It’s been almost 1.5 years. I could still remember that day vividly, I was standing in my office where I was part-timing in, when my colleague ran to me waving a piece of paper that I never thought would obsess me until today. It was a fax from my mother, of my acceptance letter into California Institute of Technology, my dream university, where I planned on doing Aeronautical Engineering. It was definitely one of the happiest moments of my life. All I’ve been working for has been distilled and printed black and white onto that paper. It was my trophy. I felt like I have succeeded in life and everything else would just fall into place, but of course I was too naive.

My parents said no to me. They don’t want me to go Caltech. No matter how they tried to tell me, based on their belief, that the Buddhist monks and foretellers see that it’s bad for me to go Caltech, I could see it in their eyes that it is them who do not want me to go. They are the worriers. They are worried that I might get too far from them and start to abandon them, they are worried that I might get too stressed and depressed to try to succeed in a place so far away from home, they are worried that the tuition fee is too expensive and that they would not be able to finance my 3 other younger brother’s education, they are worried that I might get too smart and get kidnapped by the CIA or NASA or UFO. They care too much and I care too much too. I know all that in my heart and I decided that I should pretend that I was ready to let go of Caltech.

It was definitely hard – To try to let go of something you’ve coveted so much, especially after you’ve been given possession of it. Despite that, I decided I should listen to my parents and go to Melbourne University, which acceptance form I happened to stumble upon in my piles of documents I was about to throw away. And to think that until today I am still keeping my Caltech acceptance letter, while my Melbourne University letter has gone missing, is simply ironic.

Melbourne is a great place for me. It has the perfect mix of old and new, the retro and modern, the slow and the fast. I actually really like this place and the people too. I have been really happy, until today. It’s a simple thing, really – what happened today. I simply found out that my classmate has been accepted at PwC as a trainee. But it was a big thing to me. I felt totally humiliated. It was a BIG slap to my face. Since I arrived in Melbourne, I haven’t really had any motivation for anything. I’ve lost my drive to study, to excel, to make friends, to learn new things, to read, to compete – to everything. I felt that after getting into my dream university, things become of no challenge to me. I underestimated my studies, always thinking that I was too smart for Melbourne. I underestimated people, always thinking that I was too smart for them. Of course, my decent results relative to my lack of effort is a pretty subjective proof to me that I was just too smart for this place. But I am so wrong. People have been cruising past me while I was drifting slowly at my own biased perception of the world. And I am only starting my engine now and praying it’s not too late to catch up.

All my life, I’ve always had something to work for, something to achieve. This past year has been a blatant blasphemy towards the 20 years of my life. I’ve been totally aimless and unmotivated. I’ve been too contented with my getting into Caltech. I only realized today that everything I’ve became is my fault for being too contented for getting into Caltech and for thinking that nothing else matters since I am not going Caltech. I am just thwarting my life away as a protest to myself for not standing up for Caltech and instead settle with Melbourne University. But now all those silent rebellions are pointless. I can’t change anything and simply have to move on. I need a new objective and I’ve decided on that: PwC, JP Morgan, E&Y. I don’t want to be lost anymore and I don’t want to waste time looking back and regretting.

I know it’ll still be hard to let go Caltech. After all, I’ve been dreaming of doing Aeronautical there since about 5 years ago. But now I have a new aim, a new objective, a totally new challenge. And from now on, I’m going to make sure everything and everyone in my way will get a deserving fight from me.

To start with, I have moved around so many times this year. I have worked in so many places and have gotten to know so many new friends. The transition into uni life has been pretty intense. I’ve met many different challenges that I believe I have tackled with so much more poise than I would have a year ago.

But more importantly is the bulk of changes that happened to me internally. Many of the philosophies that I have been religiously following have been abandoned, many of bad habits changed and many of my skewed perceptions realigned with reality. I’ve been a much more secure person this year, being more emotionally and psychologically independent from many factors that used to make me feel inferior. I’ve also been thinking about my spirituality and have confidently chosen a path without having anyone or anything, except my experiences and facts, to affect my choice.

I am glad for all these changes for everytime I look back at myself these past 4 years, I often cringe at the recollection of the many embarrassing things I’ve done and I also often regret the many wrongs decisions I’ve made. Then again, they have all taken their tolls and I’ve paid some of them with a price tag I can’t afford to pay again in the future. Mistakes are to be learnt from and there’s been enough mistakes I’ve done to remind myself not to repeat any of them.

