eXo’s thoughts on the “super spike” in oil and commodities.

Hypothesis:

High oil and commodity prices are linked and are both due to rampant and unregulated speculation. There’s insufficient real demand to cause historic peaks in prices.

Justification:

World demand for resources has been on an upward trend for years, however, there were no hints of such historic prices in commodities such as gold, oil and food till late 2007/early 2008.

Counter argument:

China and India , being emerging economic juggernauts, are causing a huge strain on the world’s resources, thus there IS real demand behind the historic prices in commodities and oil.

My reasoning: There is no way real demand for resources could , in one year, jump to an extent where it would cause some countries to be on the brink of famine. There were, and still are, no complaints of shortages in places where food can be afforded; the price mechanism was, and is, still working. Even with 3 major rice producing countries banning exports, there were still no signs of rice warehouses running empty. Also, Given the slowdown of the world’s largest economy, there should be a DROP in overall oil demand even if China and India’s fuel demand were to keep rising.

From : http://www.petroleumworld.com/SunOPF07082601.htm

The US uses 25% of global crude oil supplies at present, far ahead of the Chinese and Indian, meaning any immediate slowdown in the US economy will have a far greater effect on the demand side than the number of cars on Chinese roads.

so my life unravels…

well, at least it seems like it will be heading to shit , for now.

i’m going to start “relief teaching” next wednesday, but only to cover teachers on an ad-hoc basis. so its really like, someone go on MC, and i’ll stand in, be the loud clown with a cane for an hour at a time. good point is, i’ll save on all the travelling time, and the money spent on food and transport (8.80 a day mind u!)  Bad point is, this kind of relief teaching is very unreliable, and can be disruptive; they call you at 7.30 am, expect you to be in school by 8am to take over the class . siao right? but the pay is superb. one day’s work, 65 bucks-regardless of how long you stay, or are needed. Of course if they need help around the school, you will have to do it. lol

but the cap-land hr dept likes me so much, they want me to stay on till end of may, or, at least for another week, to help them move stuff and clear stuff. Ok, i work really fast, as opposed to the 4 piles of paper at home that seem to be encroaching on my bed area after overrunning my table. I finished the 1st draft of their hr  handbook(adapted from the existing one) for their india branch in 2 days. Thats with cross referencing with a rival company’s handbook too. LoL I love it when i can play facebook, and obtain record scores on minesweeper and still complain that i have no work to do. lololol

but yes, enough gushing. the issue at hand is actually the fact that NTU has, at this late (relative to uni applications) time , informed me that i am “not eligible for engineering courses.”

WTF.

seriously, u tell me NOW? after all the universities in the WORLD have closed their apps for the fall entry?! (top UNIs close their apps on either 30 Nov or 31st Dec the preceeding year.) So i’m supposed to waste ANOTHER YEAR?! wtf man.

people in kazakhstan,  are already on their 2nd year masters programs at KIMEP; 1 year older and 1 year from their MBA. wtf man.And i’ll be 4 years out of high school and not nearing any degree completion?!  This is a lousy place for a guy to grow up. fuck, have girls in singapore.

The most exasperating thing is, they’re not letting me have the course of my choice, coz of my illness-epilepsy. Honestly, if writing a thesis would be so dangerous, they should have warning labels on university apps. And thats where i feel i am really being played out. There was NO INDICATION in the university application that people with certain medical conditions cannot go for certain courses. If i had been given ample warning, if i had not been given this false hope, then i wouldn’t apply for a uni place locally AT ALL. And what now, they’ll corner me into taking up some other course no one wants to take coz its so late in the application process that no other university will take me?  If that happens, i’m gg to ask them to shove it. shove their app form up their asses so high, they’ll be feeling it in their next meal.

First i was discriminated against by the ministry of education, who conveniently dragged my teaching registration for TWO WHOLE MONTHS before giving me a positive reply after I passed them a memo from my doctor, certifying that i am “fit to teach” . Mind you, i applied in early feb. i got it only 2 weeks ago.

And now this shit. If i can sue them, i tell you now, i will. I don’t CARE if i won’t ever get a place in uni here, i’ll sue them and use the money to go to a uni overseas.  This is a fatal concoction of medical discrimination and  negligence that can easily ruin other people’s future! So you wanna compete on the world stage, and still impose these ridiculous restrictions on medical conditions? If that’s what’s been happening all this while, i think singapore universities deserve their lack lustre rankings. World class my ass.

ok, i have to say it. NOW i am regretting not ACCEPTING the offer to read architecture in NUS. fuck. I need to see my uncle’s wife, a lawyer, to get a professional opinion on this. Its no joke being fucked by someone who’s afraid of  your illness coz they don’t know what exactly it is.  And i thought NTU would be more open to differences as they take in alot of people from overseas. Well, i guess there are differences between differences; everyone’s equal, but some are more equal than others.

decisions

well, there always comes a time when u have to make a decision.

i recieved a call yesterday from moe (finally!) informing me that i was ” Q’ed “. ok. i thought, “heck, at least i’m in the queue!” . Then as the hasty speaker ,who’s voice had a distasteful tone of nonchalance, hinted to end the conversation after spouting no more than 5 lines, it suddenly dawned on me. I didn’t have a clue as to what she was talking about.

