(the picture was saved somewhere from the internet)
Ate satay on Monday night after working with him. Satay is one of my favorite food. Eating while chatting satay at that night made me feel a pang of nostalgia of my childhood. I was really happy that night.
I like eating satay especially in a barbecue party as my mom would buy 200 strings of stay and I could eat up to 30-50 strings alone! I seldom prefer buying from hawkers as I perceive it is too expensive to buy from them!
Being nostalgic of my childhood makes me wonder why could childhood happiness be so pure. Eating satay could make me on cloud nine. Half a day shopping with family could make me exultant. Passing exam with flying colors could make me walk on the air.
But as time passes, I am not sure if I become greedy, or things are abundant, that I seldom have the true happiness anymore. It is not that the smiles hang on my face are fake, but I rarely can feel myself on the seventh heaven. The "happiness" I have is like on the surface on my heart only. Passing exams, getting a new car, buying this and that don't make me feel any extraordinary happy, but just as if I should have that.
After reading Kennysia's blog, I got to know the story behind the two lions at the main entrance of HSBC Headquarter in Statue Square, Hong Kong.
And thus, this morning after breakfast, I went to central to visit the two lions.
The two lions are really huge and prestigious. They were named after the names of the managers in 1923, Stephen and Stitt.
Stitt (Not able to capture the front side of Stephen as a few men were sitting beside it)
"When the 1935 building was to be demolished in 1984 the lions were temporarily moved to Statue Square, opposite. As a mark of the respect the lions were held in, the move to Statue Square, and the move back in 1985, were accompanied by the Chairman and senior management of the Bank and the placement of the lions both temporarily and in their current locations was made only after extensive consultations with feng shui practitioners.
Their 2-year sojourn in Statue Square aside, the lions have only left their positions as guardians of the Des Voeux Road entrance of the Bank once: they were confiscated by the Japanese and sent to Japan to be melted down. Luckily the war ended before this could happen, and the lions were recognised by an American sailor in a dockyard in Osaka in 1945. They were returned a few months later and restored to their original positions in October 1946.
The Hong Kong lions are also called Stephen and Stitt, and the Hong Kong Stephen has bullet or shrapnel scars in its left hind-quarters dating from the fighting in the Battle of Hong Kong. When this pair of lions was used as the model for the pair commissioned for the new UK Headquarters of HSBC in 2002, Zambian-born New Zealand sculptor Mark Kennedy was asked not to reproduce these 'war wounds" in the copies.
They had to earn their own battle-scars" (quoted from Wikipedia)
Going to Hong Kong tomorrow, and just got to know that Hong Kong notes are printed by different banks. Alvin told me their notes are very funny, and I was wondering why it is so. I then guessed that it might be because they don't have a central bank as they are part of China, yet they have their own currencies so the merchant banks get the chances to print the notes.
I then googled about it. They do have their central bank but the central bank sold 10% share to HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China to have the authority to print notes.
I really like the chinese saying that journeying thousand miles is much better than reading thousand rolls.
1. Work is getting more and more interesting, with a bunch of nice colleagues. 2. Exam is around the corner! 43 days to 4th of November! Pass is really a lucrative bonus! 3. Food sampling! Cheap, expensive, classy, low class!! 4. Wish to wind down and get some pleasant getaway after exam!
Have started working for 1.5 months. This is really a totally different kind of life. From a kid with day-long playing, to a student with 18 years of institutionalized education, and now an executive in an insurance firm specializing in actuarial tasks. Couldn't recall how excited or anxious I was when I was about to start schooling. Now, I would say I am enjoying my working life, though I merely have 1-2 hours each day to do my personal stuff.
Hope I can garner more and more actuarial skill and knowledge day by day :)
Initially wanted to watch Step Up 3 last Sunday as it was strongly recommended by Shane. But then when we reached the cineplex, we were attracted by Grown Ups, and we have no regret of choosing it! It is indeed a good movie.