I guess the only thing that hasn’t changed at all is my fear of commitment, something I need to consider resolving for the coming year. It’s been a very scary thing for me to jump into a committed relationship, whether it’s personal or professional. I have always had that option to choose, and that’s why everytime I was about to make promises and sign contracts and gesture vows, I seem to have an immediate split-second flash of all the bad things that could happen if I were to jump into that bond, that binding contract. It’s a paranoia that I’ve been living with and it’s the one thing I need to live without right now.

Apart from than my fear of commitment being high on my 2009 resolution list, I have several other things that I would like to resolve in 2009. These are, I guess, my bucket list – things that, though small, are important to me personally (not in any order of merit):

• Be affiliated to a club or organization.
• Watch more concerts, musicals and arts show.
• Take a picture standing on a very high cliff by the ocean.
• Pick my guitar up again.
• Exercise even more regularly.
• Go windsurfing, bungee-jumping, parachuting.
• Get a dog.
• Move into a better apartment.
• Earn more money.
• Get a scholarship again.
• Watch Wicked the Musical again!
• Know 200 new people.
• Find the perfect Tomyum soup.
• Savour many more mocha affogati.
• Write a song.
• Call my folks every Sunday.
• Drink responsibly.
• Bowl more strikes.
• Get a six-pack.
• Do my laundry regularly.
• Learn to cook more dishes.
• Read the paper regularly.
• Find the perfect kebab (apart from my current favorite).
• Keep the kitchen clean.
• Find ONE REAL hobby.
• Crash a party.
• Boycott a lecture.
• Update my blogs regularly.
• Stop whining.
• Less swearing especially at girls or in front of girls.
• Investigate the 2012 prophecy.
• Go diving and take an underwater picture.
• Be less crude.
• Wash my shoes.
• Make friends with total strangers in random places.
• Pack 10 more kg of muscle.
• Live offline more than online.
• Reduce dependency on Facebook.
• Go camping and hiking.
• Read good books.
• Compile a playlist of good oldies.

Yeah. That’s the list and I don’t think that’s exhaustive at all. There’ll be many more resolutions along the way. After all you don’t only make resolutions once a year. I hope that I can accomplish at least 75% of the above-listed. Happy New Year Ricky! Be good this year!

Some more videos from this link http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/the-latest-in-recession-pop/

I tried to find the story transcript online, but I think it’s still inaccessible, but here’s the video link.

Made to Order

Gone are the days when patients need to wait years for organ donors to donate suitable organs to save their lives. Our scientists have found a way to engineer a completely functional organ using the cells of the patient. Not only will this shorten the waiting time for organs, physicians will face less risk of organ rejection as the cells of the organs itself are made from the patients’ cells. This breakthrough will revolutionize the way we can save lives.

Basically, the video highlighted two methods of growing these organs to supply the ever-increasing demand of organ transplant. The first method is to build the organs by growing cells on an organ scaffold. Hence, the basic components of this method are an organ scaffold from either a dead human or a pig and some cells from the patient needing the transplant. You may think that the idea is crazy, growing your cells on organ scaffold obtained from a corpse or an animal and transplanting them back into your body. But wait until you hear the second method developed by Esmail Zanjani of University of Nevada. What this scientist is doing is manipulating the genetic codes of a sheep that it matches that of the patient and then growing the organs in sheep. He basically, did a surgery on a pregnant sheep and injects the bone marrow of the patients into the sheep fetus so that the gene code of the sheep matches that of the patient. Then we wait. Let the sheep grows up to a certain age and then we can harvest its organs and transplant them into the patient in need. It is amazing I must admit. But what is the implications of that experiment on our moral and ethics? We are fundamentally creating a new human-animal hybrid through this process. Zanjani may only clone the sheep so that it has 15% of human cells and that it is still, theoretically, a sheep. The question is when does that sheep becomes human? And does killing a 15%-human creature considered murder?

