Just had 4 extra cousins!

Over the weekend my family and I went to Kuantan. It was a good trip, the used to be 5 hour trip now reduced to 2 and a half due to the new highway. How convenient! My grandma, sis, dad, step mom and myself embarked on this trip with a cheerful heart and hungry tummys looking forward to a good time in kuantan, relaxing by the beach and eating some nice nasi dagang.

We arrived at my grandpa's house in no time, and it was good seeing him again after so long. Maybe around 11-12 months since. He looked older and had darker skin since the last time I saw him. He had less hair, but I guess that is how people will look when they age, including myself next time. The dark skin was due to the sea breeze over Kuantan town. That is why Kuantan people as a whole are darker.

We went to Teluk Cempedak and Batu Hitam, the beaches I used to go when I was young. Over there we walked on the beach, decided to explore and walked over some rocks nearby. There were many tourists as usual, comprised of all races including 'mat saleh', the word us locals use to call foreigners. We also ate delicious nasi dagang in the town at a kopitiam shop called Kemaman Kopitiam. The food was very good, albeit slightly expensive. Kuantan has changed alot since I was young, it used to be just a small town, but now it is a busier more crowded town soon to be city.

The highlight of the trip is definitely my cousin's wedding. A cousin whom I didn't know existed until I met her at the wedding. Her name is Susan Ng and she is just 25 years old, not that much different to my age. She is marrying a guy named Patrick Teo who is doing a PhD in the UK in some water-related area. But how nice to know that I have another cousin that is about plus minus the same age as me. I also found out that she has 1 other sister and 2 other brothers. So that makes a total of 4 cousins that I suddenly had. The reason was that they were from my dad's brother's side whom my family is not so close to. I may have known them before when I was younger, but for some reason or another I just can't remember them. But good to know that I have 4 extra lovely cousins. I hope to know them more in the future.

The wedding was interesting, we were served 8 dishes. If I can remember properly, the dishes were in the following order:
1. Four seasons vegetables dish
2. Shark fins soup
3. Duck
4. Fish
5. Prawns
6. Toufu
7. Yam and rice
8. chestnut soup
It was quite a yummy dinner and I enjoyed it alot. The bride and bridegroom looked so happy. I wonder how my wedding would be like, and who would my bride be. hmmmm. But I do know one thing, that I aim to be married by 25. Wish me luck guys!

First Day at Work in CIMB Research

Today I started my 2 month long internship at CIMB. They put me in the Research Department, to my delight. Having always wished to work in equity research, it was like a dream come true. I found this out in Melb and I was totally hysteric and just overcome with happiness. So now I finally got to realise my dream.

The first day at work wasn't busy at all. Turns out that 80% of the staff was still on year-end holidays. So I was just given many reports to read and find out more about research. Other than that, I got to know many nice people in order:-

Heng Guie - he is the head of economics in the research department. They cover macroeconomic trends in helping their research. Their work is of the highest quality and I am mightily impressed. He was nice to me and gave me work to do when I had nothing to do. He's around his late 40s and has a typical Malaysian Chinese accent.

Julia - she is the senior manager of economics. She was the most friendly person I met there. Turns out that she also did her degree and masters in Melbourne Uni! So we had so much in common, and we even had the same professors! What's more, we found out that we did the same course (BCom) and did the same majors (Econs and Finance). She moved back to KL to work since Melb and have been working in research ever since. She's the type whom can communicate very well with people and is easy going and friendly.

Kelvin, Nigel, Seh Siang, Raymond - The four of them are analysts in the research department. They know so much about industry and I wish I can learn more from them. I wish I could be as good as them one day. They set the standard to which a new analyst should try and achieve. Kelvin, Raymond and Nigel won the best analyst award in malaysia in their respective sectors.

Ireen - She is the closest to my age that I know of. Shes a sweet 20 something year old girl who did her degree in a local uni, did her masters in a UK uni, did a 6 month internship at E&Y, then is undergoing the management trainee program at CIMB with experiences in 4 departments including Private Banking, Business Banking, Corp Fi and Research. Hope to get to know more about her, and maybe we'll be sharing some work.

The people all treated me really nice. Although they tried to scare me out of research by telling me that I have made the wrong choice and everything. It didn't work though. Since Kelvin and Nigel just found out that they were the best in their sectors, they decided to treat us for lunch. Kelvin drove us all the way to Curve and we had lunch in an expensive restaurant. He treated us all. I ordered a Nasi Lemak, the best malaysian dish ever. Then we headed off to Starbucks for a coffee. This was the best company outing ever. All in all, we dined about 3 hours, when we finally headed off to the office again. This normally doesn't happen, only on days like this when there is a reason to celebrate and everyone is quite free.

