I am convinced that I have supernatural powers; here is what happened a couple of weeks ago. I was home on a weekend having nothing to do, nothing to look forward to and a hungry stomach. Feeling the laziness in my bones, I decided to pay McDonalds.com.sg a visit and ordered myself a nice McWings meal. It was scheduled to come within an hour and I laid on my bed in my room waiting for my meal to arrive.

Surfing the web, watching old episodes of the Simpsons and chatting on MSN, I suddenly felt the need to stand up 30 minutes following my call to the McDonald’s delivery center. I then walked out of my room, opened the door to my apartment and stood there. It must have seemed weird to my housekeeper who walked by and saw me standing there at the door, fervently gazing at the doors of the lifts.

Seconds later, the lifts chimed and its doors separated to reveal the familiar uniform of the McDonald’s deliveryman. I paid, brought the food back and promptly forgotten about how perfect the event turned out and how errie that I chose to stand up and walk to the door at that exact timing.

It must be supernatural.

I’m going to save the cheerleader.

I got myself a Nintendo Wii two weeks ago and now, I’ve bought 15 games, including Wii Fit, pre-ordered the Guitar Hero World Tour set, and had loads of fun and got myself two tired arms. There are many reasons why I chose to buy the Nintendo Wii. One, I thought it would be a great way to spend some of the weekends relaxing with Stella, my friends or alone through silly and enjoyable games. The PS3 and XBox 360 selections were trashed when a major criteria of mine involved a majority of game time with Stella; multiplayer games rule! Another reason, or perhaps the most significant reason, is that, I am a gamer.

Many of my friends do not know the extent of my love for gaming since I displayed none of it in my University days so I guess I’ll share a brief and historical summary of my gaming chronicles today.

I was a poor kid but had parents who are willing to splurge a huge percentage of their income on family welfare. While I used to spend my afternoons flying plastic-bag kites, playing hide-and-seek with neighbors, catching grasshoppers and crawling under drains, I managed to receive my first Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Primary 3 from a relative’s cheaper "lobang" which took away about 30% of my time off breeding grasshopper colonies.

My first game was the original Super Mario Bros (SMB) and since I can only buy a new game on my birthday every year, I played that game for almost an entire year; Completing the game in the fastest timing possible became my challenge. The next game I got was my last NES game. Luckily, it was a 72-in-one. I had elevator action, dig dug, mappy, bomberman and all the famous (some crappy) Nintendo games stored in one cartridge! I managed to complete practically every one of them eventually. Guess what, I still have my original SMB game cartridge and NES system till date.

My Sega 16-bit Megadrive came when I was in Primary 5 as part of a PSLE encouragement tool. Interesting, ain’t it? Other parents would probably not let their kids be engrossed in games during those periods; I guess I was lucky. Road Rash 3, Shining Force, Fist of Fury, and Sonic the Hedgehog, became my afternoon staple as my annual dividends (or new games) started paying out twice a year instead of once as we evolved into a dual-income family.

In Secondary One, I received the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Now, please let me pull you slightly away from the story. If you know my age and the timeframe of which the gaming consoles were purchased, and if you understand the typical console market lifecycle, you would have realized that I have bought these systems at points of time when the markets were either maturing or declining. Thus, every system that I have gotten before the Nintendo Wii, were priced at or below SGD$250, which were pretty reasonable bargains.

Now let’s get back to topic. In Secondary One, I received the best gaming system in my life, the SNES. I was so used to games that involved perpetual running, defeating and killing, and getting through to the next stage that it used to define my entire concept of gaming. Super Mario 3 and International Superstar Soccer were incredible creations, but never had I been plunged so deeply into a story as that of Final Fantasy 6 (FF6), a game that re-defined every bit of my game purchasing criteria. 

Many gamers remember Cloud, Aeris and Tifa of Final Fantasy 7 which was produced for the Sony Playstation, but only a few would recognize the names of Terra, Edgar, Locke and Sabin of FF6. I deeply remembered two scenes.. one where the ground broke away and the villagers started falling into the depths between the cracks and perishing.. the other, a sad moment of reminiscing one’s love on the castletop under the stars.. coupled with the amazing soundtrack.. well, let’s just put it as the two greatest moments that I ever had while playing a video game. Well.. here’s another tear-jerking moment.. go ahead and youtube the rest… it’ll be worth it.

