My widdle baby wabies...

Look what I spent the whole of today making!


Now see, I've never been very good with the presentation of my food. They taste fine though. Those nasty black patches aren't really black patches at all, but brown, nicely caramelised bits of my portuguese egg tarts. Again, my Blackberry makes my pictures look like a huge crow crapped on it. And I haven't any idea where my normal camera is.


I made apple crumble, as well as banana crumble. It's supposed to look golden brown, but for some reason (blame the moronic BB) it looks like I didn't give them a tan. When warm, these babies melt in your mouth! The crumble is light and flaky, the apple filling gives it a sweet/sour taste in your mouth (I used a mixture of Granny Smith and Fuji). The banana crumble was warm and soft, with just the right amount of cinnamon to give it a pleasing aftertaste. Couple it with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, and you have yourself a real treat.

Self cheering

Desmond says I'm self-cheering. I think I have such a weird sense of humour that I can actually tell jokes to make myself happy. So anyway, I was trying to entertain myself today by annoying the vulgar broker.

Me: Eh Natasha Low Pei Lin
VB: whos tt
Me: WAHAHAHAH I guess one.
Me: Natasha Low Mei Ping
VB: siao ar
Me: Mei Ling?
Me: Rumplestiltskin?
VB: u must be sarah chnag bi qi
VB: bi qi = bitch
Me: WAHAHAHAHA
VB: u muz have missed talkin to me like crazy
Me: Ha! Pls!
Me: Natasha Low Ai Que? (I should have spelt it Ai Kew)
VB: is natasha low fa ker
Me: Wahaha. Better!
Me: If only your surname Soh. Natasha Soh Chor Lor.
Me: Damn entertaining man, you.
VB: biqi
Me: I know you luff me!

I'm baaaack! Miss me?

So just the other day, I was having a conversation with the guy that works in the next building.



Life's less fun without Alley. Now it's just me and guy-that-works-in-the-next-building.

The end of the ordeal

Some of the changes in tax that didn't appear in the syllabus that I was studying for:

Corporate tax rate is now 18%
Partial exemption limithas been raised to 290k
CPF contribution is now pro rated
GST is prorated
Dividends are now exempt
Foreign income is now exempt
Personal tax rates have been revised
The topper: You can no longer choose which questions to do; you have to do all the questions in the paper!

Goodness knows what else has changed since 2005 (haha). I spent the last 25 mins going over my answers in pen because the invigilator said that the answers had to be in ink and I'd written in pencil! Complete waste of time!

I don't know why I put myself through this year after year, though admittedly studying for the thing is really quite fun! In any case, I'm glad it's over... Now I can go back to watching CSI without the guilt.

Supposed-to-be-studying-chronicles Part 3

I'm sitting here thinking how to fail my exam in the most glorious way.
Crash and burn, they call it. Perhaps I'll write something amusing to
entertain the person marking my question, and in the process salvage
some marks, and some dignity. I toyed with the idea of just writing one
line before walking out of the exam hall: "You guys should really get
those sticks out of your assess and start having a life". But I paid
money for this exam lah. I'm conservative like that. A bit of that
accountant streak got into me from all this studying.

I suspect that I put myself through this because I like the adrenalin
rush from going into an exam hall without being prepared at all. That
would also explain why it is that I study outdated syllabus, why I was
out playing the whole day when I should be mugging away, why I'm writing
this post when my paper is just 3 hours away, and why I watched CSI when
I was supposed to be on my one-week hiatus.

One of my more beneficial dreams

I had a rather vivid dream last night about market structure and the price of oil. Then I dreamt about my friend an oil trader running his own company who punted on the flat price which went up 300 bucks since he entered into position, and how the out of control crude might bankrupt him. (This is true by the way. I mean about him punting flat price, not him being bankrupt. Thankfully!) And a strangely firm resolve not to punt flat price unless I'm sure of its direction.

Yes, I've been on leave and I know crude's gone down. Dreams don't have logic.

Supposed-to-be-studying-chronicles Part 1

Staying home studying for the exams can be really really boring. Other than the very obvious lack of discipline on my part to just sit down and study, there's the little fact about my 30-minute attention span. I blame my father (he's like that too).

Nevertheless, I've managed to make some progress, so we'll just have to see how this goes. I think that at this stage in my career, the objective isn't really to get yet another degree or certification, but to learn, and admittedly, sitting down for hours upon hours studying this material is tough, but learning is its own reward. I'm not entirely confident that I'm learning the right stuff. My notes were from 2005 - That's 3 budget speeches ago, but hey. Doesn't matter. :)

Was just logging on to the office computer to do some work cuz I didn't feel like doing the next long question on individual taxation, and had a conversation with a friend that was quite hurting; somewhere near the opening act of our conversation he made a statement: you won't pass the exam. It was unprovoked and, I felt, completely uncalled for. He called it speaking the truth in love. My ass!

I've always told myself to watch my temper, and because of that, I tend to hold myself back a lot more than I do unleash my fury. I have always wanted my temper and its release to be a strategic thing, to get things accomplished, to bring a point across. Because what is the use of venting an anger if it accomplishes nothing but make meetings awkward and makes you unapprochable? So it might seem to some that I'm a pushover. And sometimes people do push boundaries, to see what it takes to incite a reaction.

Some wise person once told me that there exists people in this world whose hearts are seared. I didn't quite know what that meant but I imagine that it had to do with hearts being numb to the point of not being able to feel. In the context of our conversation, he was talking about those that lacked self awareness; who would God-speak yet whose lives are unchanged; who did not have the ability to look into their own lives and to see how God could work there as well. It is not for me to judge, but just to be aware, so that in wisdom I can protect myself.