Lunch with Econometrics lecturer and a Nobel Laureate

Today all the finalists from the Econometrics group project competition were brought out to lunch by our beloved professor and a Nobel Laureate known as Stan.

We were all blessed because we got to have a wonderdul Italian lunch at Lygon Street with our professor and a famous guy. The group of us (about 17 people) walked all the way to Lygon Street from the law building straight after the lecture.

We went to this Italian restaurant called Spaghettata. For those food enthusiasts, the food there is actually not bad! To start off, our lecturer poured each of us a lot of wine. First, there was white wine. Then there was red wine. I was drinking quite a lot and talking to the guys. Our conversation became abit high under the influence of alcohol and we started to tell a lot of jokes. It was so funny.

But we were still in control of ourselves, luckily. Our professor was there and noone wanted to embaress theirselves. Soon after we ordered our main dish, it came, and oh how delicious mine was. It was the Risotto Marinara. They actually put a lot of seafood on it! And that made it such a special dish. I am grateful for the nice Italian restaurants on Lygon street.

After many more drinks and a shot, and after all the food, we continued to talk, talk and chatted for about 1 hour more. In the end, our lecturer paid the bill (so generous!). It was good to know some of the finalists there who won the top 4 in the competition. It turns out that my group was the youngest there! And we won number 1. So happy for that!

But it was a wonderful experience to remember having lunch with my professor who taught me Quantitative Methods 1 and now Econometrics. In my university life, it was good having him as my lecturer. Thanks for the lunch!

A very good feeling

Today marks a special day.

From the beginning...

We were told that there was going to be a group project worth 20% of the course. And that we had to form teams of 2 to 6 and prepare an econometrics report on any topic. And then the top 4 teams were to present in front of the lecture and the finalist winner would have lunch with the lecturer and a nobel laureate.

Then I went on to find a team consisting of my old friends: Nick, Amanda, Germaine, Melvin and Wei Yan.

We met up and discussed many, many topics that we could potentially do. We then brought the topics down to the final 6. We then had a vote as to which is the best topic. In the end, one of the topics which I proposed won the vote, and it is: Relationships.

The main topic we did was "So, how long would you remain single?". Our team was great. We were ahead of schedule every week. And we even went out and got real data from our friends. Everything was good. We submitted our project.

Two weeks later, we got to know that we were the top 4 teams that got through. There was a total of 104 submissions. We were shocked at how good our report was in the eyes of the lecturer and the tutor. To be top 4, it had to be nominated by a tutor and then scrutinised by the lecturer to be worthy of a finalist project.

Then just today, we presented with an awesome, fantastic slide show with music included. To be the winner, the audience had to give the loudest cheer to your group after all the presentations by the top 4. And that was just what happened. Our cheer was crazy and loud like we had fans. I am so thankful to all your guys support.

So, in the end we won. No. 1 in the subject. What a wonderful experience. Next year the lecturer will be speaking about us to the new batch of students. The lecturer will say "The team that won last year did on "So, how long would you remain single?"", just as he told us this year, "The team that won last year did on "What makes a person happy?"".

What a happy feeling right now.

The Razer Lachesis mouse

Introducing my new mouse:


This beauty is the Razer Lachesis, the best mouse out of there currently in the market with 4000 dpi. The closest rival is only 2000dpi by Logitech.

This beauty is obviously a gamer mouse. It was a long story. But to cut a long story short, I was playing DotA with my friends when suddenly... out of the blue... my mouse died of battery! So I had to play the whole DotA game with my scroll pad. Luckily we still won. Not that I contributed much. :P Then I was quite pissed so I got the best mouse in the market. :P

The mouse came in a very nice package with wordings all around that said something like "Outshine your competition" and "Deliver the silent kill". Mainly because Lachesis means the silent killer. The response time is super quick and way able to outperform any other mouse.

This is how the complete set looks like.

This is how my mouse looks like from a few angles:

So far I have already won a few DotA games with this mouse. It has not let me down yet. Haha. But other than games, it is very handy in doing everything else. It is operated by a laser pointer as well as having many additional buttons on it for easy use. You can adjust the sensitivity on the spot on the mouse. You can also configre different profiles for the mouse when you open different games. It has been a fantastic experience so far. To many more victories with my new mouse!

Exams coming soon, so what should I do?

Everyone knows that exams are coming soon. But not everyone has started studying, that includes me.

I should do an exam countdown...

I have exactly 19 days to my first exam! Ahh...not ready not ready.

My first paper is Investments. I should be confident in this subject because I have studied it last summer already. But for some reason, I don't feel confident at all doing this exam. Instead of studying, I have been playing alot of games lately, and that includes DotA and watching movies. Furthermore, this coming Saturday I am going to prepare for a presentation on Monday because I am going to present in front of Econometrics lecture! We got top 4 out of 104 projects! Yea!

Do you know how to make a presentation interesting? My whole mind is on it now.

Exams are going to kill me.

The UBS Finals

Thank you to all those who supported us.

The UBS Finals was a truly memorable event. We worked reallyhard to get to where we were, and it is good to see so many like minded people there around us. It was in the UBS offices in Melbourne on Exhibition Street. There were 4 teams that went to the final, including us. The UBS experience has been nothing short of really fun as this is our third time actually joining the competition.

From first year, we got the Best First Year team totally by accident.
From second year, where we worked really hard and yet we did not win.
To the current third year, where we worked with just one goal in mind and got to top 4.