I enjoyed my first day there. They even gave me my own PC to use and my email which is joshua.ng@cimb.com . Only cimb people can send emails to me though, sorry bout that. They set it that way. And I also love driving to and fro from work. Gives me freedom to use the car. I found that they start work at 7am and finish at 7pm. I hope its not too hectic, but certainly looking forward to it. Raymond already promised to give me some work next week so I can't wait.

Happenings so far in Malaysia

I have finally touched down into Malaysia. I arrived at around 11pm of Tuesday, and was a gruelling 8 hour flight experience. They had so many air turbulences. But thank God I was safe.

The next day I was already out to visit old friends at the Curve in Damansara. It was great fun meeting up with Chan, Jerm, Oh Sheng, Jenn, Siewy, Peh Leon and Amy. We had drinks at Starbucks and then proceeded to play lots of pool and foosball. It feels good coming back to Malaysia because of all my old friends, without them there wouldn't really be any Malaysia to go back to.

At night, I had my annual Christmas Eve dinner with my family. We had a big turkey for dinner, and I love the taste of turkey. Then we chatted together for about 3 hours before finally retiring to our own rooms. Then I had my countdown for Christmas with some of my friends online.

It was finally Christmas Day. My dad got me a Christmas present which was a sweater, but I have no use of it until the next winter. I only got for my dad and sis a Christmas Card which I think is pretty sentimental. We went to church afterwards and was treated to a play, a drama, songs and a Christmas message. I missed all my friends at the church I grew up in, and finally got to catch up with some of them.

Then we proceeded for lunch with 3 other families in quite a fancy Chinese restaurant. It was nice catching up with Rachel and Jessica. They were friends I grew up with, and nice to know how they were doing in uni, life and so on.

I have a feeling Malaysia will be exciting, but there is still much more left to come!

Three-in-one

Last Sunday was definitely an eventful day. I was busy all the way from morning to the next morning!

In the morning I had to wake up pretty early (8 something yes that is early when I am used to waking up at 11 something nowadays) in order to go to church at FGA. Furthermore, the night before I had work and I kept waking up in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep because I drank too much Coke. Church was great, I managed to catch up with alot of friends including Becky, Ming Fung, Daniel, Stella and last but not least, my close friend Nicole! Now she has my portable hard drive with nce movies in it like Borat, Iron Man, Dark Knight, etc. Need to claim it back from her tonight because I am leaving for KL tomorrow morning first thing! After church a group of us headed for lunch at Box Hill at Blue Hills Cafe. I ordered Beef Stew but with rice noodles. Never, never order rice noodles with beef stew. It doesn't taste really nice, but the lunch with friends was good nevertheless.

After lunch, I caught a bus (293 if I remembered correctly) to Westfield. There I was early, because I was going to watch a movie with Karen and her friends at 4.40pm. So I headed off to Borders and Gloria Jeans Coffee which is inside it for a drink of green tea and at the same time reading my book Security Analysis. At the same time, Nathan Buckley who is an AFL legend was signing autographs for his new book in front of Borders. The queue was crazy, about 300m long. When Karen and her friends arrived, they told the story of how Nathan Buckley was at Nandos and he ordered a Pita Meal. That was at 1 something. And then at 3 something when I saw Nathan Buckley at Borders, he just came from Nandos. So I told them my part of the story to their amusement and there was chuckles everywhere as we joked about how famous he was and what a coincidence it was. We then headed off to watch Four Holidays, a comedy mixed with romance. The main actress was Reece Witherspoon from Legally Blonde. The movie was alright and I enjoyed it watching with my friends.

After the movie I headed home, but not before stopping by Maccas for some dinner. The night ahead was long because there was going to be the Nandos Christmas party, which was my first time attending. How exciting it was! After wasting some time, 10.15pm finally arrived and I started out with my Christmas Kringle (which was a Monopoly set Chocolate edition, so technically you can eat the pieces but can only play it once) and walked to Nandos under the dark sky. For those not familar with Christmas Kringle, it is an exchanging presents game, where each of us brings one present and we exchange it, and at Nandos the minimum had to be at least $10 worth to protect us from the cheapskates. The Nandos Christmas party was a bang, it started out with lots and lots of food. So much food, and of course lots of drinks including beer and alcohol. It was barely 5 minutes into the party when Tom finished 3 bottles of beer. He was surely a drinker. I was glad and very happy to see all my friends there at the party including Biondi, Nelson, Adrian, Hendra, Tasia, Wina, Sing Yao, Karen, Jennifer, Tom, Scott, Travis, Novi, Andy, Martina, Adeline, Sammy, Sammy's girlfriend whom doesn't work in Nandos and last but not least our boss Daniel. Then the games started. We played Cherades, so we had to act out alot of movies where we were given on pieces of paper. Then we played a Nandos quiz. That was the hardest game of all, even though I have worked in Nandos for 2 years already! Quite a challenge but fun nevertheless. We finally exchanged Christmas Kringles, and I got a mobile phone toy! It plays very cute sounds when you dial a number. So enjoyable. Then we crowned Nandos employee of the year which goes to Hendra and Tasia! Congratulations to both of you for doing your best in Nandos! We finally blew some champagne with alot of it flying everywhere. Then we started to pack up and head home. It was already 1 something am. But it was such great fun, and a very long day. It is also my 3rd last day in Melbourne before I head off to KL for 2 months. Would never forget the event and the people that came on that memorable Sunday.

