Has wealth changed you?

Dan Brown, when asked this question by an interviewer following his meteoric success with his books.

No. I still get up at 4a.m. to write. And every morning I face a blank page. The characters don't care that I've made money. I have the same friends that I had before, and I'm married to the same wonderful woman. I drive a four year-old Lexus. I don't think about money. I have it, but I'm not drawn to fancy clothes, or yachts, or fancy cars.

Organized Religion

Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage.. An assimilated historical record of man's quest to understand the divine.
- Robert Langdon in Angels and Demons

Dissonance

CLIMBING, OR MY LACK THEREOF

After much reflection, I realised that I was at my happiest in the final year of university. No, the reason was not getting FYP out of the way, nor getting over two traumatic failed relationships. The reason was because I finally fulfilled my dream of living the life of a pro-athlete. I overloaded on academic modules in the earlier semesters with the view of enjoying a lighter load in my final semester, timing it to coincide with the bouldering competition season. The earlier semesters were hell, but as a result I was granted the time to put climbing at the top of my priority list. Priceless.

Banal

One of my favourite columns in The Sunday Times is the Me and My Money feature. The articles typically involve rags-to-riches stories, inspiring ordinary people with 'if-I-can-do-it-so-can-you' anecdotes. These are stories of hard work, financial prudence, fiscal discipline, steely determination and shrewd business sense, revealing much about the myriad of strategies successful people have adopted to rise to the top or escape from the rat race.

But recent features have become increasingly mundane, even to the point of being plain senseless. Are the journalists running out of people to interview? Take this weekend's (18 Nov 2012) feature for example.

I'm a Big Kid now

My manager requested that I let the intern tag along with me while going on my daily rounds. At first I was concerned that she will slow me down. I do, after all, work at a blistering pace. But after a moment's consideration I decided that I was game. It was not too long ago that I was an intern. And I remembered how being brought out of the office and onto the field was a real treat for me back then!

And so she tagged along for the afternoon. Partly for her benefit, I only arranged for 3 inspections that afternoon. I didn't want to inflict mental trauma, you see. The day passed smoothly, but on the drive back to office, I knew the inevitable question was looming. I should know, it used to be one of my favourite questions too. Is this your typical day? Adopting the 'honesty is the best policy' approach, I informed her that a more typical day involves 4-5 inspections. On more busy periods, you can do upwards of 10 cases per day. "My personal record is 12 inspections in 6 hours", I smiled broadly. "What we did today was a walk in the park", I added.

"You have to run so many cases, where do you find the time to type the reports?", she countered. Ah hah. There we have it, the elephant in the room nobody could bring themselves to talk about.

Rich Singaporeans

I read with incredulity a Strait's Times article (dated 2 June, 2012) about how a recent study by BCG has found that one in six Singaporean households are millionaires. That is to say, 17% of Singaporean households have investible assets of US$1million or more. Do note that property and other non-financial assets are excluded from consideration, which means that the number of rich in Singapore can only be more mind-boggling. Is the study credible? I find it such statistics hard to believe.

My eyes were opened not long after embarking on the job.

Mortgage Valuation

Where do you work?

I work in the mortgage valuation department. For the benefit of friends who want to know more, I shall elaborate. 

What is Mortgage Valuation?

When a buyer is interested in buying a property, he will need to approach the bank for a mortgage. Because property transactions are capital intensive, buyers typically only put up 20-40% equity (depending on your credit rating), borrowing the remainder from the bank. 

When the buyer applies for a mortgage, the bank will commission a property valuation firm to conduct a mortgage valuation. The report is used to establish whether the property is worth the value that the buyer is proposing to buy it for. The bank requires it to protect itself in the event that the borrower defaults, i.e. fails to pay up. Should the borrower default, the bank will have to sell the property, and they need to know that if they do sell the property the proceeds can cover the loan. 

Here you might ask, why doesn't the bank just hold onto the property for capital appreciation, while renting it out to derive income in the meantime? The short answer to that is that banks prefer to focus on their core business of banking, not property investment.

Working Life

Come another five days will officially mark the second month since I've been deemed by societal standards to be 'gainfully employed'. More specifically, I'm working in a local property consultancy, in the property valuation department.

If I should have to sum up the past two months of on-the-job training with one word, no word can describe the experience better than 'intense'. Work commitments have been clawing at my personal time. I've fought back valiantly. While I've won a few battles, it seems like the war is going work's way. Training plans are thrown into disarray at a moments' notice, whether is it by a owner insisting on an appointment at 9pm or the over zealous agent asking for a weekend session. 

The upside is that I've really been learning a lot regarding what makes a property worth its valuation, as well as seeing the various types of furnishes and fittings in residential developments. To some extent, I can roughly gauge the price a selected property can fetch on the open market off the back of my head now. The downside is that my climbing standard has dropped drastically, leaving me feeling disenchanted. I also get barely enough sleep. As usual, I've been driving myself hard. I hope my body holds up. If past trends can be any gauge at all, I might just faint again.

Job Hunting Ironies

Ever since Semester 1 of my final year, I've embarked on job hunting. It's not too early to start, I thought. And so, with reference to my earlier blog posts here and here, I became well acquainted with the mixed feelings of eager anticipation and abject dejection.

