in 2 and a half months...

1) The world (or the stock markets, at least) still can't make up its mind whether it wants to go back into a recession or not

2) I turned down an internal opportunity because I realized I might go out of my mind if I took it - it meant more work. It has since gone to my colleague. I'm not sure if I should have took it and brought my career further faster, with infinitely more travelling, but I know then that if I took it, that would have spelled the end of my sanity. Pacing myself is new, but I reckon I can learn it.

3) Have broken my back traipsing around Europe on a marketing trip to see investors - we made a fairly good team hunkering from airport to airport and city to city every day - team meaning my colleague carried the presentations while I decided what cab we took, what meals we ate, and where to dump the extra presentation slides. Now I know Paris Charles de Gaulle has the cheapest Longchamps but the most idiotic taxi drivers and Stockholm's Arlanda has fantastic salmon roe and stuffed moose. Copenhagen, Dublin and Edinburgh airports are but a blur. And London's Terminal 5 VAT desk only opens at 630am.

4) I got my car park amen hallelujah after 20months of waiting. Its reserved parking too so it means no jostling or racing for the limited first come first serve parking. Only catch? Its in the basement. Basement's creepy.

5) And this one's really random but amusing - Forbes Asia did a piece on the Popiah King and to quote them, he managed to "tap into the informal Chinese lending community" for 16,000 dollars. Seriously, thats what tai ee longs are called nowadays???!
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What went down in Europe:-

Got to stay at the Langham for 2 nights

Saw London from the back of a cab (actually same can be said for the other cities too)

The morning walk in the Tuileries was probably a nice highlight of the trip, as was the Goyards

SOmetimes you just can't win, you know?

But sometimes, you can. Getting to a place in life where you get to see this, is winning enough for most of us.

CPO Boy Said

We just took off from KLIA on the KL-SIN shuttle, about 8 hours ago. CPO Boy, lounging across the aisle from my seat, leaned forward and said,

"Someone told me that being an investment banker is like going to heaven without ever having to die."

I retorted,

"Oh God, no. It's more like being able to have airconditioning in hell."

Welcome to June

Used to love June. The school holidays where we could do nothing but cycle around the village. How silly I was to be dreaming of growing up.

Now I'm all 'up' and older, I would give anything for a school holiday again. Heading to Singapore .. again. Makes me wish the island adjacent to our fair nation is Bali (like where my Indonesian colleague went for a coal conference), so I can attend my IATA conference there.

But as they say, what is, is what is. And so I make the dutiful trek down.

The only consolation being I can stay at my home away from home. I have tried Marina Bay Sands, and its impersonal coolness, sometimes loud and tacky (thanks to the Chinese tourists) and definitely touristy vibe is frankly not what a weary person wants to come back to after a long day.

Upps. Late for flight.

OHMAYYYYGODDDDD!

A month since my last post. A lot has happened, I got a job offer, I lost a job offer (well, not lost, but the role substantially changed to something entirely different and I wasn't sure I wanted to 'downgrade' myself). When you have been in investment banking, commercial (or horror upon horrors, SME) banking ain't really your cuppa tea.

I got notified of my bonus, or whatever there is of it, and went on a mental MIA for days as I took out my bonus frustration on quest upon quest of Sims Medieval - at least in the Sims I get Sims coins and wealth when I complete a quest well, I thought sadly, but I killed myself for a year for THIS SORT OF PAYOUT?!

I wasn't the only one, believe me. A certain sector head completely disappeared for days. You see, you have sacrificed, allowed your personal life to deteriorate, friends to dwindle, tempers to shorten, all in the name of chasing the payout, so you tend to take it very badly when the bonus comes out short of expectations. I wasn't the worst hit, I got promoted at least. And given regional coverage. (which means more trips to Europe and USA)

Management is in damage control mode, but although I have the best A class bosses (and I really mean A star, not @$$ class), I can't help but feel they were powerless to do anything in this case. Some idiot traders lost an unfathomable amount of money; the only small hint that anything was wrong was a tiny news paragraph on our bank closing down a certain prop desk in March.

I can technically still buy my sports car, but the tinge of excitement isn't there anymore. Because he bought a house over the weekend, and I'm wetting my pants thinking about the housing payments, although he has told me not to worry about a thing.

But a RM1.8mn house before renovation? OHHHMAYYYYGODDDDD.

Yes, exactly the same reaction when I checked into my bank account from Marina Bay Sands Singapore tonight to see my post-tax bonus amount. Can't wait to move to Ritz Carlton tomorrow. Marina Bay seems really ... pedestrian. We had to queue to check-in, and S has been threatening to tell me what the mainland Chinese that practically haunt that place do in the nice infinity pool at the Skypark. That on its own put me off going to the pool, so we just stuck to Ku De Ta.

what happens when the old becomes the new again?

