Spiders and mice

Spider drawings as payments!
- this article is super funny.

I saw a mouse in union house basement today while mugging last minute for my afternoon paper today! Quite cute in fact, if i wasn't nervous for my paper, might have sat and just waited to take photographic evidence of the cleanliness in union =p


***
My papers today. Let's not talk about how 'fun' having 2 papers on the same day can be.

Fear of not being able to wake = looking for a friend's place (which is close to the exam hall) to stay over.

While that was successful, turned out I failed to get a good night's rest anyway. I wonder if it was the anxiety of the papers.

Apparently, studying too much can cause me to label the dream world as a 'perfect' world, and the current world as 'imperfect' world.

Here's what i wrote when i woke up:

In the perfect world, I was not a badminton club member so that I could play against non club members. (compete against small kid! what a bully i was in my dream)

In the perfect world, kids stopped crying when i spoke to them. (on the contrary, i always get frowns and signs of violence from Cheryl {pastor's kid} whenever i say hi to her *sob*)

**

signs of nervousness - arm shaking and getting slightly numbed in the midst of exams

**

If i fail my actuarial papers, maybe it won't be too bad. I already have my 3 300 subjects. I could take finance papers instead and even get a double major! *always look on the 'bright' side of life*

maths.

Reverse Psychology?

I think the idea of having to mug is having adverse effects on me. With most people starting their exams already, mugging alone in the cold (which is good in this hot weather now) lifeless brownless (name of the library btw) basement has simply turned me off now.

Skipped a day of going alone from 9 am till 7pm to the library today (i cant believe i even went at 840am yesterday!)..

What I ended up doing:

1) finishing a whole series of anime - hitohira
2) sweat in my warm room when i could have been enjoying the cold in that lonely room
3) eating non stop (not that it doesn't happen in the basement)
4) ultimately trying to figure out the difference between joint density function and joint life density function. (for my last exam~ too many formulas~!)

I need my first exam to wake me up.
-back to attempts at understanding contingencies ..

Right in mind, right in life

When you have a right picture in mind, you usually can get it right in life, or at least get it in the right direction.

what mental picture do you have about the christian faith in the mind and brain?

- living by rules, doing enough right things?

Paul's picture based on the book of Galatians.

Christians are people who
- are free as the Children of God
- whose faith are expressed in love
- have freedom to serve others in love
- turn from sin to guarding this freedom.

Some practical ways include the way we love each other as a response to God's love.

- listening to their issues and needs
- the way we speak WITH and ABOUT each other.. [personally, i think this is one of the more important things. Knowing when to speak and when NOT to speak. It's always my weakness]

***

Indeed, what mental picture do I have? I don't think mine is clear at all! No wonder I struggle even when studying. I used to be super rigid in studies as well. Like, I MUST finish one chapter tonight.. then find that I can't.. and just leave it at that.. But now.. I hardly even plan! hai. It'll be unrealistic to finish Corporate Finance by tomorrow.. Bah.

***

Forgiveness:

Forgiveness is really an offensive idea. Frankly, I never really thought about it that way, though I've heard about it many times.


It's like when we've done something wrong, we often don't want to admit it when we can't fix it. It's just offensive when I have to rely on the grace of someone else to forgive me for my mistake and help me through the redemption. It's admitting that we are powerless.

This is just so humanistic. To want to remain in control despite our inability to do so. That is probably one of the reason why people find it hard to commit their lives to God I guess.

It is also probably one of the reason why I have yet to commit my entire life to God as well. But is there something such as committing half my life to God? This selfish creature wants options, wants the option to do her own will.

But why remain in this limited world when there is a greater world after this has faded? That's why we need to have this right picture in our mind, to have the right perspective in life, to look forward to what is beyond.

***

shall force myself to sleep early after these two days of slacking. it's time to start mugging.

BORED

When I have no new anime episodes to stream from, I get super bored with the internet and stone my way through. =x

Thats what happened tonight.

PLUS.

i opened the theme hospital folder. GGness.

What am I doing in the middle of exams? My last chance at redeeming myself. busted.

Hunger

Spent the past hour or so looking for entertaining pictures of the idea of hunger. Apparently even the world wide web failed to capture this image as all I get are images of STARVATION of people in Africa.



**

Somehow, I've been getting hungry very easily during this exam period. Not sure how I should improve my eating habits to not feel so worn out.

**

While the title for this week's sermon was 'depression', i guess 'hunger' does link to it as well. Happened to read through someone else' blog and realised it spoke of the same psalm that we did in church today. Psalm 42

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God"

While the body requires physical food, I should not neglect its spiritual food either. The extreme hunger pangs i'm feeling now should serve as a good reminder for this.

Happy 7-11 day.. a MINUTE too late..