Became a blood donor

Today was an exciting day in my life. For the first time in my life, I actually had donated blood. It was a good feeling. About 19 of us came to Level 1, Manningham Function Centre on Doncaster Road organised by Fer Lene, my friend from EDSC.

So for many of us it was the first time we were all donating blood. It was exciting and scary at the same time, and as I finished the registration form first, I was the first one to donate blood out of all of us. Apparently, from the observations of the nurse I looked worried. Who knows what could go wrong with the needle and blood process. And what if there was something wrong with my blood that no one knew about.

They tested me and everything, and subjected me to many questions to qualify for blood donation. Some of my friends couldn't do it as they weighed less than 45kg. I was 50% over the minimum weight, so by that you can actually calculate my weight if you do some maths. So finally the blood donation process started. They put me on a table and put a needle through the vein of my right arm. They also gave me a rubber ducky to squeeze on my right palm. Apparently that helps the blood flow out faster.

My friend had been telling me that you would feel dizzy, tired, high and all sorts of feelings after donating blood. However, after I finished donating blood about 440ml in total, I felt pretty normal. My exercise routine has been daily for the last few days so I'm pretty fit and have also been drinking alot of orange juice with iron in it the last two days. I guess the sum of all that means that I had too much blood in me to begin with. Donating blood actually helped me get rid of that excess blood. So now I am normal again.

It was a good and wonderful experience. Apparently I helped to save 3 lives. I am proud of that and hopefully by God, I have made a difference to 3 helpless people!

The joy of receiving a Christmas present

Have you ever received an unexpected Christmas present?

I have today.

When my sis said there was some mail for me, I thought it was the usual bank statements. Upon looking at it, it was from Our Daily Bread, a quarterly subscription that I have been receiving for over a year now. I thought it was probably another issue of Our Daily Bread, the small booklet that I used to read every night before I go to sleep. It's about God and very good and easy to follow.

So when I opened it, to my very surprise, it was a CD with Christmas instrumental tunes. It is the best ever! For all those who know me well, I am crazy over instrumental tunes. Just love the entertaining music alot.

So I was very, very happy. Joyful.

I think that is going to be the best Christmas present I received yet! Even though it is not yet Christmas yet. :P

And oh yea, my sis is leaving for Malaysia today. May God bless her a safe flight.

Witnessing an accident

Today I went to the city and got a first-class experience of witnessing an accident. I was at the corner of Lonsdale and Elizabeth Street, patiently waiting for tram 19 to come, when suddenly I saw a car speeding pass my behind and at first I didn't bother, but after about 2 seconds I heard this loud screeching and then a loud BANG. My senses quickly told me to turn around to see the inevitable. So I guessed right. That speeding car smashed into the side of another car, who was presumably not breaking any rules and was waiting in the middle of the road to turn right when the traffic along his lane ceases. The car that was speeding supposedly didn't see the red light or was just too fast to break too soon, and so banged the car.

Luckily no one was seriously injured.

The two drivers just shouted at each other from their own cars. Then they drove down Lonsdale Street to park somewhere and discuss the accident. But this was my first time seeing an accident from so near. I hope it doesn't happen to me personally because anyone who knows me knows that I do love to speed, especially in Malaysia. I guess life comes first before the destination.

A fun two days with friends aplenty

The last two days has been exciting, because mainly I managed to catch up with some old friends.

1. Alvin's Birthday Party at Grove Train, Westfield Doncaster

My good friend, Nicole, gave me a ride there. We all met up at the restaurant Grove, which is just outside the new Village cinema in Westfield. There was so many people whom I have not met for a long time, can say a few months, some even half a year. To Nicole K, Jonno, Angela, Ron, Jeff, June, Ming Fung, Marcus, Thean, Alvin, Hannah, Josh, Stella, Nicole T and others who came, it was good meeting with you guys. I ordered my favourite as usual, which is a chicken hamburger with fries. It cost alot but the food was really good. I will definitely come back there again. The atmostphere was nice too, but the nicest was catching up with old friends.

2. Picnic at Jeu Ann's house

We all had to bring something colourful to the picnic. The theme was:

Something new, something overdue,
Something brought, something colorful.