In Secondary Two, the Sony PlayStation, in contrary to my statement of buying a matured product, was at the peak of its popularity. However, my aunt working in Sim Lim Square got me a good deal of $250 for a ‘modified’ console. I think I had almost a hundred games on it, most of which enjoyed only 30 mins of airtime with its fickle owner. Those that had my prolonged attention were games like Metal Gear Solid, Winning Eleven, Suikoden, Gran Turismo and Resident Evil. And again, it was the successor to FF6 that took my breath away: Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy 7. It was such an incredible game with such an wonderful soundtrack, the music toured the world in the theatres of many nations and even spawned a movie, Advent Children; in fact, the music and storyline had always been a huge part of the Final Fantasy series.

Well, this has been a lengthy post; I shall stop here and continue my gaming chronicles in another day. What’s left to narrate would be my adventures with my ‘heavily-zhnged’ computer in the early days of the Internet. Go ahead and guess the games I was crazy about, you’ll probably only get half of them right.

(Part 1 complete)

It’s been getting hard to get to work from my new place in Hillview. There is only one bus that brings me to my destination and it’s one of the most popular bus in the area; by popular, I meant that its route brings people to many important places at 830 am in the morning which can only mean one thing: overcrowding.

Passing by Hwa Chong, Nanyang Girls School, National Junior College, the whole stretch of Orchard Road and Marina, it is inevitable that the amount of standers would exceed the sitters by a ratio of 3:1 and that the journey would take longer due to a higher frequency of pickups. But this is not my complaint.

My complaint is about what I saw on the bus today. There were two empty seats at the back of the bus which were not easily reachable because of a pair of standers who decided to work on their calf muscles and also refused to move to the back of the bus or initiate allowing people through them. It must be infuriating for the "going-to-be-late" passenger-wannabes who wanted to board the bus but could not simply because the standers in the bus have already been packed all the way to the front steps of the bus entrance while spiders build their cobwebs at the back.

The second and more irritating thing I saw today was a plump dark-skinned woman in a tudong taking a nice morning nap on the aisle seat with an empty seat beside her. That’s fine, I thought, until someone asked her if they could move into the seat beside her; she lifted her hands, shook it and went back to sleep.

The seat was not dirty nor was it wet. I was dumbfounded and wanted to give her a piece of my mind but the two empty seats at the back were, in this situation, more relevant to me and I pushed myself through the two calf workers and got myself a seat.

Thank God it’s Friday.

One week update and thoughts:

• Ended many of the weekdays drinking: Balaclava, Pump Room, ICB, China One etc.. hence, it was nice to spend the Saturday and Sunday with the girlfriend sleeping late into the day, shopping, eating at Angus, watching a movie, among other stuff..
• In the midst of planning a golf class with Stella, Ray and Raymond as well, hope it’ll go through; been itching to swing the wood for a long time now
• Checked my expenditures: status, skyrocketing. Paid bills and promised myself to control the monetary outflow
• Going to Sydney for 2 weeks soon: not entirely excited. I guess it’s because everything’s planned out already; there’s no need for any lonelyplaneting or stuff. Will just enjoy myself there with the trainings and all and see how it goes. Also, will keep to promise about monetary outflow there as well
• Want to buy myself the Nintendo Wii.. not sure if this is a right decision. It’s gonna be a huge expense and what if I do not have time to maximise playing time?
• Popped over the SMU library to check out Jorg Dietzel’s book launch. Always wanted to write a book myself and even started development in my NS days but I guess writing a book takes a lot of commitment, time and sacrifices. Not sure if I will be able to do that before I retire

Spending ten days in military service where 30% of our waking time is being used for practical training and the other 70% involves waiting in our rooms, waiting in our garages, waiting in our guns have showed me clearly that our military is one that is disciplined and well-equipped. Why so?

Spending a full six-hour wait for a certain event we thought would happen the next 30 minutes is by no means easy. Imagine yourself in a shirt you wouldn’t wear anywhere, in a place without anything to do; how would you use that 6 hours? If you’ve seen the Panasonic Toughbook advertisement, the monkey filmed was already kicking and shouting within minutes of being left alone. But of course, we are no monkeys. Being a bunch of disciplined lot, we simply took out our chinese chess sets and began a half-day competition filled with 双炮将 and 马后炮 (artillery) strategies ; no monkeying around at all.

The actual exercise which happened in the second week was a little more fulfilling albeit exhausting as well. Having to undergo three days in the field, we knew that it was going to be difficult; however, being reservists, we didn’t have any restrictions on what we can bring out there. So it was not shocking to notice inventories filled with canned lychees, chocolates, coffee cans, and even mango pudding. It’s unimaginable how much we would bring if we would really have to go to war. For me, I’ll probably chuck the whole refrigerator into my bag.