Just when I thought I could wind down after a Singapore marketing trip last week, I find out I have to go to Jakarta and Bangkok next week. I guess this fully justifies my trip extension in Bangkok to go raid Chatuchak again.

Funny how as you get older, you get fairly set in your tastes and ways and you keep going back to the same places. I have a very specific set of things to do in Bangkok - where I've trekked to every year for the past 3 years to pay homage to Chatuchak, Platinum Mall, the tailor at Amari Watergate and my favourite Thai restaurant.

Similarly if I ever go to Singapore, it will be a beeline to that Singapore seafood restaurant at the Singapore Flyer and Takashimaya's Nespresso for my coffee pods. In Paris, it will be the food hall at Galeries Lafayette, that quirky colorful shop at the base of the Sacre Coeur and the signature Laduree on the Champs Elysees.

So, in that respect, how would you view a possible decision of going back to a familiar place in your career? Arguably, most things are different, but some things will likely be the same. Would you deem it as mere nostalgia, a sure sign that what you actually should be doing is keep moving on and away?

We grow as human beings. I am still too young to have learnt the lesson that sometimes you may grow back into a place which you thought you have outgrown. But I am learning about it, and I hope I will make the right choice when it boils down to crunch time.

There are a lot of things I miss - it's now just making sure I can handle facing the things I don't like which I'm positively sure are still there, in addition to returning to the good that has changed much, and to be (hopefully) instrumental in charting a course that goes nowhere but upwards and onwards.

Or in an oft-quoted wise man's words with almost always a solemn look on his face - "To infinity and beyond"

Good Morning Sunday

It never fails to amaze me how different things can get in 5 years.

5 years ago, a person I never thought would cheat, now suddenly has put some doubts in my mind about his integrity.

5 years ago, a guy who used to hate *with a capital H* going clubbing or for any club events - is now making a living attending those parties.

Few years ago, A and I were seated in the grandstand, equipped with caps and flags in the F1 spirit. This year, I just want to rest and rest ahead of the busy on-the-road schedule again. Yes, Singapore Tues to Thursday - the only saving grace is we have managed to book ourselves the Ritz Carlton instead of dodgy Fullerton and cheap ass looking Swissotel.

*shakes head*

And have I changed for the better?

God only knows.

Waiting for our compensation announcements is what I do now, rather than waiting with bated breath to see whether I got a Distinction or Credit in International Trade and Investments.

If the money's good, I'm allowing myself a "reckless"-type purchase - having rationalized that I don't want to work so hard and make it to my mid-30s and THEN only have a mid-life crisis and spend WAY more money - so might as well buy that sportscar now.

He he he. Cross fingers?

Heading to Bodega for brunch with S on cloudy Sunday morning. Spirits are up, and determined to enjoy the day before the terrible week starts.

Have a good Sunday!

Nusajaya needs bees

The not so sexy part of my job involves travelling long distances to poke around dusty construction sites or view millions of boring scale models which start to look the same by the time you see Semi-D Phase 20 of the n-th housing development.

Avoid such a visit I can't, because its exactly what my job depends upon.

So it was that I found my bleary-eyed self in the back seat of the car in the wee morning hours, clutching a pillow in one hand and a coffee tumbler in the other, bracing myself for a long drive down to Johor.

Besides getting diarrhoea and having to make a pit stop in Pagoh, the journey to Nusajaya was a fairly uneventful one.

The interesting part really, was how much of nothing there was in all those catalytic developments in Nusajaya. While the residential part is slowly coming up, they still remain far out of the average Johorean's price range, and depending on Singaporeans to turn their noses towards this end of the Causeway to sell your houses sounds just a tad bit too high beta for me. If Singaporeans come, they come like bees. How many times have you just seen one bee buzzing around with no hive nearby? To be fair to them, their houses are actually very good and well-designed. If I were working in Singapore, I wouldn't think twice about buying a house in Nusajaya.

In all, the client I accompanied was a bit let down, he had hoped to see people, but all we saw most of the time was land. Clearing land, plantation land, dusty land, undulating land, golf land, land under construction, but seriously very few people.

I pray for my stock coverage sake that those catalytic developments in 2012 do not get derailed by change of government, change of heart, or change of economic winds.

We left at 5, stopped to have tea in Pagoh, and then arrived back in the city by 8pm. If my driver hadn't insisted he wanted to stop for tea and chat with a fellow driver he bumped into whose from an office building near ours in KL, we could have got back earlier. I think he fancies himself a pilot, the way he sped down the highway.

Luckily I was asleep otherwise I might have freaked out.

Lucky my boss wasn't in the car too - the driver might have gotten fired. Boss thinks he drives too fast.