night for me. I came back feeling pissed off and tired because of work, the rain and terrible bus ride. I was pissed that it affected my parents, so I got really good scolding that night.I have a very bad tamper at times so I ended up slamming the door and blasting my radio. I cried really hard that night and....well, the rest are history. And then, when I realised 2PM concert is the next day and I'm not going, which did nothing to help brighten up my mood. I did some research on the Facebook cause few netizens were selling out their tickets at cheaper rate. The reason I held back was because I wouldn't have anyone to accompany me to the concert. Oh well...

And then I saw a post in one of Facebook fanpage that there are last minute contest to win one VIP ticket to the show. Turns out that the person giving out the ticket was someone I already followed in twitter! I didn't put much hope on it but I did end up spamming his Twitter wall.

"I want to do to 2PM concert because..." spam on Andy's wall.

And guess what, I got the tickets! I was stunned for awhile cause I wasn't prepared to attend the concert and now I was informed I'll be attending a concert in less than 24 hours time!

2PM Hands Up Asia Tour 2011 poster

My ticket: RM 0.00 *grins*

The concert was awesome, though not as awesome as if Big Bang was here during Korean Music Wave 2011. I'm surprised that VIP seats are actually way behind in the stadium. Guess my expectations were set too high. But I'm very thankful to be able to attend this concert for free!

Check out the photos below. Mostly grabbed from lucky fans from the rock zone and credit as per stated =)