It was like a potluck. So I was thinking quite hard about what was colorful. In the end I decided to cook spaghetti marinara with marinara mix I bought from Safeway. The end result was good, because alot of friends praised my cooking. I managed to make alot of new friends at the picnic, because basically all I knew at the picnic is Jeu Ann, Tasia, Jessica and Ferlene. I managed to meet some really nice people including Gareth, Zen and Sam. So the picnic was quite eventful with everyone bringing all kinds of food. There were chips, sushi, noodles, salad, pasta, and many drinks. Someone even brought beer. But we had alot of fun, and played games like Taboo, Mafia, Chinese Whispers and Cherades.


All in all, I enjoyed the last two days and looking forward to what is left of my holidays!

All things finance

So recently I have had alot of time enjoying my short-lasting holidays. I decided to do some research on bonds and find out more about bond trading. Turns out that it is really interesting. It is my passion to learn more about these kind of stuff so that in the future I can make alot of money from them. That's my aim anyway. Getting there is the difficult part. These are a few things I learnt from my studies.(beware tonnes of jargon ahead)

1. The difference between bond yields and zero rates

Imagine this situation. I will pay you $100 in a future date, say 1 year from now. But today, you have to lend to me $90 something dollars. The bond yield is the percentage return that you will get for your money that you lent me today and receive $100 1 year from now. Say you lent me $90 today, and I paid you $100 1 year from now, the yield is 11.1%, expressed in annual terms. The bond yield is specific to that bond only. Zero rates, on the other hand, is the yield for zero-coupon bonds. Its the single interest rate that will equate the present value of the bond to the par value of the bond, and expressed in annual terms. To price a coupon bond, we need to know the zero rates to appropriately price a coupon bond.

2. How to price a bond

Bonds have to be discounted back to the present, and we need to discount every cash flow that the bond will pay to the present. We need to discount it using the appropriate interest rate, that way, we can ensure the true value of the bond at the present. How much we should pay for a bond is determined by its intrinsic value, which in turn is the present value of all the future cash flows from the bond. If the bond price is less than the intrinsic value, there is opportunity for a profit. First buy the undervalued coupon-bond, then sell equivalent zero-coupon bonds that matches every cash flow of the coupon-bond, and pocket the difference. A free lunch!

3. The duration of a bond

Bond duration is the average waiting period for the cash flows of the bond. The term to maturity is not an accurate measure of the waiting period for a bond. Imagine if a bond pays $100 today, and another $50 50 years from now. Would it really be said that the investment period is 50 years? Duration captures the essence of the bond, so in that bond I just mentioned the duration is actually 0.2 years using the formula for calculating duration.

4.,5.,6., alot about bond properties


So really, I'd love to learn more about bonds. In the past I have mostly been preoccupied with shares. But learning bonds have really helped my understanding alot. I hope to find out more about the finance world so that I can profit from that. Will see into the future that looks good at the moment.

Movie at Hoyts and Dinner at Chomps Chomps

Today Khimmy, Minnie and myself watched the movie Austalia at Hoyts. Was a really good movie overall and 2.5 hours in length. The movie is about 'the stolen generation' of Australia and based in Darwin, Australia. Mostly it was a love story and quite meaningful. But they had their obvious comedy moments as well. And very good acting by Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. There were just some simply touching scenes and moved me close, very close to a tear. But I stopped myself just in time. I don't have a tear often and that just goes to show how good such a movie is!

After the movie we went for dinner at Chomps Chomps which was on Bourke Street very near Target and JB Hi Fi. Apparently I went there 2 and a half years ago with some old school friends. Funny thing though, I had no memory of ever going there! So we decided to take some pics of the yummy food there.

Minnie ordered this.

I ordered this.

Khim ordered this.

The sad thing is that Khimmy is leaving for Malaysia tomorrow and won't be seeing her for 3 months. She will be coming to Aus almost at the same time when I'm leaving for Malaysia, so we won't be seeing each other the whole holidays. Nevertheless, I still look forward to next year. Have a safe flight, Khimmy.

Harvey Norman Analysis

I have done an analysis on Harvey Norman. You will find my scribbles below. Basically what I found was that HVN operates across the world namely in Aus, NZ, malaysia, singapore, ireland and slovenia. The key thing to note is that harvey norman has been growing EPS at the rate of 19.33% in good times. Recently however, conditions have deteriorated and they are making losses on their Ireland operations. The managers does not expect operating conditions to improve in the future. However, the loss of 5.68million is not material when compared to their total net profit of $368 odd million for the whole year for the whole business.

Their main income stream is from franchisee fees, property management fees, property revaluations, finance fees from providing financing to their franchisees, and a small share trading division. They actually have a hefty $1.68billion property portfolio, so HVN can actually be classified as half real-estate manager. The interesting thing to note is that performance based fees are given to their directors and officers to try and grow EPS at least 10% year on year. So I have factored that into my valuation. The company is conservatively geared and can pay off their debt within 1.8 years of current net profit.

management is excellent, with most of them having large amount of shares in the company and having worked there for quite some time. HVN's competitive advantage comes from their business model where they attract customers based on the way they present their shop and friendly customer service. Also they operate a franchisee model, so they don't own the shops themselves, only some.After conducting various valuation methodologies, HVN seems to be undervalued by at least 20% or more. Recent 6 months results have shown that sales overall have just decreased by 1.4%, which is not bad. Note also that HVN has $460million of debt that is under "current liabilities" so they have to refinance that debt this year.

