Holiday Week 2

I was in Boulevard last Saturday. Only had a handful of friends there but the place was real crowded. Also bumped into two people whom I never thought I would. Sunday and Monday were quiet.

Only managed to get 3 hours of sleep on Tuesday night in Nunawading. We were on Burwood Highway's Coles to get stuff for the trip before that. On Wednesday we took off to Mornington Peninsula on a road trip after giving Krispy Kreme (Fountain Gate) a visit for breakfast. We had lunch in La Porchetta and headed to one of the mazes, checking it out but didn't exactly manage to go in. After taking a few pictures from a 200m+ elevation lookout point of the shoreline, we checked in to our accomodation. Pretty lovely place. We spent about 2 hours playing table tennis. Jacuzzi, dinner, some games and booze made the night. Sure was funny to hear friends snoring and sleep talking about things from booze to snowboarding in England.

The next day we checked out and headed to Sorrento. Shopped a little (bought a ring) and had lunch in a fish and chips shop. Then down we went to the beach. Everybody chipped in 10 dollars each to bet our friend to swim about 250m to touch a boat and come back. That spectable sure got some a bit worried, but that made our beach trip. We then headed to some bar and off we went back to Krispy Kreme (again) and to a friend's place in Box Hill for dinner. And home, finally.

And good news. Krispy Kreme has just opened on Collins St on Tuesday!

Holiday Week 1

The first week of the holiday was pretty intense. I only had (including today) two whole days free to myself.

Bad news first: apparently we didn't make it to the next round of The JPMorgan Deal.

Holiday kicked start with a birthday, this time a not-so-intense one, with servings of a cake and a glass of beer. Monday's supposedly time spent in the gym+library ended up in High Point. Poor friend got a ticket from a cheeky patrol car on the way back. On Tuesday Jack Black put up a few laughs in Nacho Libre but the movie as a whole was at best average. Wednesday night was celebrated (after dinner at Yamato) at Lotus on Toorak Rd, a night which was supposed to be of a Salsa theme turned into R&B later. Thursday was a quiet one. Friday got way pissed drunk as I had to finish the whole bowl of Shiraz because I fucked up the cork and the whole bottle turned up a mess. Another Jagger Bomb and a shot of 151 fucked up the whole night instantly. All in maybe 45 minutes. Even sent a text message that I couldn't recall nor decipher. After 4 hours of sleep on the couch I had a shower and had a further 4 hours on bed. Proactiv sure is dodgy: sent me another 2-month supply without me requesting for them.

What I Forgot

The university round of the JPMorgan deal pretty sucked, I reckon. Presentation (on Mon 11/9) was pretty alright, but we kinda faltered in the Q&A part. We did talk when questioned, but we just didn't answer the questions. Mostly. I guess that comes down to too slight a chance of us going through into the next round. But well, at least the whole experience was pretty fun and it made us some new friends =)

Enter Spring

Here I am, less than half sobre, with an empty stomach, giving you folks an update. I'm not broke, but I foresee myself being so. The previous week was filled with sumptuous dining out's. I've tried avoiding clubbing, but when they went to Platform 1, it just seemed I didn't have a choice. My friend needed formal attire, he ended his day empty handed but mine with a Myer shopping bag filled with a shirt and a tie.

It was still less than 2 weeks ago that I got my iPod 4gb Nano, but today I've met the new 8gb Nano's, selling only at a premium of $60. What a surprise. I hate Apple. I don't care if your Fuji or Red Delicious. You pretty fucked up.

I wanna go to the AA ball but I don't think I'll get to sit with my buddies. No point then. Next year possibly. To you people out there who are going, have loadsa fun!

And fellow Melbournians, have a good spring break! If you are interested of going to a Salsa joint on Wed (20th Sept), let me know!

End of Week 7

Friday night was a quiet one. Fatigue had compelled me to hit the 'off' switch early.