Now that I’m back to my civilian life and starting work next Tuesday, I feel exhausted yet excited at the same time. Exhausted because I averaged less than 4 hours of sleep each day for the last week and excited because I’ll experience the same but in a profiting environment.

I’m really excited about work. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing per se but I guess when the director said that the company does not perform any local projects, I wish that the regional coordination will contain a lot of teamwork, travel and networking opportunities. One thing I’m most afraid of though, is the 1st day at work. Fingers crossed, I hope they are prepared for me because I am in no way prepared for what’s ahead.

Getting back to the subject being a military personnel once again, I think that I do need to train up a little more. Even as I complete my IPPT, I want to better myself the following year and achieve a better running timing. It’s time to put an end to junk food and time for work! Gambatte!

Over the last week, I have confirmed my job acceptance and finally begun my slack life, and it was great! Starting off with a day of relaxation at my house with Stella, Serene, Zhuang and ZQ where we suntanned (or at least, tried to), jacuzzied, and furo bath (in some heated pool in excess of 40 degrees!). Watched 3 horror movies and yup, they were indeed horrible. Apologies to ZQ for not taking up his advice on renting Warlords instead. I think he’d have understood why; he has a bad record of alternatives selections.

Stella and I also had some nice clubbing moments at Zouk with Mitch, Raymond and friends, a fruitful tennis outing at Janice’s place, a movie day at home with Raymond, a poker night with Ronald and Natasha, and a (very very) good meal with Jason, Caline and Asthee. All in all, an incredibly therapeutic week.

This lifestyle cannot last though; I am entirely out of dough. Work needs to start as soon as possible and as I await L.E.K.’s confirmation on my starting date, I’ll have to eat lesser, go out lesser, buy lesser and sleep more. More zero-dollar home "outings" please, my friends?

Remember 2 entries back, I was talking about interviews and job offers, both good and bad sides of it; well, that period of my life has officially come to an end. The job and company that I really wanted, called me in acceptance of my application: I am now an associate in L.E.K. Consulting.

What consulting, some of you may ask. The name L.E.K. must have been really unfamiliar to most of you but in fact, I applied way before they listed themselves on SMU Ontrac. Probably the biggest boutique yet global consulting firm around,  L.E.K. is specialized in economic consulting alongside the usual management and financial work and getting the offer is my "escape" from technology which has haunted me since I was 17 years old. Size wise, L.E.K. Consulting may be no BCG, Bain or Mckinsey but the small international outfit of only 700 has impressed me with their work culture, client list and the potential opportunities to shine. 

I’m really looking forward to work and hoping that I can deliver what I promised. Meanwhile, I am keeping all my friends who are seeking careers or already paving their career paths in my prayers. Lastly, thanks to those who have encouraged me and supported me along the way. I feel really lucky and uncertain whether if I really deserve it, but will do my best in order not to let anyone down.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, Stella.

Thank you, family and relatives.

Thank you, friends.

Thank you, L.E.K.

Well… two days have passed since I last made an entry and what a eventful couple of days it has been: three interviews and three phone calls that had given me an absolute dose of "hot tea or ice tea sir?" experiences.

First the interview (1) at Acc***ture was terrifying. Mr. Lim, if you are reading this, let me now admit to you that I was incredibly intimidated. Although I thought that I was confident enough, you destroyed any optimism I had. I’m not saying that you are not a nice person; I’m just saying that it was a tough interview and because I couldn’t get any positive reaction from you, it seems like everything that I said was rubbish. I was so relieved when you said it was over.

The second interview (2) that day was at S**tchi & S**tchi, a major global advertising firm. It was the most screwed up conversation I ever had. To June and David who were nice enough to invite me over for a discussion, I’m sorry that I did not live up to expectations. I simply wasn’t prepared enough. The past 2 months, I have been preparing cases, doing mathematics and verbal tests, practising my replies to standard interview questions from business leaders… but it was of zero benefit when I was asked the "oh-my-god-it’s-such-a-easy-one" question of "What was your favorite advert and why?" I can’t believe that I even screwed that one up. So, thank you for the opportunity; I really appreciated it and I guess I simply wasn’t good enough.

And then I got a call (1) from Acc***ture on the same day where the HR-in-charge (whom I was acquainted with for about 2 months) told me that the company is offering me the role of an analyst in their SAP group, a role that Zhiqin is currently engaged in. It was one of the most stressful news I can receive, albeit being good news. I had to indicate my acceptance of employment within 5 days, which is next Wednesday. What should I do???