For the past decade, science has countlessly challenged human ethics in the effort to improve human lives. We have been faced with questions of the ethics of cloning, abortion, manipulation of genes, playing with life and death, playing god. Indeed, we may seem, in a way, like we are trying to outsmart our creator(s) (if you believe in this(these) higher beings). For years, human has tried to play the god card and most of the times, we have stopped ourselves from going over the line (wherever it is). But despite how forbidden that line looks, human’s curiosity will never be backed down by mere conscience or ethics, moreover by a mere idea of faith or god or religion. It seems that curiosity trumps everything else. It is like a need that requires sating, a constant hunger for knowledge, breakthrough, endeavor. Toying with lives, feelings, emotions seems rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. You may inhibit something from happening right here right now, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future or in some other secluded laboratory deep in the forest or in a secret island somewhere – and it’s all for the sake of knowledge.

The problem is that we all know that whatever experiments it is, however unethical things may be, there’s nothing we can do to stop them from happening. You think that frankenstein science of reviving the dead is impossible? You think humanity has done enough to stop such experiment from being carried out? You think we have failed so far? Watch this secret documentary of an experiment in the 1940s.

Human will never stop! Just tell me what you feel after you watched that video! I admit that I was appalled at what they have done to the dog, but at the same time I am amazed at what human is able to do and how far they are willing to go to do things they are not supposed to for the sake of knowledge and probably for the sake of saving lives. The same problem applies to the made-to-order organs. Just imagine, if you can now build your own organ separately, can’t you build a complete human being? Looking at how far we have gone and what we have achieved, I believe that it won’t be long before we can do that! For now, we may be arguing about creating a monster of having a human being inside an animal and the ethics on how to treat these beings, whether or not killing them is considered murder, etc. But in the future, we will be faced with even greater question on the ethics of creation of a complete human being – from scratch. I can already see the headline: Are We God Yet?

Personally, I think that the idea of creating a human-sheep hybrid is sickening and morally unacceptable to the whatever ‘human’ fraction that is embedded within the sheep. But then again, if we could save a perfect and natural human being from death by sacrificing the lives of these ‘lesser human’, is it acceptable? If your loved ones are at the brink of death and you are faced with the option to choose to let the 1:10 human:sheep creature ratio to die instead of your loved ones, which option will you choose? Will you choose to be perfectly conscientious or selfishly and unethically practical? What if you are faced with a 1:2 human:sheep ratio, 1:1 human:sheep ratio? Where is the border between killing a sheep and killing a human being? How do we even know if the sheep is feeling and thinking like human, but confined within the physicality of an animal? What if at 1:10 ratio, the sheep has a human nous, with an animal limitation in speech or expression? Is it human? We really don’t have the answers for these.

And ironically, the only way to answer this question is to tread through the path of the unethical, carrying out unethical experiments on these beings and find out whether or not they are innately human, fractionally human, completely human or a mere animal. The risk treading through this journey is unbelievable. You are risking your morale to exchange for answers. And even more ironically, the catch is that no matter what the answer proves to be, you would have still lost your humanity because the mere idea of experimenting with a creature without knowing whether or not it is right or wrong, is by itself an unethical conduct. It’s the Adam and Eve story. No matter whether the forbidden fruit gives you the knowledge of a god or not, the mere action of picking it off the tree has violated your conscience in obeying the rule imposed.

We have succumbed to temptation once, why not again?

I actually feel so cheated by the Melbourne Model that I am in right now. It feels like IB in ACS all over again because this is also the first year the university is offering Melbourne Model and I am sort of in a guinea-pig batch, just like when I was in ACS. Basically I am just disappointed with the lack of course planning they provide for students. Like last week, I went to the Science Student Centre to be advised about my course transfer and the subjects that are eligible for credit transfer. The supervisor just showed me whatever is on the website, which I have obviously seen through, and tried to refer me to other department to answer my questions. The meeting ended up with me learning nothing new about what I should do for my second semester! And today, I went again to the engineering and commerce student centers to get advised for transferring to the Master of Engineering/ Bachelor of Commerce New Generation Program (what a long name… *wipe sweats) and again they provide me with nothing. One supervisor tried to tell me that the course outline is on the website and tried to find, but couldn’t. At that moment, I gave up my hope on the supervisors and asked them for the courses that I should take (so that I can go home and plan the courses myself). And they told me the third year subjects are all not out yet and that if I want to plan my course I can only do that after I enrol in Bachelor of Commerce next year. WTH. How can I weigh my options properly without having a clear description of what subjects I am going to do for the next 2 years?! I was appalled by the level of incompetence.