Saturday had my JPM teammates over from 4-10PM. We developed our slides and speeches but found that our presentation was rather inadequate. Jackson later came to my place and was successfully pursued to take 2 shots of liquor. He flamed himself though =) We then joined a few other friends in Backpackers' for a few more drinks.

Sunday had my JPM teammates over again for some serious rehearsals. Before starting, though, we had a recursion to Minotaur. After the rehearsal and settlement of conflicts in preference, we ended up in King's Cafe for food.

For now, I just hope that everything goes well for tomorrow's presentation. God bless.

Brief Highlights

Last Saturday's barbeque was fun, but cliques were visible. A few drank and had a bit of chit-chat at the garage after the barbeque, while the majority found the Final Fantasy anime too captivating. We took this opportunity to quietly dress up Fred the birthday boy as a salsa dancer. What followed was extremely hysterical (at least that's what we thought when we were there): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiJ09WKJ93o.

After (literally) years of waiting and comtemplating, I finally got a 4gig iPod Nano! The whole music on-the-go experience got only better when I bought a new pair of Sony "ear-buds" earphones the day after.

Wednesday night had good news for me and my fellow team mates: we got through the JPMorgan heats round in University of Melbourne. We are now the last 10 teams in Melbourne. It is a bit rush though that we have to present our valuation model on Monday evening.

Jonathan (instructor) finally taught us Salsa. It sure was amusing, that when demonstrating to us, he went faster and faster with his steps and looking at him enjoying himself while almost none of us could keep up. Steps and sequences are getting tougher and even with 2-3 new students, I'm still the only guy around. But at least it's good that one of the new students is a really good dancer.

As predicted (see last blog update), I scored 8/10 for Financial Mathematics II.

Today my team participated in an ANZ/SIFE trading competition but, unfortunately, did not even make it to the top 3. Well apparently our hold-and-wait strategy did not work the way we wanted it to. After more work on the JPMorgan presentation, I succeeded in pursuing my friend back to my place to make some baked rice. It was awesome.

It's 1AM on a Friday night and I'm at home. The night may still be young, but it's all good when I'm listening to one of my earliest favourites: Something to Remember (Madonna).

Week 6

Scary to see how fast time flies. It's already Week 6!

Week 6 started with me going to Ray Watson's Statistics lecture and realizing I couldn't grasp a thing he was lecturing. Maybe it's not his fault. My mind's concentration level has deteriorated a fair bit. Takes a damned good and enthusiastic lecturer to keep my attention (salutations to Nilss Olekalns, Marty Rossi, and my Intermediate Micro lecturer I forgot his name).

The rest of the nights were about studying and re-doing Financial Mathematics II tute work to prepare for today's mid-semester exam, which went alright. I should be able to score at least 8/10. It also marked the end of Mark Joshi's lectures, at least for this semester. Last week's Intermediate Macro proved good: 9/10 despite some pissed drinking the night before!

Then it was Street Latin dance class after exam and lunch! I was the only guy around, with 10 other gals participating. The instructor said he was pretty impressed at how I did even though I missed the first class. These sum up as quite some motivation.

Then it was squats (yes, that legs compound workout). Sounds peculiar, but I kinda missed squats. I had 27.5kg on each side of the bar. I was only to be demotivated later to see someone else doing it with a savage 65kg a side.

I then met up with friends at Lygon St's Safeway to get some stuff for the dinner at Rachel's place. Rach's mom was leaving tomorrow. Playing Taboo, I came up with a legendary line to describe a sperm whale: "ejaculation underworld". Stupid and counter-intuitive indeed. Party/dinner ended with a lucky draw. I got a pair of notebooks to go with the top I was wearing. Jap curry with pickles and a tiramisu from Brunetti were among the good food highlights. Boo (Chihuahua + Jack Russell) was with us too. Rach's mom was such a good spot.

(Fucking spammers fuck off, don't fuck with my blog please)