a simple 2017!!!

Finance

• Repay Mortgage from savings. ( Savings are on track 🙂 )
• Go only for Bond discounted due to interest rate rising on SGS bonds or Dividend Stocks (non-reit) whose price dropped. (Yield still low, waiting for interest rate to raise)
• Save up for down-payment to replace car due Oct 2019 (need to build additional $10k/pa cash flow to afford a car) plough down on investments a better approach? COE price is still dropping.
• Get a Taxi Vocational driving license. Not too sure if being a taxi driver is suitable
• Leave home for work at 0640. started slacking after wedding dinner, getting lazy 😦
• Save up for Rolex Explorer I 🙂 too extravagant, the watch seems to big for my wrist. maybe i could carry a seiko better.

Health

• Swim once a week ( yes 😎 )
• Play Basketball or Gym once a week
• Perform health check-up once available ( yes 😎 ) SAF style

Home

• Bake bread twice a week (also get a cool rack for the bread) (Getting lazy 😦 )
• Follow and complete housework routine (Getting lazy 😦 )
• Baking Soda to replace laundry detergent ( yes 😎 )
• Orange Peel Enzyme to replace other cleaning detergent ( yes 😎 )

Hobbies

• Budget for Upgrading PC ( Addtional SSD, SteamLink, Graphics Card gtx1060) PC broke, emergency replacement made.
• DIY a lap board for couch gaming. bought one from ikea, latency from streaming and display resolution isnt as good as expected for online games.
• Rework my aquarium with arduino spent money on normal setup 😦
• OMG, i got a kindle from black friday sales 2016. So much books to read. i broke the battery, but im reading so much more.

Work

• Master SED and AWK

Save

2014

• create a  user guide to use Linux Mint Debian to access the company’s corporate systems.✘
• set aside $3000 to “play” warrants.✘
• swim weekly.✘
• attain IPPT silver before next ICT.✘
• sell more innovative products online.✘

haha oops… nothing was achieved for 2014 😦

Things to do DEC

Must Do’s

• Continue keeping an accurate account of expenditures.✔
• Rework budget based on last yr expenditures and keep to it.✔
• Run 2.4km weekly.✔
• A new Job    keeping up, but seriously unmotivated to work….✘

Good to have’s

• Learn to use Puppet, open source configuration management tool ✘
  
• Write another a full fledged GUI program using Perl or Python on the raspberry-pi 😦 ✘

job hunter X

tough tough tough, i have been attending a few interviews. the first was a contract position with GIC, that didn’t turn out too well, and one with STmicroelectronics, that was pretty sucky.
went for another with amazon, was a dc tech position, i probably wasn’t really qualified as dc technician, i dun know if i am under or over qualified.
the next one was with savvis, duh… its another shift job, cant believe my unluckiness. wasn’t really interested with them, but anyway i wasn’t offered too. i guess it works both ways.

the upcoming one is with temasek polytechnic. the job scope sounds meaningful, but few issues are whether my salary is within their budget and is my unisim degree recognized……it seems in all likelihood i will be dropped.
hope the second interview occurs….

it seems jobs are kinda rare now, 1 week ago, my company opened up a position for an system administrator. plenty of IT “talents” applied after they were sacked from banks like deutsch and citi , the pay was around sgd 6000 to 6500.
they most likely got in thru the bank’s employee referral system with help from people of the same race and creed that was rampant during the mini boom of 2010, too bad for them. the show is over for the investment bank IT ops industry.
i dun know how long will it take the market to absorb those sacked, this frickin affects me, because they are looking for the same sysadmin type of jobs like me.

disgruntled IT professional

車を買わない。。。高い

今日本語を忘れた、二年に勉強は徒労に終わった。
the above sentence is most probably wrong.
yup my particles still sux…conjugation of forms is in a mess, totally dun remember most of the kanji pronunciation.

but in the end i still managed to pass jlpt5, at least i managed to fulfill another goal of 2011.
(~_~;)
feeling lazy everyday. will try to find a opportunity to collect the cert…

2 weeks into my new job

I’ve started december with lotsa of expectation and hopes that my new job will be meaningful.

well, im now administrating ESXi, redhat and windows servers for derivatives and securities middle and back office.
i think that sounds meaningful enough.

not forgetting to mention the exposure in financial technology sector that will be beneficial for my career.

was so unfortunate to be caught up in thursday’s mrt breakdown. luckily i missed the prior train that was stuck in the tunnel. so i managed to disembark at raffles place and changed to the NEL from outram park to dhoby ghaut and walked to orchard for my jap class….i was an hour late….

since its the end of the yr, i guess it makes sense to do a review of goals set earlier.

1) JLPT 5 taken the exam, did badly for the grammar section. probably gonna fail….
2) RHCE6 yup, got my RHCE 🙂
3) Driving License gonna start after my final term of japanese class
4) Save up an additional $20000 in part thanks to the lucrative job at sfdc.
5) attempt to go gym at 6am at least once a week… i tried going after work. but since leaving my previous job. i had not gone to the gym for 1 month. the nearest gym at my new workplace is fitnessfirst platinum…it has a $150/month membership fee…. it’s just too costly.

la tristesse durera toujours

I never knew this song was a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh.

After 3 months of job hunting, finally managed to secure a new job. the job sounds tough, not too sure how it will go.

seems that christmas is around the corner. dont u think a starry night is wonderful for this christmas

and wait for the sunrise, next morning

or end up like the sorrowful old man

feeling like this old pair of boots, the feeling of  being discarded.

:( money issues at home, getting my RHCE :)

i finally know what it feels like to be happy and sad at the same time. i’m sure it does not cancel out each other.

starting with the sad news, my mom got into debt through gambling…now i need to pay it off….its not the first time, definitely not the last too. i guess i’ll never be rich if life carries on in this manner…

jumping to the good news!!!! i got my rhce cert 🙂 i was really nervous when i took the test. The previous night when news broke that my mum is in debt, i was still mugging for the test. i guess i’m really a cold-hearted person, all i wanted was to get the cert. before i slept, i was still telling myself if i let issues in life put me down, i would be no different than any other losers on the street.

at the end of the day this is all that matters

Saving up for the inevitable

The recent market dip has seriously tempted me to increase my position on singpost. According to the time proven recession and crisis life cycle, it seems not the best time to buy.

1997/1998 Asia monetary crisis
1999 Bailout, markets recovers
2001/2002 dotcom recession
2005/2006 global interest rate spike to fix recession, too much money to go around, markets booms.
2007/2008 derivative instruments consumes money. great financial crisis
2009 Bailout, markets recovers
2011/2012 US debt crisis, recession looming
2015/2016 Interest rates raised
2017/2018 too much money to go around, markets rally.

I can’t foresee what happens, another path would be a period of slow but surely continued growth for 20 yrs, just like after the great depression.

But im either scenario, Now I need to find a good way to grow cash from 2012 to 2015. Stocks has too much underside and I have a sufficient position on it, I do not feel comfortable to incur large paper loss when compared to dividend gains.

Guess the likely choice is to hold my dividend yielding stocks, wait for the interest rates to spike, which causes the bond price to drop in turn increasing yield and regain the bond position I sold off in 2008.

Korean BBQ, cinnamon tea

Quite a pricey dinner yesterday, around $50. Tasty and fresh though. The cinnamon tea served at the end of the meal was great, wonder where can I buy it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sujeonggwa

 

Finally cleared my backlog of homework, tomorrow is a good day to start L30 homework.

Going to get a drink at 7-11 after 怒火街头.