Harvey Norman
Current Price of $2.15
Current EPS $0.3376
CAGR of EPS in the last 4 years to 2008 = 19.33%
Total dividend for 2008 is 14cents
Has 1,061,753,555 shares
Adopts a franchising model for their business
Operates in NZ, Aus, Slovenia, Ireland, Asia
They have a $1.68 billion property portfolio
Income = franchisee fees, property rent, property revaluation
Expenses = operating, IT, property maintenance
CEO & Chairman has had at least 9 years experience each. Good board of directors.
Can pay off debt in 1.8 years
Book value of $1.79
Current ROE of 18.9%

Valuation
Basic valuation = 18.9/15 * 1.79 = 2.25 (maintain current ROE of 18.9%)
Dividend model = 0.14*(1.10)/(0.15-0.10) = 3.08 (growth of 10%)
DCF = $2.76 (growth of FCF of 10%)
Price/Value = 0.95 / 0.70 / 0.76

Harvery Norman Stock Price

BHP AGM and a long day

Today was a special day indeed. I attended the Annual General Meeting of BHP Biliton Limited, which is Australia's largest company. The reason I got to attend it was because I am a shareholder. I have made alot of money on their shares and hopefully in the future would continue to make. So in the morning I got up early, and met my friend Wei Yan at the bus stop at around 8.20. We hopped on the 304 together and away to the city we went. Upon arriving at the city we realised we were too early and so went to Maccas to eat breakfast. We had a good chat over breakfast and so decided to head off. We caught tram 70 from Flinders street towards Wattle Park. We arrived at the Hisense Arena (which was originally Vodafone Arena). We had to walk abit before finally reaching the Melbourne Park Function Centre, our destination and the place I sat for my UMAT 2 years ago!

This is the registration desk. BHP appointed another company called Computershare to manage their registration.

They had a beautiful display of cups with orange juice and water to serve shareholders.

This is the view outside the function centre. Pretty good view, and next door is the place where they have the Australian Open tournament every year in January.

This is me grinning away at such an opportunity to come to the country's biggest company's AGM.

There were also some demonstrators outside which disagreed with some of BHP's actions as polluting the area around some of their mines.

We weren't allowed, however, to take pictures inside the function room where the actual AGM was held. Nevertheless, it was an exciting event. Each director had to offer himself to be re-elected and new directors had to be elected. So each director was given a 2 minute opportunity to talk about himself to convince shareholders to vote him onto the board. We were all given a green piece of paper to submit and record our votes down. It was a new experience to me. It was the first time I had seen activisit shareholders ask so many awkward yet truthful questions. Some of them was really hilarious. Like when the matter had to deal with remuneration of directors or asking the directors to give a "special dividend" as a Christmas present for all shareholders. The directors politely declined to the second request.

After 3 hours of event, we finished it with satisfied hearts and we headed back to Melbourne Central. I then had lunch with Audrey and Sue Ann at Stalactites, a greek restaurant in Lonsdale Street. We had Souvlaki, their most famous dish. Tasted alright, but the chicken kept on falling out of the souvlaki onto the plate. Really difficult to eat it.

Later on in the day, I went back to Nandos to go for some training they had for me. Then had dinner with Sing Yao, Tasia and Jessica. I made friends with Jessica today, haven't actually met her before.

Then at night, went back to the city to have a meeting with Kenjisan Investments officers. we discussed all the relevant matters for 2008 as this was our final meeting. We had an extensive review of our portfolio and decided on changes to be made. Everything went well and by the time I reached home it was already 12 midnight and here I am writing this post to you.

What a long day. :)

The last day of exams

Today is the last day of my exams! What an exciting day it has been. My last paper was accounting. I was pretty nervous sitting for it. But turned out, thank God, that it went well. I managed to finish the paper 40-45 mins early, so had ample time to check my answers!

As it was the last day I was visiting the Royal Exhibition Building before next year when I visit it again the next time I have exams, I decided to take some pictures.

My exam hall is that big old-looking building.

There is a fountain in front of it where all the birds like to sit under the hot sun.

The road to my exam hall.


The atmosphere of a park is simply relaxing.

The green trees bring tranquility in a period of chaos before exam.

The place is perfect for picnics if not for the exam.

A beautiful sight for the eyes before the terror of which is the exam paper.

After exams finished and all, I had a ncie good hot chocolate with my friend Denise at Melbourne Central. We haven't caught up in a while so was catching up all the while. Was a good hour and a half that we chatted. After that, not knowing what to do, I headed home not expecting to do anything for the rest of the day.