So now I am faced with 3 options (I did all the research for all these btw):

1. New Generation U.Grad Prog: B.Sc (Mechanical Systems – 3 years) + M.Eng (Mechanical – 2 years) [total 5 years] – currently enrolling in this program
2. New Generation U.Grad Prog: B.Com (Finance – 3 years) + M.Eng (Mechanical – 2 years)
   [total 5 years]
3. Traditional U.Grad Prog: B.Eng (Mechanical Systems – 4 years) + M.Finance (2 years)
   [total 6 years]

Basically, option 1 is definitely out of the question. I want to move out of that program for several reasons:

1. I don’t want to end up with a B.Sc degree. I’d rather get other u.grad degree in different specialization if I were to end up with M.Eng anw.
2. I don’t want to end up with M.Eng without any commerce degree because I want to have a really wide options for my future career. I’m choosy I know.
3. B.Sc is not a professional degree. If I suddenly decide not to continue with Masters, I will end up with rubbish degree and end up becoming a teacher (NOOOOOO…. My future is ruined)

So now I’m ambivalent between 2 and 3. The thing about 3 is that it is going to take 6 years and I will end up with M.Finance which I think has less cool factor compared to M.Eng.

Option 2 seems the best for me. Because it insure me in several ways:

1. If I were to suddenly decide not to do Masters, I still can get a decent job in banking (which is my dream job).
2. I can immediately work after 3 years (because I’ll be more qualified to get commerce-related jobs than if I were a science graduate).
3. I can get M.Eng which will give me more flexibility in choosing my career and also will complement my financial analysis with engineering logic.
4. I can even get M.Fin if I want to.
5. I can do another Masters degree for 1 year so I end up with both M.Eng and that other Masters and it’ll still total up to 6 years (same as option 2).
6. I’ll still be a qualified engineer at the end of the 5 years (if I were to take up the masters)
7. I’ll get more social life in B.Com (sorry engineers and scientists u.grad, you know it’s true)
8. The tuition fee for B.Com is cheaper so in total (I hope) my uni will cost less.

I know it seems that I’ve made up my mind on option 2. It’s just that I am so scared of stepping into the commerce world after 12 years studying full science. I really enjoy commerce though. I dare say I have excelled in commerce subjects (although they are Econs SL and Year 10 Accounting) and I really love it. I think I have done well for Finance this semester too.

The only thing that is really hindering me from changing to B.Com ugrad is my option of transferring to Caltech. My parents have agreed to let me transfer to Caltech if I really want to, but then I really don’t know what I want. I wish they have said that at the start of this year. It would have made my life much easier. Then again, life’s full of twists and turns. But now, I don’t know which path I should turn to. (At least I know I need to turn somewhere!).

The US credit crisis is basically caused by the increasing rate of default and dropping house prices in the US between January 2000 and August 2006 (Keen, 2008).  Global economy is affected by this crisis as US banks issued bonds to raise fund and sold them to global investors, including Australian banks. When the housing bubble burst, the value of these bonds became virtually worthless and this results in losses for the investors holding on to these bonds.

Due to loss of confidence in the bond market, secondary market turns into bear market with increasing illiquidity. On top of that, price discovery becomes increasingly difficult due to the skewed risk assessment on bonds related to the subprime mortgages. Australian banks are also affected, although they have proven to outperform many banks overseas. Government has implemented various policies such as monetary policy to decrease interest rate to improve banks’ solvency.

The sub-prime crisis is attributed to speculators’ overconfidence in the rising prices of US real estate market in the past decade. Lenders did not anticipate the bursting of the housing bubble and were confident they could sell the houses as collateral for any possible defaults from sub-prime borrowers. Consequently, the fall in housing prices eliminates this possibility and this puts banks at higher default risk than expected. As people start to default on their loan, banks are left with debt and investors holding on to bonds related to these mortgages are not getting their repayments.

As banks suffer more and more debt, the bond market becomes cold and the demand for bond decreases. Besides needing fund to hedge risks from possibility of more defaults, banks are not ready to purchase new bonds because investing in bonds is simply too risky now. Banks are reluctant to lend to one another in fear of losing more liquidity and this results in a ‘lock-down’  (O’Shaugnessy, 2008). Bond markets become more illiquid as risk-transfer through bond is simply, for a lack of better word, too risky.