“so what does it mean?” i queried.

“um, it means that you can contact the school…” (duh!) “… or the school can contact you..” (-.-”) “… and that you are qualified to teach lah.” squeaked the chirpy voice on the other end of the line.

sounded like some minah .

anyway, I think moe is really sloppy now. and i have 2nd thoughts about going back to “join” the civil service. Actually i just realised, so many of the bosses in capitaland were ex-regulars -.-. seems like dad was right. even my hr boss and the department boss were also previously from the armed forces or ministry of Def.

yeah, except that they THINK its not the civil service , and well, people say its not, but hey, thats where all the “quitters” go ! Gahmen linked coys. damn. Oh well, i’d like to see my pay this 15th , see how the 50c per hour increase affects me.

well, its still lesser than the 65/day that teaching can get u…

but there’s 2 kinds. one is the long term relief teaching where you actually have to teach shit. and the other is the sit ard and nua kind of relief teaching where they call u back at the last moment in the morning to cover some teacher on MC.

yeah, stuck between two familiar slices of pseudo-civil service. the school can’t really be considered as wholly part of the civil service coz of the amount of autonomy the school has within its compound.

but either way, i’ll only be able to work till end may. which my company actually wanted to extend me to…. and my school probably won’t sign me on for anything after that coz of the june hols. by the time i end , i think i’ll only have 3weeks in may and 3 weeks in july to teach.. barring my holiday of course.

and i still haven’tbooked my holiday yet. shit. lol my colleague says i need 1.4k, barring accomodation expenses , for a 2 week stay… but brian said i only need to bring 140 -.- SGD of course, not NT. i think i’ll stay for say 1-2 weeks. not the full 2. coz i might want to drop by hk to visit my mom while she’s there in july, and my cousin who lives there. yeah… if i take cathay pacific.

Air asia ain’t as cheap as i thought damn. and cathay gives you the choice of delaying your return connecting flight for up to 2 weeks! woot! so i can have 2x 2 week holiday in taiwan+hk :p lots of pics to take!

which means i’ll have to spend on….

stuff to buy (say 200sgd)
return airfare (500SGD)
everything in… uh.. thats it lol.

then my dad wants me to help pay for utilities now. -.- tmd.. at 1st say 50 bucks, now come and say 100 . i nearly wanna tell him to F off. i think i’ll just pay him 50 :p say i booked my air ticket, paid in full LOL :X no money roflroflrofl

but seriously, my dad is the most horrible of examples of how to be a dad. can’t communicate, can’t relate… yucks.

a month of work, a lifetime of change (work)

Yeah, a double post tonight, or rather, this morning.

so it has been a month of work, just 2 days ago, the 3rd of april passed without fanfare. Now I just realised, with nothing to work with, no financial commitments, and not much of a long term financial goal to fulfil , its so easy to fall into two polar disparities of work attitudes:

1. Get bored. I’m not exactly dealing with very active work, though it does come in once in a while. but filing and organising with 2-3 years’ worth of data entry to do isn’t exactly exciting.
2. Get complacent. my job isn’t exactly something with a target to fulfil, and the people are very nice. So i can easily get complacent and rest on my laurels , be content with the 7 an hour… Its very very easy as i get alot of autonomy which is something i like .

So yeah, i work @ capitaland now, and i sift through resumes like they’re some sort of garbage coz of the sheer multitude of prospective hires and the number of copies they make for internal distribution to relevant authorities. They want me to stay till end may, and i wanna go on holiday end june/early july. I dunno, should i jump ship and work another place till end june? maybe source for better pay? i dunno. but i agreed to stay on till end april . my prev terms meant that my old contract ended on 2 april. I can finish their mountain of stuff by end april actually. If i work at it. lol I’m already halfway through.