What about L.*.K. Consulting, the company which I really wanted to join, my first priority and career choice? It was more than 2 weeks since they last interviewed me and there was still no news. However, I could do nothing as it was way past office hours and I still had to prepare for the next day’s interview at General El**tric.

So my third interview (3) was at GE as a candidate for its FM programme, a prestigious worldwide programme that grooms its talents into future financial leaders in the company and industry. Was I a finance major? No, but I do have interest in the area. So what happened? Well, the case discussion went well; the interview didn’t. I made a huge mistake by being honest and telling them why I did not return to the bank where I did my Final Year Project with for a permanent position. It was a horrifying career-destroying statement. And when I move on to the stage where we had to do an accounting test, I couldn’t do it. Everyone was delighted at how easy it was; well, it wasn’t easy to me. I guess I learnt two things today. One, the programme is not a finance programme but an accounting one. Two, I sucked at accounting. Hopefully, they would be looking at a FIT of a combination of perseverance, passion, personality and technical abilities. I pray hard that they would. I’m not too sure that I personally would hire someone who couldn’t even balance a simple Balance Sheet accurately though.

So there’s just two more calls (2) that I have not described yet and one is the call I made to L.*.K. Consulting after the interview at GE today. I asked Guna, the recruiting coordinator, about my application and indicated that I had another offer but would turn it down instantly if they would take me. And he said, "In your interviews, we have some positive feedback about you, so give me until Monday to look through all the candidates before we give you an answer".

The other call was made to me by Price*****houseCoopers where I submitted an application for the position of an Associate for the International Assignment Services. I’m not really sure what the job scope entails but I’ll keep the opportunity, just in case. I think it’s quite obvious how badly I want to move away from doing technology work, even though it could be the highest paying offer I will receive.

Sigh… Man, I hope Monday would be a good day for me. L.*.K., rescue me please!

Before I continue my photo updates, I’ll take a break here from the seriousness of it all and share some interesting conversations that have been stuck in my mind since the beginning of my time here in Barcelona.

I have to admit that Rome was visually astounding; the Romans really know how to build them big and grand. The St. Peter’s Church, the Colosseum and the ruins were just the few commercially incredible ones. Other magnificent buildings ‘not worth visiting’ to some people probably can easily become national monuments in any other country. Interesting stories in Rome include: Stella finding us the best ice-cream ever, Douglas and I getting stopped by fake policemen, all of us getting sick of impressivity and craving for normality, Alonso getting creamed by bird poo not once but twice, getting dissed by a tour guide, and more. What I didn’t like about Rome? The crazy number of tourists following those leading flags like rats high on flute music.

Click on photo to access "Barca ~ A trip to Rome"

Tarragona’s not an incredible place at all; Douglas and I just felt like going somewhere on a weekday and it’s less than an hour away. There were a mini-Colosseum, little artifacts of roman ruins, a very scenic beach with rocky cliffs and a nice church, and that’s about it. It was a cool place to go to though, seeing people going through their daily lives in a place that seems to have none. Probably these people would come to SengKang, Singapore and say the same thing about us anyway.

Click on photo to access "Barca ~ A trip to Tarragona"

So Berlin happened the next day after Oktoberfest and it was an utterly beautiful place. World War II may not be a happy thing to think about but the museums, walking tours and concentration camps did inspire me in reflecting on the actions and extremism men are capable of and how a country is able to deal with that past and advance. Kudos to Rita and her Europe guide, we found a couple of nice chill-out areas. One works rather interestingly where you ‘rent’ a wine glass and drink wherever you like in a very homey apartment with sofas and gilded tables. The other sells ice-cream and everything else, from the chairs you are sitting on to the retro-looking toys on the shelf.

Click on photo to access "Barca ~ A trip to Berlin"

Everyone heard of Oktoberfest, including me, but I hadn’t the slightest idea how big it would be. I have thought it would be only a square where people simply drink beer all month long; I was right in that sense but I didn’t know that it would that huge an area! Oktoberfest is not just about drinking but is a complete festival filled with roller-coasters, ferris wheels, haunted mansions, roasted chickens, sausages, music and more!

Stella, Rita and I couldn’t get accomodation there (at last minute, nobody could) and so we booked our tickets to Munich and a subsequent flight to Berlin the morning after. In all, we spent around 4 hours at the festival and had the time of our life. Sleeping at the airport’s cafeteria was one of the strangest thing I did in Europe as well. Never had I slept on a couch and woke up to a crowd of 30 hungry people around me having breakfast.

Click on photo to access "Barca ~ A trip to Munich"