As I just reached home, I got a message from Jerm asking me to join him as he was going to have dinner with Chan in the city! I was so willing to join him, but the thought of going back all the way to city just was killing me. But in the end, friends prevailed and I went back to the city. We met up in MC for a short while and then strotted off (in a tram) to Chan's house.

Having met up with Chan, we went to Lygon to Border's there and had a nice drink and very long chat at Gloria Jean's Coffee. Ah, the good old times when 3 good buddies can catch up and talk about stuff that happened 1,3, 5 years ago or even longer. We then moved on to a Korean restaurant called Big Mama along Swanston Street. The food there was simply delicious! I will surely be going there again.

As if that all was not enough, at 8.30pm we headed off to Strike Bowl to play some pool. Played like 3 games of pool. Chan was the best as usual. But we managed to win once, lost once and the last game we just played for fun. Then finally headed off home and here I am typing this.

Certainly the last day of exams, a day to remember. :)

Thoughts

It's just two more days before exam's over! Don't know if I look forward to it or not. From what I gathered, people say holidays are boring! I have yet to experience that but quite soon. Really wondering how it feels like. But after weeks of studying and months of going through the course, it all boils down to the exam. So all of the feelings and ups and downs that we go through will all be put to the test soon. That is alot of feelings into one paper, all dependent on one outcome, how well we did in the exam paper. Luckily we have been sitting exams for all our lives, for if not, if this were the first time then we would be quite nervous indeed. But also is it worth it to do well in exam? Surely our life wouldn't change that much if we didn't do well, would it? Some people are happy when they do well, some would still be happy even if they didn't do well. It's really about happiness, I feel. Like, what is the point of doing good if it doesn't make you happy? Life's too short. I guess for myself I want to do well in exams so that I gain satisfaction from that, to prove to my ego that I am that good. But I know in the end, it won't really make a difference, because when we leave this world, it's not about that piece of paper that has an A on it, but how much different we have made in other people's lives whilst our time on earth. So, I still don't know why I am working hard in exams. Help me.

A visit to Vic Uni Exam Place

Today I had time to go to Victoria Uni's exam place at the Melbourne showgrounds just to see how it looked like. My friend Khimmy had exams over there. So hearing that it was at the place where they had the melbourne show last time, which I couldn't make it due to my busy schedule last time, I just decided to use my procrastinating skills to visit the place awhile.

Turns out the place was quite windy and beautiful-looking. Too bad they already cleared most of the melbourne show, and all that's left is a wide open space in a field, but still the weather there was nice and windy, much better than the city weather, where it is just blazing hot nowadays. And I also found out that the place is near Flemington Racecourse, where Melbourne cup was held. Quite a place to be, if you ask me, where so many events were held!

That is me in the photo looking like a backpacker. :P I've made it a point to come visit the melbourne show next year and that also includes the melbourne cup event! Can't wait for next year to come, when the place behind me in the photo will be filled with many fun-held events!

Gifted with a good speedwriting ability

I am quite certain of a certain ability that I have which has helped me do well in past/present exams. Today I had my OB exam, and as usual, there was not enough time to complete the whole paper for so many people. However, I managed to complete it just in time. I don't know why I can do it, maybe you can say that God had given me the ability to write fast, think at the same time and coordinate my actions well.

From the reviews I had got today from friends having done the exam, most of them have either: 1) couldn't finish the exam, 2) couldn't answer some parts of the question because they had forgotten or 3) didn't write as much. This maybe not entirely through for everyone who had done the exam, but for myself, I certainly felt I answered it to the best I could, even if that best wasn't great.

I think I can write fast. Ever since I was young, I used to have writing competitions with my friends in class as a joke, see who could write a whole essay out the fastest. That I think helped me to train my hand and made me able to write very fast, and whilst writing I could flip the pages of the test paper and check for quotes to copy down from the case study. This coordination also stems from the fact that I used to like to play this PC game called Starcraft. In that game, you were supposed to do so many things at once, I got used to the hand-eye coordination.

Secondly, during exams I think I can improvise fast. For example, if there was a situation when I didn't know the answer, I can write and explain until I 'got' the answer somehow, that the examiner has to give me some marks, if not full marks, for answering the question! I learnt that during my literature studies in high school and college, where I had to extensively use quotes from the case study to prove a point. So I would write alot of rubbish and randomly take quotes from the case study to prove my point, so it had to be right.

Most of all, thank God for the OB exam today. As I was not very well, I didn't have much energy to write non-stop for 2 hours, but because God gave me the energy, I felt I could finish the paper even though halfway I was pretty sure I ran out of energy to write. Furthermore, I didn't study much the night before because I was just sick, and couldn't do much. And exam was the next day. Luckily all went well, despite the fact that I had been preparing for another case study that never came out. Because we were given 3 case studies to prepare for, and only one of them would come out. The one that came out wasn't that prepared for. But all went well in the end, thank God!