In our life, we often get laid down by our so-called living, lose ourselves in the midst of busyness, try hard not to fall, and finally we are scared of everything. "leave it all on the court in life, too. When the whistle sounds, don’t let yourself have regrets later." is the quote from the movie which impresses me. Sometimes it is really important to wind ourselves down, especially in the things we have not done or have forgotten, for quite some time, not only will this spice us, rejuvenate us when we are worn up, but when the whistle of death sounds, at least we don't regret!
Regarding the previous post about my exploration in other areas, it might come to a halt at this moment as I just got an actuarial offer :) Well, at first I have some misunderstanding with the HR but after clarification with the Deputy General Manager and CFO, I have decided to give myself a try before moving to Enterprise Risk Management (which might be a very long way to go).
I am excited about my new job. Hopefully I can apply what I learned during my internship and my knowledge and skill.
Nonetheless, I am a bit worried as I will be the first staff in the department, I afraid I have too much things to do. There is no second chance to build the first impression, my coming two months will be critical as I will report directly to CFO until my superior coming in in Oct.
Is this the good news that I referred to in the previous blog?
"Is Today Yesterday's Tomorrow, or Is Today Tomorrow's Yesterday?"
What can I say is there are two sides of the same coin, but some might say these two can differentiate if we are optimistic or pessimistic. What do you think?
There are moments we find things boring and routine, and we cannot do anything to it but to find some spice elsewhere.
There are moments we find things blissful and sweet, and all we want to do is just to share them with our loved ones.
There are moments we find things stressing and frustrating, and we cannot help but to weep even among the laughter of the crowd.
There are moments we find things remarkable and glorious, and all we want to do is just to have a break dance to embrace them.
There are moments we finds things sudden and catastrophic, and we cannot do anything but to be caught flabbergasted.
Many say that life is like a roller-coaster ride, being up and down. But I feel that life might not be that "thrilling" or "extreme", as both the going down and up can actually send shivers down our spine. As I come to realize, I think life should be likened to a beach with waves, sometimes it is smashed by the merciless wave, sometimes it is caressed by the soothing wave.
We are to experience different moments in our life, be it the exhilarating, hilarious, mundane, depressing, or sorrowful one. There are to be etched in our memories, deep in the bottom of our hearts, these moments are served as a nostalgia.
I find this long-awaited resolutions to decades of in-fighting kinda amusing (this might only be able to crack jokes among actuaries). Below are the Summary of Societal Control and Items Remaining In Joint Societal Control published by Actuarial Review.
Exam Tools CAS: The BA-35 and TI 30X II calculators SOA: The BA30II and BA II Pkus calculators
Exam Website CAS: Web-notes SOA: Lots of pull-down menus
Data Formats CAS: All data in triangular or parallelogram form, excluding rectangles SOA: All data in rectangular form
Excel Tools CAS: Pivot tables SOA: Solver macro
Job Perks CAS: High-paying job opportunities, Large Professional Designation certificates SOA: Incoherent technobabble, Mechanical pencils that actually work well
Social CAS: Karaoke night SOA: Scrabble champion training camps
Items Remaining In Joint Societal Control Lengthy and effusive PowerPoint presentations Jokes about actuaries being introverted or socially awkward
This is the essay I was required to submit on the past Monday after the Maybank Investment Bank entrance test last week.
Let us start from the definition of the words in the subject. “Clever” means quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; whereas “woman” is defined as an adult female human, and, “man”, adult male human according to Oxford dictionary. The use of “adults” implies that women and men refer to fully grown and developed persons both physically and mentally. Hence, it is clear that the following discussion does not apply to young boy and girls, who do not meet the condition of being an adult.
There can be many measurements on the intelligence of a person. Commonly, we tend to measure the intelligence of a child by looking at his/her talent in music, sports, reading, etc. For students, we tend to measure the level of intelligence based on the exam results, the school activities, leadership skills and so forth. Since we are now discussing the level of intelligence of adults, I suggest that the caliber in career may provide us some insight on the subject topic.
