Random Thoughts 2

In 2009 I have enrolled in boxing and piano classes, hoping to get something extraordinary out of the boring life. Ever since I had tried a few attempts of playing my favourite classics "Canon" with my cousin's piano in Gold Coast back in 2005, I couldn't stop thinking of taking a piano class just because of that particular piece of music.

For that reason, everytime I come across the course prospectus I would flip over to the music session looking for entry level of piano classes. Now I have been learning for a year, don't think I have input a lot of efforts although I practiced quite hard in the first few months. After taking a pop music class that requires the players know cords well, I stuck in the bottle neck and going nowhere then.

I am not giving up piano as I've re-enrolled in an advanced classics session, hope this will re-spark my fire.

Boxing is an exciting sport, and the only obstacle to overcome in it is make yourself comfortable and familiar with being beaten! It happens all the time if you are doing it at local boxing gyms, and if you are a male. I have never run into any boxing gym operated by foreigners (many of them are located in HK Island side, i.e. Central, Wan Chai) as the fees are much higher than local ones.

But based on my understanding of their styles, these high class boxing gyms help gym goers to relief pressure and encourage exercise, while teaching martial arts to fight/defense is not their main focus.

So if you want to treat it as a sport and don't want to get hurt, either you punch heavy bags or you go to foreign gyms at a higher cost.

Learning to pose guard properly takes me months and I am still practising this today. You are born to know how to punch with your fists, they are as natural as you know how to scatch with your finger tips. Sure you don't need to take class to master scratching with finger tips, but for punching effectively and efficiently, you better learn it from professional boxers.

Foot work is a commonly neglected move in boxing by layman. I have spent alot of time on foot work drills and even now I am still being criticised for my movements and guard pose by my coaches. With proficient foot work skill, the boxer is likely to dominate the control of the game no matter if he can shoot a powerful jab or not

*****

It is great to see yourself staying in shape with the right amount of weight training and cardio exercise. I noticed I have trimmed down alot ONLY after learning to play boxing, with so many jumping rope warm up and physical training at the end of each class, my body fat has dropped to a level I have ever seen.

Eating right makes me feel extremely good and enables me to appreciate foods in a way I have never experienced before. Right dietary is essential for maintaining wellness and body composition. Have been adapting to more healthy diet with high dietary fibre and low fat intake, now I automatically scan the nutrition labels whenever I pick up the foods in supermarket watching out for what are we bringing home behind the disguised packagings that pretend to be healthy foods.

Sometimes low fat products come with high sugar contents to lure consumers, don't you wonder why soft drinks and fruit juices make people fat easily without adding oil and fat in them?

Before that, I was a big fan of reduced-fat yogurts with fruit flavours. And when I found out these yogurts contain less than 1% of fat but carry 15% of sugar, immediately my brain processed the energy calculations:

A reduced-fat yogurt with fruit flavour

1g fat x 9 = 9kcal
15g sugar x 4 = 60kcal
3g protein x 4 = 12kcal
Total = 81kcal

A low fat yogurt with plain flavour

3g fat x 9 = 27kcal
6g sugar x 4 = 24kcal
3g protein x 4 = 12kcal
Total = 63kcal

See the results?

You won't get punished for the extra 18kcal intake from the fruit flavour yogurt, but this is just an example to show how important is the nutrition label. For those people who wants to lose or control weight, every calories count.

Foods that are loaded with sugar are very evil, but since I monitor what I eat, I can strike a balance on my weekly consumption which evil foods are no longer evil for me as long as they don't account for a good portion of my diet. This is easy when you work out regularly to help you to burn off excessive energy, while your normal daily diet doesn't exceed your basic consumption amount, eating some fat and sweet foods won't put on another pound on you.

Now I am happier at eating ice-creams, cakes, chocolates than before because of the rarity that I only have them once or twice a week, and I don't need to worry about my weight after taking them.

I have noticed that I am more fanatic in coffee recently. Before that I only drink one or two cups a WEEK, but now I may drink as many as 3 cups a DAY and can be even more if the restaurant offers bottomless coffee. This is very interesting that I have changed my diet habbit out of the blue but I strictly watch out for adding non-fat milk in the drink.

In the office I normally pop some chewing gums or sugarfree pastilles into my mouth to resist the feeling of craving for sweets due to lacking of "happy food". But sometimes it is very tempting to me to consider more hard-core snacks such as chocolate and candies that are loaded with sugar and fat, they are meant to make people happy by consuming them.

*****

I remember in my first few job interviews after I joined my present employer, the majority of the positions I sent CV to were related to investment management. Every time when I was questioned by the interviewer that whether it is a rational move for me to consider taking a lower rank role at the new company, I had to persuade them there should be no difference in between the two jobs.

I was bearing a title of Investment Officer while applying for Investment Analyst. In my present working hierarchy, IA is one grade up from IO.

Today I realised that these interviewers might have associated with CIO, Chief Investment Officer, the most senior position within an investment management company and IO should be someone who is very close to CIO.

Haha...

When I entered the workforce freshly out from school, I knew nothing but was very cautious towards office politics. At my level I didn't have to deal with much politics and many colleagues, what I was assigned to do under the corporate finance department was mainly delivery of documents.

Tasks that belong to office assistants.

Female colleagues especially at their learning stages are somehow defensive in the office. They might not know things in the profession more than I did but they just started few months earlier than I did, giving them a first comer's advantage to distribute lower level tasks among the co-workers.

There's nothing more perfect than compared to my situation in my first job.

I knew that is not a good working environment for me and decided to quit.

Until today I still think this is not the profession I truely want to work in. I dislike long working hours, I dislike pretending to be successful when I am not, I dislike to act busy when I can dance my fingers on keyboard and write my blog.

Of coz CFA is the pain in my S. I hate to be asked for reasons not taking CFA exams or have not been chartered. How could I tell them? Because I failed n times at level one? The reason of failing is simply insufficient preparation for exams.

Many people came to me saying without a CFA I would hardly land a job (a decent job?) in the asset menagement/research field, and shall be questioned many times at job interview. To this I agree with their concerns as I actually had these experience.

But I firmly disagree with a person can only succeed in this field with a CFA qualification. That doesn't prove my incapability in doing asset management/treasury/trading/research works etc. CFA holders are not always making correct investment decisions, they just have proved they are capable to take serious exams and pass them.

If without a CFA means I cannot pursue the very professional career in the field, so be it, and I don't care.

I have never said I love this field, I only love money, and this is my ultimate goal for working and spending most of my lifetime sitting in the office 5 days a week!

*****

There are many pros and cons for residing in HK. Let alone the high property prices, to be more precise, what disturbs the HK people most today is not really the prices, it is the high prices leading to the high down payments for a mortgage with a bank.

The low borrowing cost helps to keep the monthly repayment easy to swallow.

Convenience and efficiency are the core values of HK. Many people claims that the living standard is too high, which I don't agree with.

Foods and clothing are cheap and value for money if you are not after very high standard; transportation and utilities are one of the cheapest in the world if they are compared to the developed economies; entertainment expenses are not high, again compared to the similar economies. With the existence of internet, information is as cheap as air where you can get them for free by picking a free newspaper on the street or at the MTR station.

Oil and gas are expensive in HK. Car is not necessity when you are able to catch public transport at cheap cost nearly wherever and whenever you want. Also high maintenance costs for having a car discourage people to own one in such a crowd city.

Anyway, I always want to buy a car despite it will eat into my cash flow.

Nobody would dispute with me on the air pollution in HK, crystal clear sky is a gift from God nowadays.