I do look forward to my next paper which is next Monday. Hopefully everything is smoother for the next paper. I hope.

My first exam started today!

Today I had my first exam paper! Yes yes, I know, when alot of others are soon to be finished. Melb uni is so slow, the slowest in fact. But nevertheless, I'm still excited! Today's paper was corp law. I had studied so so much for it, and had countless study groups. It had to go well! But when I opened the first page, I knew already I didn't prepare for the first question!!

So unexpected! Who thought they would suddenly ask about public v proprietary companies. But luckily the exam is an open book exam. So, I flipped through the textbook trying to find the answer to the question. Thank God I found it. I managed to spend 20/30 minutes of reading time doing question 1 only and neglecting the rest.

Picture of my test paper front cover

Moving on to question 2, I didn't know how to do it again!! So frustrating... I had prepared for all the hard hard questions, but what came out was... unexpected materials. So when doing the question, I had to research so much by flipping so many notes and textbooks, and wasting precious time by not writing. We had a total of 3 hours for the whole paper for 7 questions. And true enough, I had not enough time to write.

I managed to finish one whole examination booklet though. And I am proud of that. The rest of the questions were alright. It was just the first three questions that bugged me alot. And confused me! And as such when I moved on to question 4 and 5, which is about directors duties, of which I am supposed to be good at, I suddenly realised I sucked at it. :P

Corp Law Exam: my first paper!

Throughout the 3 hours, my hand very badly wanted to rest but I couldn't rest! There was just simply not enough time. You might think 3 hours is long, but everyone said its short. At first I thought it was long as well, until I did the paper. So after 3 hours my hand was very very dead. But its recovered now. :P

Throughout the whole time I just know that I have been scribbling alot, and my handwriting in the examination booklet was just messy! After doing so much in corp law, I am happy that it is over! I personally thank God for the guidance He has given me. Now to look forward to OB! Which is by far the hopeless paper I have(because I have given up on getting a H1 as I need a 90 for the exam to get H1 overall). Everyone wish me good luck, thanks!!

Joshua's scribbles

My Old Untouched PS2

I haven't been touching my PS2 for a looooong time now. It's sitting there faithfully waiting for me to play games on it again.


I still remember some of the games I used to play on PS2, which were very exciting. Games like Tekken 2, Kingdom of Hearts, Final Fantasy, those I will remember forever.

My only hesitation to play PS2 is that it is quite an antisocial machine, because we're playing it all by ourselves. That is why I sort of moved to the laptop, where we can communicate with people over msn or through games. That is the best. No matter that still, I still love the games I used to play on my PS2, and have to say the best game I ever played is Final Fantasy 7 on PS1.

As for now, my PS2 will continue to sit there gathering dust until the time I decide to play some games again, who knows when.

Books I bought but never read

It occurred to me that some books have been sitting in my closet for awhile already but I just never had the chance to read them. I think its time I took them out and read them!

I got interested in this book because its about a story of a small grocer fighting against Wal-Mart which in US is the biggest grocery owner. A delightful story of survival which I have yet to read. :P


The next book is written a long time ago by Benjamin Graham. Warren Buffett had this book during his Masters program, where he read the book from cover to cover and even was able to quote sections out of the book more than his teacher who wrote the book. Worth a read definitely.



Last but not least, this book has been lent to me by my good friend from church, Stella. She said I would be interested in reading it, but somehow, never got the time to read it. The author, Wayne Lonergan, is one of Australia's most respected valuation experts.

All in all, I hope I will take my time this holidays to read at least one of them, if not all!

Somebody needs to make me sit down and read books, instead of everytime watching movies. :P

Places I want to visit!

I can't wait for the coming holidays! I already have a list of two place I want to visit then. Lets fulfil the dream!

Place No.1: Mornington

It is located SouthEast of Victoria and it is one of the most beautiful places in Australia, I reckon. I have been there once before, but didn't really do much there. The beaches are beautiful, you can just lie there whole day and stare at the waves, so peaceful.


The colour of the water also looks very nice, pure blue. Definitely a good place to go fishing! Yeah, maybe I should!


Also, you can explore in Mornington for the more adventurous as there are many places to go there and much to see.

Place No.2: Twelve Apostles/Great Ocean Road

Ever heard of the twelve Apostles? Well, it's name alone certainly attracts tourists. The best way to come here is to drive by ourselves here. I haven't been here before, but I would love to someday soon. Haha.

They call it the Twelve Apostles because of the twelve stones a few metres away from the beach. I wonder how those twelve stones got there in the first place! Amazing the wonders of God.

Isn't the sight just beautiful? That is why so many people are fighting to preserve our earth, its so that our future generation can see this! If its all destroyed, theres nothing left to see.