The lack of liquidity in this secondary market results in problems for price discovery in the global bond market. Price discovery, by definition, requires information from supply and demand to determine prices. Due to investors’ loss of confidence in the bond market and therefore, resulting in lack of liquidity, “there’s very little price information out there” according to Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth (Solomon, Fitzpatrick, Enrich, 2008). Aside from the problem with illiquidity, price discovery is also affected by the underestimation of risk on the US sub-prime mortgages. The skewed estimation is again due to overconfidence in US housing market resulting in lenders and insurance providers to underestimate a borrower’s risk (Rosa, 2008), making a mortgage package more affordable. This miscalculation results in difficulty in assessing current housing prices, therefore misrepresentation of global bond prices related to these mortgages, as the supposedly low-risk borrowers turned out to be high-risk (Dapice, 2008). Such distortion in risk valuation also misrepresents the pricing of bonds reflecting the failure of price discovery.

fig 1.1 Source RBA Financial Review 2008

Prior to the start of the crisis around mid 2007, price discovery on the bonds related to the housing mortgages is done partly through assessing demand and supply of CDS (Credit Default Swap), used to hedge default risks arising from the sub-prime market. Demand for CDS reflects risk more accurately as it directly shows the level of uncertainty investors have on their bonds (Chan-Lau and Yoon, 2004). However, due to the sudden surge in defaults and ailing housing prices, many banks that provide the CDS do not have enough capital to cover the insurance payout. On top of that, banks that provide CDS also tried to hedge their risks by purchasing CDS from other banks resulting in a web of relationship no one understands (Gardner, 2008). This problem leads to difficulty in valuing investment on global bonds that are related to CDS as no one knows the value of debts in this market further underscoring the failure of price discovery.
 
The US credit crisis affects Australia in several ways. Firstly, the fallout of the US subprime market results in increasing provisions of bad debts in Australian banks’ portfolios. This directly affects the liquidity of Australian banks as the capital losses in this market limits the funds available to Australian banks (Gardner, 2008). Aside from that, the capital available to Australian banks is also limited due to loss of confidence in the global bond market. Overseas banks start to increase their interest rates, resulting in more expensive borrowing. This interest rate hike is transferred to Australian banks as seen by the increase in interest rates this past year as seen from figure 1.1.

fig 1.2 Source RBA Financial Stability Review 2008

However, the exposure of the US subprime crisis in Australian banks is not as severe as in other countries. This is due to Australian banks’ independence from relying on “trading activities for profits” hence minimizing the loss from the fallout of US housing market (RBA Financial Stability Review, 2008, p. 26). Australian banks’ foreign exposure is also considerably low in the US market as seen in figure 1.2 and also as proven by the ease and confidence of CBA (Commonwealth Bank) in raising $2 billion to take over BankWest during such period of financial crisis (Johnston, 2008; Kirby, 2008).

Despite outperforming most foreign banks, Australian banks still receive considerable injection from the government through various means such as provision of warranty for Australians’ liquidity in banks and interest rate cuts (O’Shaughnessy, 2008) to bolster investors’ optimism in Australian market (Gordon, 2008). This improves solvency in Australian banks and is aimed to increase liquidity in Australian economy.

The fallout of US housing market has definitely raised insurmountable problems worldwide. The resultant of this fallout is the illiquidity in global bond market due to loss of confidence in the market undermining the global capital market. Price discovery is difficult as misrepresentation of risks in the US subprime market paralyzes market’s ability to assess prices of current bonds. The adverse effect of this fallout has also rippled into Australian banks resulting in increasing interest rate as banks refuse to lend to each other in the effort to hedge any risks of insolvency. Despite a crisis of such enormity, Australian banks, with the help of various government injections, are still faring so much better relative to financial institutions overseas.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there”. Those were the most inspiring words I’ve heard from Obama’s victory speech. I really have big hopes for this man and I really believe that he will bring about change.

The last days of the election has forced Obama to put his focus on the economy of the US. But I believe, that he will usher in not only a new refined financial system in the US and the world, but also the reestablishment of a new generation of cultural and racial integration, education and welfare refinement, diplomacy and global peace and don’t forget, a new puppy for the White House!

Change has begun!

Let’s go hunting together.. from a helicopter! And Palin wants to be a President in 8 years!! I can see Belgium from my arse (house). LMAO. Joe the Plumber not your husband right?! LOL.

And here’s a very interesting article on Palin. Note the last line of the article. Hilarious.