But they need a system overhaul, its not efficient if you have one overloaded hr manager doing all of the interviews and all and having interview details not keyed in as far back as end 2005. Its so good to be able to sift through her comments though. you get to see what kind of people this particular organisation is looking for, what traits are important(communication and confidence!) , and why some people were rejected.

and people are so different when you analyse their work, and you analyse them. This hr manager who hired me is actually my NJ senior. lol she was even from S5B. -.- same bloody combi and class. got to be kidding right? lol coincidence like mad. haha  She’s like, 15 years my senior hahahah lovely when you get to access all confi stuff :X  hahhaha  She’s the kind of person i’d look for in a girlfriend/wife loh.. ok maybe not THAT workaholic in nature, maybe more laid back, someone i can come home to, and still take out to dinner.

maybe thats why i;m still single. hhahaha my exepctations sibeh high… experience sibeh low. looks like i’m a perfect candidate for those matchmaking agencies LOL!

yeah, so another month, and if MOE doesn’t get back to me regarding my application, i will flip. and go look for some other job, instead of waiting out for this stupid relief teaching job. My sec school is RIGHT BESIDE MY HOUSE and i can’t work there coz of red tape. fuck man. my friend got his approved in a month, mine is 2 months and counting… and well, no news . I’ve resolved not to go into the civil service, coz of red tape. I find it VERY stifling. But this teaching thing, i wanna give it a shot. And i wanna see the class through the perspective of my teachers, while my teachers are still around

a month of work, a lifetime of change (life)

sounds very very corny i tell you , but so much has happened in the past one month alone.

I’ve gotten my 1st paycheck of sorts, but its like, not even 700 bucks, so, i’m waiting for next month’s pay, or maybe on the 15th, then i’ll give ppl a treat of sorts.

Today’s my 7th aunt’s birthday, we had a cheesecake from secret recipe, and it was lovely i bought a tub of magnolia ice cream, and my mom indulged us with 2 flavours of ben and jerrys that we haven’t tried before. They’re still in the fridge , for now . MUAHHAAHA :p

Yesterday was the traditional Chinese festival of honouring the dead (qing ming festival). My grandma prepared a feast for the ceremony. yeah, its traditionally a time where we get together. A week ago, on sunday, we went down to the grave proper to pay our respects and “sweep the tomb” which translated directly to chinese would also mean paying respects to our dead and not just literally doing the housekeeping for the grave.

—

Just last week, or rather, the last week of march, which would mean that its the week before last,  the third and last of my 6th aunt’s doggies passed. Quietly,and with little news to the rest of us, she made the decision to put her doggie down. Just as i brought my camera in to take a picture with that lucky dog(it was named lucky ) It came to my 6th aunt’s house on its own, all black,  slightly sickly but so small it could come and go as it wished as it could fit through the holes in my aunt’s front gate

It was so cute, but we weren’t allowed to touch it apart from pet it on the head due to its inherent skin condition. It left a bald patch on his back. It was so cute you’d want to hug him on sight. At that time, my 6th aunt had 2 other dogs, one of which (husky) passed about 3-4 years after lucky appeared, leaving a female (ah-girl) dog and lucky. they chased off rats and even lizards and all… but the house did have a distinct smell, despite the weekly showers that were given by my 7th aunt, who lives with my 6th aunt. Lovely dogs, very loyal , very friendly , but my aunt’s compound was not big enough for them to run around alot .

As lucky grew older, it grew a sort of a white beard. haha like some form of white stubble on its chin. but still, he liked attention , like he never grew up. He was a reminder of my childhood actually. coz i used to go in every weekend when… yeah when i was about 12. So this dog’s had a rather long life actually. but he never grew to more than a metre. Now i wish i hugged it once :’(

He died of rectal cancer and had a cataract in his left eye with another growing steadily in his right.

we spend our life searching for, all the things we really want, but never really knowing what we had. – The Ataris, from the song ” the night the lights went out in NYC”

——

I’ve been putting this off for… nearly a week. ok maybe a few 100 weeks.

yeah, so its been nearly a week since christopher’s b’day.  And for the past few days, I’ve been … torn.

Well, i still can’t say what happened that night, but its only served to spur me on to my next phase of life. Not because i’ve “seen the light” and realised the err in my ways, but rather i’m channelling the sadness into something new. Well, it used to be that i’d channel everything into my computer games which explains my 1k+hours of dota and well… close to 160hours of company of heroes.

So tomorrow i’ll be heading down to tanjong pagar to sign a contract of sorts to work at a company in temasek tower. I have until wednesday to bid farewell to my gaming habit. ok, maybe not wednesday, monday to be safe.

Its only a month long stint, but i hope i’ll be able to get them to extend the contract. I’m there to clear their backlog of hr shit. lol yeah, confidential stuff requiring accuracy, sounds like the SAF to me. I think i made a good impression.

but the thing that bugged me the most today was when the interviewer said “how come your testimonial said ’satisfactory’and not like some other testimonials which say ‘good’ or ‘very good’.”

I replied that i had no idea Lol. maybe i should have said there was only 3 options: poor, satisfactory and outstanding. the latter one needed a written report of what contributed to the ‘outstanding’ grade.