So in all, it is my dream to go to these places after exams and I hope to make it happen! Surely will be a fun/exciting trip.

Anyone wants to go too? =D

The EIC Jap Buffet Annual Dinner

Yesterday our club, the Entrepreneurial Investment Club, had our annual dinner at Shobu Shobu on 380 Lonsdale Street. Many of our members turned up and it was an exciting event.

The theme was Japanese Buffet, where I ate so many Jap food until I was so full... my stomach couldn't handle anymore.

The two Aussie guys in the front are Edward and Donald Payne, the co-founders of the club.


This is Nicel and Shaun beside me, whom is Marketing Officer and President respectively.

This is my best friend known as Kelvin or Rhun Kiet or Chuah, yes he has many names. :P

The girl beside me is my ATA student who is also part of the club, her name is Wendy and the guy there is her boyfriend.

This is Ozcan Hassan who is a weightlifter. He can bash me through a wall anytime.

Beside me is Siew Ching and Frances, whom is IT Officer and Secretary of the club respectively.

This is Lilian, who did a great job planning this whole event! She is Activities Officer.

This girl here who has a great sense of humour is Wendy Jeng, our Chairwoman of the club. Her jokes are so funny. She was like "What the hell Kelvin" when he walked into the restaurant because she didn't expect him. We were in the same team for the JP Morgan Investment Banking Challenge.

This here is Tim who has recently joined EIC. His interest is in investment banking having interned at a bank before and he participated in 3 IPOs. For those who don't know, IPO is initial public offering where a company lists on ASX. :P

This buddy here is Yang, who has been with the club for 2 years already. He used to be Education Officer but stepped down in pursuit of focusing on studies and achieving high marks. :P

Overall, the dinner was very filling and I had fun meeting up and bonding with everyone there!Great time, great food, great putting on alot of weight too. =D

Study group madness

Right now most of us are in the middle of a crazy exam period. We are all trying to cram as much as possible into as little a time as possible. However, it doesn't always work out. That is why we are panicking. :P

That is why the best way to score H1 is to have...


Study groups!

Definition: "study group" means a bunch of human study in a group together so dat we can absorb knowledge from each other. Source: the Internet

But study groups alone is not sufficient. It must have... Music!

And presenting my favourite music band for studying:



Go Metro Station! Now we can all hopefully score H1s.

Our interpretation of Haloween

We took this pic during Haloween Day which was last Friday. We were supposed to study but bringing out my laptop we decided to take some pics. We were wondering, are we really scary? If we are, how can we look scary for Haloween?

After thinking much, we ran out of ideas. So we resorted to this:

We are the freaky trios. Be very vewy vely afraid.

Trick or treat? :P

Partnership Annual Dinner

Earlier this year we had our investment partnership annual dinner. We are a bunch of people whom really have interest in the sharemarket and wish to make some money by investing in the market, despite how bearish the market can be right now!


We had our annual dinner at a restaurant in Box Hill which serves Hot Pot food. It was simply delicious and merry with so many of us around. Glad to say that all of us could make it, and was the first time that all of us actually met each other in the partnership.


Some of the people here have not met each other for the first time, so they were happily chatting with each other about common interests, haha. Together with another partner, we brought the 14 of us together into this investment partnership.

We come from a wide range of backgrounds including medicine, engineering, physics, commerce, IT, science, design etc. But we are all united with the same passion, and how great the feeling is that to be united. :D

We managed to book an open room upstairs in the restaurant all to ourselves and that was great. Even though most of us were hungry, we managed to chat a good hour before even managing to order our food.

Some people were just so happy as the one partner below as he was grinning from one ear to the other, possibly happy because to have met so many people whom he can discuss the sharemarket with open passion and interest.

Otheres were getting to know each other more better by mixing around. My close friend and myself were getting ready to give our speech that night about the partnership.

This is us smiling and posing at the camera. I have known him for almost 19 years now! Knew him since he was a baby, haha.

These are the 3 adult working people in our partnership. They are great people at heart and also know so much about investments. Surely they know more than me about investments, and I have to humbly say that I have alot to learn from them too! :P

These two guys are my close friends in uni. We have gone through ups and downs together, and I won't forget them ever in the future to come. Friends forever!

These 3 guys over there have been my close friends since I came to Australia. Guys you make my life eventful!

Haha, my friend here doesn't know how to smile at the camera. He is always blur anyways. :P

I met these two recently when I just came and adjusted into Australia. They are quite unique in the sense that they introduced me to the culture in Australia, which is very very different to that in Malaysia.

These two make the physics and IT geniuses. :P Because they are so talented in their fields, they have achieved so much, I don't know where to begin.

These two are officers of the partnership. We make a great team guys! And hopefully with all the extra determination and resilience, we will make this partnership a success in the future!

I am proud of my friends and certainly I know that this partnership will be able to grow successfully in the years to come. I look forward to meeting them again!