When you mug in an enclosed area with the 4 walls for 10 hours straight for several days, u start to lose track of time..

Today, a year ago, i 'swore' to take every opportunity to exploit the free slurpee given out by 7-11.

Unfortunately, the toil of examinations preparations have fallen and pushed this 'important' date out of my mind. As they say, out of sight, out of mind.

Attempting to make the most of things, at 1055pm when i remembered, we rushed to the nearest 7-11.. only to be disappointed by "sorry, you are a minute too late"~~!!!!

Darn.

Still, there are perks of staying the ballieu library till late..

don't ever forget your forever friendly librarians' announcements:

"the library would like to remind patrons that the library is a silent study area. If you do need to discuss, we do have a room available. It's called "the outside". Thank you!"

More bendy stuff

Took this picture sometime ago. a challenge shout out to everyone out there!! =p Maybe I should do a step by step video and post it up. One day after the exams, i hope to find someone 'on' enough to do such silly things with me..


* i realise the source of stressness comes from coursemates who know their stuff and i don't. I bet even the first years know more than me =x darn. I hope none of my potential employers read this post.

* Gave up wushu today to attempt to study but halfway stomach felt uncomfortable and that ruined the whole day =x darn. only completed like AS unit 7 - part of it and part of unit 2? HAI. Tomorrow shall aim to at least finish a few more tutorials than that! PLUS complete EVERY non-excel tutorial question~! GLM here I come~!! =x

* revision:

P2X3 = E(X) + a1(X2-E(X)) + a2(X1-E(X))

where


E((X3-P2X3)^2) = gamma(0) - a`(gamma(h)vector)

Pardon the ugly notations. I actually wasted at least 10 mins of my sleeping time to type it out on microsoft word but i'm not sure if it can be seen here..

* was reading slightly on some investor guide earlier and have to agree with the author who wrote on how unreasonable investors are forcing the governments to take up the bad risk for them and getting them to guarantee their market linked investments~ In the good times the Investors are reaping their own rewards yet wanting government to take up the bad risk when the only reason why they get good returns is because of their agreement to take up this bad risk! (for those who don't understand, think or wiki Risk return theory)

* it's times like these that make me see how everything is linked. I'm actually happy despite the exam time knitness that I took up corporate finance. At least I have more connectivity with the real business world as opposed to just mugging and staring at numbers all day long. MIF (Models for insurance and finance) would help me in my Actuarial Statistics subject though.. Hmm.

Elbow link

More randomness. Try this @ home! As you can see, my elbows are touching each other.. =p See if you can do it too! More silly stunts that some people can't do coming up next!


*feeling stressed now. Madness! 4 subjects to cram in 14 days.. and counting down.. more like 13 days in 9 mins time.. and i don't have the mood for it??!~~!!@?? Freak. Must I give up my weekly wushu trainings? I think for the sake of graduating in December.. I might just have to. Remember my earlier statement about the social improvement .. it's time to withdraw from that and suffer from Isolation. No such thing as balance now. It's EXTREME! (those who watch Kateyo Hitman Reborn should get this..)

Last day in the University of Melbourne!!

Guess who's the tutor?

I can't believe I lost my pencil case on my last day of uni! How careless can I get? Then again, must have been distracted thinking of taking Pictures with my lecturers/tutors =p

Shall withhold the pix first though. Take a guess who is the tutor =p And give reasons for it.. Apparently when I said it's obvious.. it wasn't THAT obvious to some of my friends. Haha. (reveal the answer through other pix later)


Learnt more about the subprime crisis today:
Background:
- Increasing amounts of housing loans by US banks was being packaged as Risk free securities to Investors (from US$1Trillion's worth to US$3Trillion within 30 years)
- So a rapid increase in US home prices led to a significant decline in housing affordability
- Also, the earning capability of borrowers of such housing loans was insufficient to repay the loans.
the events..
- Thus this meant that the risk of lending to these borrowers increased, and to deal with this risk, default rates (or interest @ which money was being lent at) increased, leading to a collapse in housing prices as banks took action to reclaim the houses - which in turn meant there was a surplus of houses in the market. Following the supply and demand graph, excess supply means a drop in prices. =p
- As a result, the previously mentioned 'risk free' securities are no longer risk free. The reason for the AIG (American International Group) collapse was because AIG had taken up insuring against the default of such 'risk free' securities. The amount of securities that AIG had claims on was so huge that AIG just collapsed into Bankruptcy!
- Now credit risk is at a maximum and probably still rising with volatility at elevated levels and equity market fallen from their peak (thus the many injections by all governments around the world)
The guest speaker today presenting this material was speaking so fast we all wondered if he needed to breathe! But still.. Amazing stuff =D