let’s see what bright future i can look forward to after a-level. it’s nearly there. i can smell it. not the a-level duh. the holidays after As. i’m gonna have at least an 8 months break before uni starts! what a great lot of time to waste and kill…so let me see what i can do after As. i rmb writing bout my plans after  SPM. was supposed to have a  3-5 months break before starting form 6 or college, but things change. instead i got only a 2 weeks break before coming down south to singapore. had it been good or bad is debatable. but let’s see some items from my previous list and compare that to my current new list for plans after As.

this is my list fr 2 years ago in my old blog of the things i wanna do after SPM. of course all these din materialise

• Study C Programming Language
• Get a job as a Street Cruiser with either Hitz.fm, 8TV Team, Xfresh or Red 104.9
• Learn my Mandarin. Talking, reading and writing.
• Get my driving license. That is if my mom doesn’t allow me to take it after my birthday in April.
• Go on holidays with friends to states in Malaysia and maybe get myself an air ticket to Czech Republic to visit my uncle.

except for C where i learnt a lil of the basics and improving a lil of my mandarin, all the others i din do at all.

now for the things i wanna do after As (not in order of priority):

1) learn my chinese - i’m god damned serious about this. it’s time i finally pick up this one really useful skill that i did not pick up when i was younger. i’ve a strong feeling i’m gonna be in china one day earning my bucks

2) get a bank internship - try try la….i’m gonna study economics/finance in uni anyway, so this would be a good start on how my future job’s gonna be…can gain some experience

3) learn investment - this is quite a handy skill to pick up. learn early then can use my ‘gaji‘ (pay) to start investing in some long term assets that can yield high returns. those bits of finance edu i get from my econs quiz really made me realise the power of compounding interest. start saving early, the money grow faster n more at a later date

4) learn driving - this is the most important thing that i need to pick up coz it’s the most important skill to survive in kl. the inability to drive is like a major handicap for anyone living in kl. it’s such a disgusting feeling all these while going bak for holidays having to rely on people to fetch me around. after 2 years of dilly-dallying around singapore, i can finally learn my driving.

5) holidays - i wanna go backpacking. where? unsure of. wanna visit my uncle in czech republic. he’s been asking me there ever since he went there 2 years ago. well, if i’m gonna study in uk then no use going to visit him now n waste my air ticket to europe; better go later. touring around asean sounds pretty interesting too….anyone interested to join?

yeah. that’s kinda all that i can think of now. let’s see 1 year down the road. see how many of these plans have i completed. it’s gonna be the most exciting time of the life. no more studying for 8 months, the longest study break ever. haha

Everywhere i read, hear, see, smell….it’s just all about people screwing up mid years, doing terribly bad and failing subjects after subjects….people are comparing how good their ‘tikam‘ skills are, how badly they have failed, who’s the best failure, who will be the person with the most number of Us….all sort of funny n weird things to compare….

It’s just mid years! chill out. there’s still the semi-biggie prelims to fight for and also the biggest prezzie to get - the As….so chill out. btw i think it’s kinda stOOpid of the school to make like 80-90% of students fail their exams. i mean like setting super hard papers that is almost impossible to score. like what’s the use of taking an exam without any realistic fighting chance to pass it?

It’s such a joke…the school/teachers set super hard paper only to see all their students fail. now everyone’s demotivated, demoralised…some are inspired to study harder, some will just fade away n not study anymore…..which do u belong to?

crap.

so i’ve just set a new personal record for failing with the worst marks. thanks yea singapore for giving me all my failures in life. i’ve never really failed much except for one stupid public test in primary 3. u shocked the hell out of me when u handed me my first failure in phy in term1 common test. now u gotta do it again albeit in a much more spectacular fashion.

u think i care? so what if i failed? it’s just a stOOpid test. life is not all abt exams. and since when did all the top scorers continue to do well in life? so my friends who are reading this, dun be disheartened. many successful ppl are not top students in their school. it comes in a package, u noe. it’s the mindset, attitude, social skills…..n not paper skills….tat cant bring u far. only as far as securing ur first job.

trust me. it’s just one small test. no big deal. fail or no fail, so what?

when u have hit rock bottom, there’s only one way to go, which is up.

I’m not going to sit here condemning the Government’s decision to increase the retail price of oil in Malaysia. I’m actually half happy and half sad that the Government is doing this.

Half-Happy

The decision to increase the retail price of petroleum and diesel is a brave one. It’s going to be gravely unpopular with the public considering that rising cost of living was a major factor that led to the huge defeat by the ruling coalition.

From a macroeconomic point of view, I’m glad the decision was taken because Malaysia can never continue subsidising fuel. Malaysia is a net oil exporter. It will be a net oil importer in the next few years and its oil reserves is projected to diminish in the next 10 years. World oil prices have increased about 400 percent to roughly US$130 per barrel. The increasing world oil prices have seen the oil subsidies provided by the Malaysian government ballooned from RM19billion to a projected RM55billion this year.

Our whole economy is crippled by the Government’s inability to allocate valuable resources to more important investments for our country’s future growth. And the subsidies provided by the Government have only exemplified the subsidy mentality. Are we experiencing a mini resource curse where countries with natural resources experience slower economic growth?