The whammies came one after another; the crushing body blows dealt by the unforgiving human resource managers didn't let up. Despite an hour long interview which I felt pretty good about, the property investment arm of Henderson Fund Management turned me down. Perhaps 'turned me down' is too kind a phrase to describe what happened. To be more precise, he ignored me. Trust me, indifference hurts more than rejection. He ignored all my emails telling them how I appreciated them taking time out to interview me and of me looking forward to hearing from them soon. He ignored my later emails (sent two weeks later), querying about the muted response. Did they not receive my email? They must be too busy. Perhaps they will get back to me tomorrow? I wouldn't let myself acknowledge the hurtful truth, and so I protected my fragile ego with these comforting delusions. In the end, that tomorrow never came. All my correspondences were sucked into their human resource black hole, never to see the light of day again. Like the dirt in his eyes, I was to be rubbed out and flicked away. The sooner the irritant was cast out the better. Now that I think about it, I can only laugh at myself. How could I allow myself to appear so desperate, so spineless?

BA2012, End of School and Climbing Grad Trip to France

The past few weeks had been a mad rush of meeting project deadlines and preparing for examinations; the final ones (hopefully) of my academic lifespan. In between that, I managed to find time to train for Boulderactive 2012, as well as plan for the France trip. I am rather proud of myself, having arranged for the flight, transport and accommodation impeccably.

This year, I managed to qualify for the finals of Boulderactive. Last year, I slipped off the ending hold for a qualification problem, and that mistake cost me a place in the finals. From time to time, that moment still resurfaces in front of my eyes in an eerie flashback, as if taunting me, laughing at my inability to go back in time to change things. It remains a stark reminder that all that training can just come to a waste with one slip of the hand.

This year, I was determined to not make that same mistake. My secondary school teacher once taught me a Chinese idiom, “The person who falls twice at the same place is the silliest person”. I cannot agree more. I made my attempts count, and thankfully I earned myself a slot in finals of the competitive Open Men’s event. That my efforts paid off were probably chiefly attributed to a targeted approach of improving my weakness - slopers. I jumped off, latched onto and hanged off those dreaded holds like a mad man. I eventually ranked 6^th out of over 50 participants, which I think is a respectable result. With that, I ended my varsity climbing career on a swan song.

Shortly after the event, I was whisked off to France for a bouldering cum climbing trip. It was a dream come true, a pilgrimage of sorts for me - off to Fontainbleu for three weeks and then to Ceuse for another three. Along the way, I quickly learned how to handle a left-hand drive nine-seater minivan on manual transmission. I cruised along expressways and chugged up windy mountain roads. I drove in the dimmest dark and in the densest fog. The vehicle was rocked by violent gusts of winds and pummeled with hail. From being hurled the middle finger and expletives for cutting out a side road too quickly, to driving on the wrong side of the road and almost swerving into a barricade, to finally receiving a thumbs up from a bus driver for reversing into a parallel parking lot along a one lane street seamlessly, I think I’ve grown a lot. All in all, I drove over 2000km around France. For that, I give myself a pat on the back.

Halfway through the trip, I received a sms from the school. After four years of slog, I officially graduated with second upper class honours. Granted, compared to the high flying first class honours, my own results pale in comparison. Given all my other commitments and obligations, I tried to be the best that I can be. A typical person ought to be proud of these accomplishments, yet at the same time, I loathe to rest on my laurels, which leaves me with an awful conflicted feeling of being satisfied, yet hungry for more. It appears that age has not done much for either my wisdom or my sense of self content.

In Fontainbleu I watched old men in their lycra pants and decrepit lace ups walk up the problems I have difficulty starting. They then proceed to leap across boulders, some of them as high as six metres, before hopping onto ground safely. They draw out their cigarettes, chatting about things that only old men can chat about. I stare with my mouth agape.

In Ceuse I watched local Frenchmen warm up on my projects without as much as a huff. The place is truly a gathering of the most committed and passionate climbers. Jonathan Siegriest, Adam Ondra, David Lama and Gabriel Moroni were just some of the more famous climbing personalities we saw there. But the ones that really astounded me, were the everyday climbers you see, who all climbed hard in their own way. They are the unsung heroes. In particular, there was this male French climber, who I think cannot be more than 25 years old. I was working on La Chose 7C, on the Berlin Sector. He came up next to me and floated up Berlin 7C, without even breaking a sweat. He put up the draws, and along the way, they barely clinked at all, revealing the very smooth and controlled way with which he was climbing. After he topped out the climb, he brushed all the holds along his way down. Can you imagine? He is not brushing the holds for himself, but in consideration for the next climber who might come along to try the route. Such is his level of etiquette. He was quiet and humble, barely even drawing any attention to himself. It was a refreshing contrast to climbers (of nationalities I shall not reveal) who like to indulge in obscene levels of showboating. He then rested for a while, before proceeding to crush Galaxy 7C and Makach Walou 7C+ in the same manner. What will ever impede this guy, I wonder. He was finally stopped by a new 9a route (first ascent by David Lama) to the right of Queue de Rat. It was a treat to watch him climbing. I smiled at him as I walked past, hoping to convey all my earnest respect and ardent admiration in the same wordless manner as he.

The trip was awesome. I can’t wait for the next one.

Busting the Biggest Myth of All

I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me; keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought, giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I’m capable of. I believe that somebody knows everything that I do and think, and still love me. I’ve concluded after careful consideration that this person keeping score.. is me. 

- Adam Savage, Co-Host of MythBusters, Reason Rally 2012