Our presentation to the judges was really fun. We got to meet the guy who put together all of the case studies for us all these 3 years. His name is Nick Alexander, a guy who focuses alot on the details. When we walked into the presentation room, we saw that he already had a calculator ready, and we thought whoa this guy must be quite serious.

Nevertheless, we managed to answer most of his questions. However, we made a mistake in our presentation and that cost us. In the end, we didn't win because of that mistake. But we still really enjoyed it alot!

I will surely remember this experience as the prime one in my university years. One day, just maybe, I will be an investment banker like them too. I truly find it enjoyable and I guess I am also a very driven person and like to work, so I guess I will find that kind of job fun. But to many other people, I know that it won't be.

If I am still around in uni next year, I will definitely give it a go again. However, this time my current team would've gone because half of them will finish uni by the end of this year. We will see, we will see. God bless those who are currently searching for their passion, God bless those who have already found their passion.

Economic joke competition

There is this joke competition that I entered that has to do with Economics. And for those who enter you get a bonus mark for assignment and the top 3 jokes would win $20 each. So I figured why not just join and see how I go. Since I had some previous experiences with comedy too. This is what I submitted:

What they would teach in Economics dating school

A boy who is helpless at dating needs some help so he went to a dating school and this is what his dating guru taught him about giving gifts to his girls:

Utility is about making yourself happy,
At the same time doing it gladly,
Make sure you get your preferences right,
But of course with your incoming expenditure on girls in sight.

If you prefer Betty to Claire and Claire to Addy,
Make sure you prefer Betty to Addy as it is called transitivity,
Unless you have lexographic preferences,
The utility curve can easily graph your choices.

If you know her demand functions,
You should anticipate her reaction,
Always give her something above her expectations,
As you have already solved her utility maximisation by her Lagrange functions.

If it can’t be explained by economic reasoning,
It proves that unpredictable are her feelings,
The best response function is to continue giving,
As long as she prefers more to less your relationship should continue blooming.

1 Awesome Week

Well done Team Deal or No Deal!

for successfully completing the UBS Investment Banking challenge 2009...

I think this is the greatest team so far of all my 3 years in university.

Some of us are having mixed feelings now.

Happy for the fact that we have finished a 63 page report in a matter of 6 days, impressed UBS judges who probably have seen so many great presentations in their life, and that we can finally have some decent sleep.

Sad for the fact that it is all over now... But MAYBE NOT. If we do make it to the finals...

Whether we win or not, I believe we have had some success so far already. I miss the good times while in the competition:
- Making new friends in Frank Tate whilst talking to them and getting distracted from our competition even though we know we are running our of time
- Walking down Swanston Street to send Kerri home at 4 something am when practically the whole street belongs to us only
- Our good time brainstorming ideas together and coming up with such a creative deal structure

And last but not least, our friendship that has been built in the course of this competition.

Definitely for sure, even though none of us eventually go into investment banking, we are as good as investment bankers already!!

One beer to Kerri, Kelvin, Kim Chew and last but not least, all who helped us out in the competition (you know who you are! =D)

Sentimental times

I don't know why but lately I am having so many thoughts in my head about life. Why is that so? I don't really know myself.

Life itself is a game. Have you thought of it that way?

Why is it that we can understand so many things around us, we are university graduates. But we can't seem to figure out life? Is life really that difficult?

I see some people go through life brought up perfectly by their parents. Their parents also spent so much money on them. Yet they fail in life. Why?

Do you know what it means to live life?

If you were gone tomorrow, would anybody miss you?

If you were gone tomorrow, would your life have made an impact on this world?

When was the last time you asked yourself, what did you do for your country instead of what your country did for you?

Do you appreciate where you came from? The humble beginnings of where you started out?

If someone asked you why are you living, what would your answer be?

If everyone else walks pass a beggar at the side of the road and no one else helps, would you be willing to stop, turn around, walk back to the beggar and give some money?

When was the last time you did a favour for a friend without expecting anything in return, honestly?

Do you really believe this world could be a better place? Or you didn't care at all?

These are some of the questions that are going in my head at the moment, of course, I don't have the answer to all of them. But I don't know why I like to think alot. Maybe there is just too much imagination in my head. Or I am just a thinker.

But no matter what, may God bless your week ahead and may you live a worthwhile life.

UBS Investment Banking competition 2009 has begun and so has sleepless nights

For some of you who didn't know, I joined the UBS Invesment Banking compeition 2009. It is basically a week's event where for 7 days you don't sleep (sort of) and prepare a case study for presentation to real bankers. They evaluate your presentation and the best 4 teams go to the campus final. The winner of the campus final goes to the national final. And if you are lucky and win, you win the cash prize of $5000. Woohoo!

So far, I have had one sleepless night. Oh no, and I am already feeling tired. How do I stay up all night? One reason is that I have my close friends around me so we talk to each other the whole time and none of us can fall asleep. Another reason is that I drink energy drinks giving me the oomph to go on for the whole night. And last but not least, God has been with me. I think our team this year is great, we have Kelvin, Kim Chew, Kerri and myself. 3 K's and 1 J. Sounds like a winning combo to me.

Wish us luck, in making our presentation look nice and coming up with good points. I will surely remember this competition in the future as one of the most challenging ones during my uni life. Hope all my readers are having a good week ahead, just like me too. =)