Half-Sad

I’m actually pessimistic with this decision because the reduction of fuel subsidies will lead to inflation. And the problem with inflation in an economy like Malaysia is more serious as compared to Singapore. In Singapore, wages are continuing to rise due to the labour shortage and as long as the increases in wages are higher than the inflation level, there would not be much of a problem. But the problem with Malaysia is wages are not rising as fast as it ought to be.

This leads to a more serious fundamental problem plaguing our economy – our comparative advantage. We are still stuck in our 1980-90s mentality of attracting low value-added manufacturing FDI. We forget that we do not possess the comparative advantage in labour intensive industries anymore as countries like China and Vietnam open their doors to foreign investors.

This debate can go on for pages on where Malaysia has gone wrong, but I shall not spend time elaborating. There are many factors – corruption, transparency issues, education system, government efficiency etc

The bigger question that we should ask is what the government will do with the savings from the reduction in oil subsidies. In fact many will argue that the government is actually richer than ever before considering that Petronas and other commodities companies are posting record profits thereby contributing significantly more to the Government’s coffers through corporate taxes.

I’m sad at this because the bare fact is we do not know. The money might be used to fund important infrastructure projects or to improve our public transport, both of which will boost our country’s competitiveness and attractiveness as an investment location. Or the money can be wasted on some corruption-laden non-productive projects.

Where are we heading after this?

I was in Raffles Junior College this morning to attend a talk by a Harvard Admission Officer. Some Harvard Alumni member was also present there and together the both of them shared some rather interesting information about Harvard University.

I shall pick out the interesting part.

Harvard College admitted 1656 people last year. Around 27000 people applied to Harvard.

So your chances of entering Harvard = (1656 ÷ 27000) ≈ 0.061333 = 6.13%
Meaning for every 100 applications that Harvard receives, only around 6 people get admitted and the remaining 94 people are rejected.

Okay. That’s grim enough. But that’s not all. Ms Melanie also said international students (non-US citizens) make up around 10% of the intake.

So for international applicants like most of you and me, your chances of being admitted to Harvard = (0.061333 ÷ 10) = 0.0061333 ≈ 0.613%

And that means for every 100 international applicants, less than 1 gets admitted into Harvard.

Of course Harvard can’t admit every international student from the same country right? They need some diversity. The Harvard alumnus was kind to give some vital statistics. Every year around 5 Singaporeans, 4 Chinese, and 5-7 Indians are admitted into Harvard. From Malaysian newspaper report, I know that there is only 1 Malaysian from Kajang that got admitted into Harvard for this coming intake.

So for that sole Malaysian who got into Harvard, he defeated some rather steep odds against the other Malaysians.

His chances (and mine) of entering Harvard = (1 ÷ 27000) ≈ 0.000037037 = 0.0037%

Ok, to be fair, 3 Malaysians were admitted into Harvard the previous year. But the fact still remain, it’s still extremely hard to enter Harvard. Using this statistic of 3 Malaysians, my chances will be (0.0037 x 3) ≈ 0.0111%

There are 5 Singaporeans who got admission into Harvard, so your chances (if you are a Singaporean) of entering is roughly (0.0037 x 5) = 0.0185%

Let’s compare this to buying a 4 digit lottery in the corner gambling shop. Your chances of winning the first prize is [1 ÷ (10 x 10 x 10 x 10)] ≈ 0.0001 = 0.01%

So for me, the prospect of me gaining admission into Harvard is almost close to none. It’s like me buying a 4D number and hoping that I’ll win the first prize when the results are announced.

The Harvard alumnus also said that Singapore has a very disproportionate representation in Harvard. For a nation of around 4million people, the percentage of people being admitted for any single year is around (5 ÷ 4 000 000) ≈ 1.26 x 10-4%

As for China and India, the representation is only around (5 ÷ 1 000 000 000) ≈ 5 x 10-7%

So no wonder Harvard is so famous. It’s famous for rejecting so many people. And those that does gain admission into Harvard, they are rather set for life cause there are just simply too little people with a Harvard degree.

If the chances of me being admitted into Harvard are comparable to that of winning the first prize of a 4D lottery, then should I even consider applying? People say don’t waste your time and money buying the lottery. This is nearly the same thing. Now do you still want to try your luck entering Harvard?

I think I know why it’s hard for me to study….Coz it’s hard for me to concentrate on studying. My mind is always wandering off while I’m doing my reading and doing some practices….Argh damn it….What can I do to fix this problem? And also I hate spending hours everyday studying. So boring!

Anyway, the first week of holidays is official over. It’s now in the 2nd week. This means there is 3 more weeks to go - 3 more weeks of work and play; 3 more weeks to ensure I’m prepared for my Mid-Years.

But I’ve got a feeling this Mid-Year paper is gonna be a killer. I was reading the Straits Times today and there was an article on how Mid-Year and Prelims papers set by Singapore schools are extremely hard, harder than the actual level.

Screw it man….That’s the Singapore educations system. Always trying to distinguish the good from the exceptionally bright, thereby setting the bar higher and higher….

That’s another blog post altogether. I’m gonna write something about the Singapore education system and the stress level that it brings about. And also I’ve been inkling to write a post about quantifying the value of success and failure. Give me some time to pen down my thoughts. Hopefully I can come out with a nice write-up.