I believe that women and men are born to be equally intelligent, but not in the same perspective. While many claim that it is a gender bias, I believe that men are born to be better in analytical, spatial and logical areas. Many scientific researches have been conducted to measure the intelligence of a person, and it has been proven that in general, men are more capable of enduring the frustrating calculation works and capturing the overview of certain projects or systems. Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers stated early last year that males have a higher intrinsic aptitude in science and engineering. The fact that most engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians are men might be a hint that the result is credible.
As for women, they are born to be better in social ability. It is usually the nature for women to be more caring, tender, and supportive compared to men. They are able to express their care, and lend their shoulders to those who need a listener. This causes women to appear to be more sociable, as it is easier for them to gain trust from others. Besides, women also tend to be more adept than men in language skills. This is embedded in the women’s nature: as they show their care to others, they unconsciously utilize their language skills in expressing their feelings.
However, we cannot overlook other aspects like upbringing, education, instinctual and societal influences as they have a lot to do with the seeming intelligence differences between the two sexes. We cannot deny that a personintelligence level is much affected by these factors as well. The culture, the tradition or the upbringing of a family can determine whether or not the children can shine in the future. In some countries such as China and India, men are the sole bread winner of a family, and women are the housewives taking care of the needs of the family. As such, the little girls were not only infused by their parents that they should not strive as hard as boys, but there are numerous models before them such as their mothers, whose function had clearly demonstrated how they would become in the future.
I think this reasonably explains why the numbers of top female executives, scientists, chefs, artists etc nowadays are not as many as male’s. Women were not given the equal opportunity as those given to men. Men are always trained to lead the family, whereas women are expected to be submissive. Nevertheless, as globalization is taking place, the idea of gender equality has been imbuing the mindset of the mentioned countries gradually, stressing that women should be treated the same as men. If we assume that males and females are equally clever, then the number of successful persons should be equally distributed between these two genders; and we see that it is happening- the number of successful women keeps increasing. Some good exemplars for this are emerging 21st century female prime ministers like Julia Gillard for Australia and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for Philippines, female scientists clad with Noble Prize honor like Chien Shiung-Wu who radically changed scientific views on behavior of nuclear particles and Rosalind Franklin who discovered the crystal structure of DNA, in major corporations, we see top female executives like Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft Foods and Anne Mulcahy, Chairman and CEO of Xerox.
Education plays a pivotal role as well. Back to a hundred years ago, females were not given the same level of education compared to males as well. In contrast, today we see that everyone has the right to receive standard education in almost every country, and in some countries, female students do outperform male students with a great margin. Also, in the business world, many women have proven themselves to be capable to hold important positions in large corporations. Examples of top paid female CEO are Carol Meyrowitz of TJX who earned USD 11.1 million in 2008 and Andrea Jung of Avon Products who took home USD 11.8 million in 2008. While these do not show that women are cleverer, they serve as counter examples to the saying that men are cleverer than women.
Last but not least, self discipline, self assessment, self improvement and emotional intelligence are key determinants of how successful a person is. If a person possesses a learning spirit, humbling oneself in learning as much as possible, success will be realized sooner or later. A person can be born to be extraordinarily clever, but if he/she does not give the best shot in everything he/she does, an ordinary person can definitely do better- with diligence, passion, and endurance. Men and women can both be very resilient; the unforgettable and respectable figures are Stephen Hawking and Wilma Rudolph, for example.
In conclusion, I believe that males and females may outperform each other in certain aspect, but overall they are equally clever. However, there is almost no way we can absolutely quantify the level of intelligence of a person, since most measurements are affected by other known and unknown, as well as dependent factors. Perhaps women are indeed cleverer than men; perhaps it is another way round. However I would say that gender is not a main factor to determine if a person is clever.
All in all, it does not serve the point to argue which gender is cleverer as male and female are created to complement each other.
Yea, this is the essay. Actually I thought of giving up this essay as I feel that they might not appreciate what I really write. But at the end, I did submit as I feel I am obliged to finish the task given.
My writing skill has been deteriorating so do comment, I wish I can improve this essay.
(the picture was saved somewhere from the internet)