:/ so here i am, listening to john mayer on youtube and being thankful that my 19″ widescreen monitor lets me view youtube on the left,  leaving me with about an A4 sized paper width to blog ,on the right and wondering where i can find that which i have lost nearly a week ago. And another part of me is wondering what exactly it is that i have lost(apart from the obvious). Maybe its the euphoria from getting a job, or maybe its the fact that its just another tool excuse for me to get away from the mess of my mind , my room, and my life.

I have to make a resolve  stand, have some resolve, organise my life , beginning with my room. clear thats behind my door, clear whats on my desk, on my shelves, and pinned on my dirty whiteboard.

Sometimes u look at the mess, then just…. give up without trying. coz you know it will take half a day. and i don’t wake for half a day.

ok, i will wake up earlier. tml i have a lunch appt at tanjong pagar with some  gaming  friends

ode to some real talent

in order of how i found them .

Justincase
a rather old band that was dropped by its record label. but they have quite a few nice songs.
Two worthy mentions are:

• Without you (feat. Michelle branch)
• Owe

Taylor swift
Yeah, she deserves the bold . haha Well, at least. Actually very young and talented singer. Known in singapore only for her hit single Teardrops on my guitar, she actually has quite a few good songs.

of which i like , among others Cold as you , and my favorite (discounting teardrops on my guitar) I’d Lie

I’d Lie is a very interesting song for me, coz i wonder if i’m that kind of guy she’s singing about. Well, apart from the huge coincidence in the birthdate mentioned in the song (i know about 2 other ppl born on the 17th but of different months), I also do like to argue , if the person i am arguing with is… well sufficiently knowledgeable. Well, i guess its just a coincidence, but it just makes me wonder if i’m that clueless guy with that kind of friend just waiting in the wing . I do always say ,”The day i get a girlfriend, it will snow in singapore”

She’s a country singer , and i haven’t heard such nice country songs before.

Tyler Hilton

Another artiste i’d like to mention. I actually heard of him quite a while back coz he had a duet with Bethany Joy Lenz off the One Tree Hill Soundtrack. Its actually a song covered by quite a few people including the corrs and bono, but i still feel Tyler hilton and Bethany Joy Lenz’s version is THE BEST. no doubt about it. Oh yes, forgot to mention the title: When the stars go blue.

I have to thank youtube, but i didn’t know he was the one who appeared in Taylor Swift’s MV of teardrops on my guitar (Not that it mattered…) but he also sang that song that goes “I aint missing you at all… “

Its one of those songs I like, but never hear again after hearing just a small excerpt that lingers in the hallows of your mind. Yeah, Tyler hilton’s Missing you.

i realised that my titles should be tags.

I just watched the pianist ,starring adrian brody, who portrayed a jewish pianist’s miraculous story of survival through the 2nd world war.

Then i watched Deathcab for cutie’s Sarah said, and it made me think. No, it made me realise. Realise whats holding me back.

I nearly shed a tear when that girl, someone i didn’t know, cut herself in exasperation. It was really painful, for me. I couldn’t fathom why, but i could feel the pain of the person who cared for her,cared for her enough to not let her do something like that to herself. And i don’t even know why.

I’m afraid of seeing my loved ones go. suffer.

And i don’t want to not be there when the time comes to send my grandma on her final journey.

I’m just so afraid that I won’t have the chance to say goodbye to her, or that when the time comes, i’ll be somewhere at work or something. I don’t know how i’d handle it actually. I really really don’t know.

but all i know is i’m not handling it well now. I’ve put my whole life on “pause”  hold. its just not going to work like this. And i know it.

But i don’t know how i’m going to “un-pause” it.

my problems seem very trivial.

ok, tml i need to call NJC, and then i need to get a page of the scholarship thing and take it seriously, then i need to go find a job, then worry about what i am going to wear on CNY (uh..2 days away?)

it all seems so trivial to me if i take a step back and compare it with the problems my friends are having.

One broke up coz he couldn’t stand quarrelling with his girl every week when he comes out from training.

another broke up so she wouldn’t go on in that cycle of having her boyfriend leave her and then come back again (for the 3rd or 4th time)

Another just saw to it that his baby was taken care of so he wouldn’t wreck both his and his gf’s life by being irresponsible.

and i’m here fretting about what to wear in 2 days time.

-.- Sometimes I wish I could put things in perspective.

Like chris said : take it easy man….

I’ll sort my life out before the week’s out.

job???

tutor?

or maybe a tuition teacher co-ordinator…

maybe, just maybe…

Do something i won’t be able to do in the future. hahahah thats a start!

there’s just too much “I” in this space. The future beckons, I should start working on it.