Student exchange syndrome

Let's call it the student exchange syndrome...
it's proven that even Tokyo cannot be compared to Singapore....
cos' Tokyo students like Singapore, just like I loved Tokyo... it's the student exchange syndrome at work...

Some people just love to be thrown out of a familiar environment and live with minimal responsibilities for a short period of time....well i think it's probably human nature...

Exams stress are coming again... haven't felt like this since this time last year... Tons of work to be done and I am finding myself thinking of the carefree times in Tokyo...

Reading Freaknomics kindly lent to me by Mark... written by a young revolutionary economist known as Steven Levitt...
1. Teachers and sumo wrestlers are cheats....so that they retain their job
2. Ku Klux Klan and Real Estate agents have something in common...They play to your fears for their gains
3. Legalised Abortion in US has curbed crime.... simply because the criminals are not born in the first place

Controversial but out of the frame thinking...
For playing to your fears... almost all occupations i can think of do that... they claim they are giving a service, but they are playing to your fears for their gains... Your insurance advisor, your lawyer, your house contractor, your car agent, your mechanic.... You don't have the info that they do, and they work it to their advantage...

That's what I wanna be next time.... sell something that people don't know, and make tons of money out of it

Myopic Humans

Going to ramble about some economics now... Human Beings are MYOPIC... not talking about eyes, but about their view of the future... some economist ever said, "In the Long Run, we are all dead" But a lot of us are guilty of not even looking into decisions that would affect us in the near short future...

In Macroecons mid term test, the simplest theory of "Tax cuts now usually mean tax increases in the future or cut in retirement benefits because the Govt will have to balance their budget sooner or later" So you shouldn't be jumping for joy when a politician says "tax cuts", the meaning behind it is "Vote for me, I will pass the next politician a shithole national bank account, and you will suffer in the future"

Am I guilty of that? So far I think I have not... but I think most probably haven't realised how myopic many of my decisions are.... I refused to sign up any scholarships with bonds (Myopic? Wise? my grades weren't wonderful anyway...) I don't know what i want in the future... I just don't want to lose my future freedom/job mobiilty

Study in NUS and put the most hours in the whole world to reach a degree... (Myopic? maybe... it was more of ignorance... didn't know NUS had the longest hours in the world to reach a degree till I was in Japan... Most British Unis give you a Honours in 3years and Masters in 4 years)

Thinking of going back to Japan for Masters.. (Myopic? if they give me 3k a mth without any bonds, I'm better off than working... myopic? yes, I am thinking of my life for 2 years, but not how this trip would benefit me in the long term)

Paper chase... MASTERS... HONOURS... (Myopic? I really don't know.... I don't care about all these, but my future employers do... which incidentally would never be those Ministry of XXXXX, cos' those scholars would be flying Shenzhou VI while i would be taking a lift up the rankings)

If something looks too good to be true, it usually isn't true... that's a golden rule to avoid getting conned... If something looks good in the short term, think long term before giving the nod...

Poison

That's it... McDonalds has officially poisoned our kids... although that has always been the strategy of them... make sure the kids like their stuff... and business would come.

Now they have this ez-link card thingy that allows the kids to do a lot of farni stuff with it...I wonder why the authuorities allowed that anyway, cos all the kids have like a student concession ez-link card and their names can be seen when the card is placed on the sensor of the machine. What does this make? This means every kid in Singapore... or at least all kids studying in Singapore, a member of McDonald's...can earn those loyalty points and stuff... These things spread like plague in a primary school settings. I remember those days where EVERYONE reads dragonball, collects 偶像卡

You know what, I don't think the students get to use their ez-link card to do stuff in the library, public swimming pools, arcade game centers, LAN shops... Maybe Comics Connection can learn something from McDonald's... The other poor fast food chains can only play catch up with Mr Ronald...

I am so going to make sure that my kids don't like McDonald's food next time, though it's going to be difficult if all his friends around him treat McDonald's like god. I never like to impose ideas on people, I think even to my kids next time... He/She can choose whichever school he/she wants to go to, if he's a guy, he says he wanna go RI, then go ahead...(So optimistic that my kid would be smart)but this is one thing I would make sure he knows, McDonald's poisons your mind. They brainwash you into thinking that their stuff is good for you. I'd rather have birthday parties held in parks or some clubhouse.

But then it makes you wonder, do u need authorities approval to use those ez-link stuff... if yes... why McDonald's? Talk about healthy living.... but we are feeding our kids poison

Mid term festival

Ya, if only mid term was mid autumn... haha corny hor...

Looks like the "break" in Japan is really worth it. I did pretty well in 2 of the econs midterm so far... maybe batteries recharged already, but to think of it, i wasn't really working really hard, i thought i was actually lazy in fact. Maybe I have reached the max. point of my LDMR curve, LDMR is just the favourite phrase for lazy people. For the sake of non-econs student, it just means it doesn't mean the more u study, the higher your grade gets. You need a blend of soccer, japanese anime and drama, part time work of subbing anime, play some winning eleven 9, and also spend time to give in to the whims and fancy of your girlfriend, that my friends - is the secret to good grades....

In short, it means you can score even if you are lazy...

And that's why I love the macro econs module I am taking now... Dr Ho's questions are really thinking questions. That means I don't need to study, just bring my brain there and hope that everyone lost their brains haha... puts me more on a level field with the people who seem to be running 800gb hard disk at 15000rpm brains....becos it's goin to be about who has the 4.0Ghz processor....

Yay I can see my posts

Yay after one day of not knowing what to do, I finally can see my own posts liaoz...

Subbing anime is much more harder than I thought, probably typing is so much slower than just talking.

Anyway this is a small world. My primary school "good" friend, Siang Siew, well we are not really good friends, just that we were forever in the same class for 6 years, happened to be a good friend of another friend who went to Japan for a homestay program 8 years back. They live 2 blocks away from each other in Potong Pasir, and ended up in the same University 3000km away in Japan. Through this girl, whom I met up with in Tokyo, I regained contact with Siang Siew....

That's not all. This girl is actually my girlfriend's good friend in primary school... It's such a small world...

Mitsuhiro, my good friend from Japan, who's on exchange in NUS now, lost his handphone and he's pissed, i know what it feels like to lose all the numbers... it just sux...

Trying to find out the name of the catchy tune... if you have been to the cinemas recently, the "chicken little" would dance to the tune "Yaiyahu, Yaiyahi, " and blah blah...

And yes thanx to Mitsuhiro, found out this dance track is called "Dragonstea Din Tei" by a Danish group called O-Zone...