Monthly Archives: July 2009

07/23/09

Of insurance and investments

Recently, I suddenly have the urge to join this insurance/investment scheme. We all have to accept the fact that we will die some day and Insurance isn’t just for our ownselves, but for our family members who may not be able to afford the medical fees or sustainability of their own life after our departure. We are adults and we should be equally responsible.

Thus, I did ask afew friends (who are agents) to recommend me afew plans so that I could do my planning for my finance for the next few years. My reason for not been able to commit to sign with them is because Im still drawing pocket money from my dad (who is the only breadwinner in the family) with his unstable business. Another reason is because I need to understand what Im buying because it will be a financial lockdown if I bought the wrong thing. 1 good example I read from a blogger ahkiat is that 1 of his customer bought an ILP (investment linked policy) for about 2 years and wants to withdraw after seeing that the funds she bought has raised up above her expectation BUT, something she did not realise was there is a penalty fee if you withdraw within 10years of the contract, which is to surrender the 90% of the fund, thus she will only have 10% back.. She’s making a big loss even if she did earn some at the funds. And ofcourse, not all ILPs are crap, you have to know what you want based on your time horizon.

ILP (investment linked policy) consists of 2 things, Investment and term insurance. If you want to find out more, read here. I wont say anymore further because Im not a trained finance adviser, but what I would say is that if you want your money to work for you, you really have to decide whether you want to take some risk to gain higher returns rather than a stable low return.

And some of the websites I read recommended:
– Investment is investment, don’t get it together with insurance. It can be cheaper in long term but how long is your time horizon?

– Life Insurance is to provide security and finance to your loved ones should anything happen to you. Be responsible.

– Upgrade your health shield, don’t get bind down by the limitations from the default garment insurance. Your hospitalization/medical fee is more costly than death, we have to admit it.

Last but not least, dont buy something from your agent just because he’s your friend.. buy things that are practical and useful to you! He will be drawing commission from you and you are the one who will be keeping him alive in future if you sign with him, so be realistic.

07/20/09

NTU SCE/MSE Orientation Camp 2009 (Cosa Nostra)

I participated in an orientation camp last week as a Senior for the new upcoming students.  I didn’t attend this camp last year because I was still in the army (and I anticipated that engineering camp is boring because of the large number of guys compared to girls!)  but this camp proved that I was wrong!  The committee kept the ratio as equal as possible so that during ‘pairing’ games, no individuals will have to team with the same gender!

Other than been a good Senior during the camp, ofcourse I did bring my DSLR to take photos =)  A total of more than 3000 shutters been snapped and memory card was almost finished but thank god I borrowed from Mr Sunny!  Here are some of the things that we do during the camp!

Day 1:

We played ice-breaking games in Boon Lay bus interchange while waiting for some of the seniors to join our group and await for programmers to settle down in school first!  Then we went to school to continue playing games and then went off for amazing race at 4 – 5PM!  The amazing race took us the whole night and the last station was at Vivocity.  We then took a bus into a resort called ‘City Beach’ to settle down ourselves.  Then the seniors starts to tekan them at around 1am by blinding fold and asking them to say funny and humourous things such as ‘im a good guy!’ and ‘good guy die very badly!’ etc.  Never did they know right after the tekan, they got their SP night!  Playing prank with them and their SP when they’re been blindfolded can be awefully fun and sweet!  We cleared the freshies to bed at about 3am.

Day 2:

An early morning 9am, had breakfast and play some games in the morning at Citybeach..  (CityBeach is in Labrador Park, thus most of our games today was played there! ) Followed by some telematches such as ‘dog and bone’, ‘dodge ball’  and somemore etc.  Cant clearly remember all and there was a water bombing session at night (which turns out to be dreadful because the programmers drag too long and there seem to be personal grudges on the field =( but who am I to say!)  I watched the last episode of Red Thread by hiding myself in the room during the setup of the waterbombs.  The ending was far from what I had thought of.  Very confusing plot even at the end!

Day 3:

Finally got the chance to come out of Labrador Park once again!  We went for ‘Shi zhi lu kou’ (food hunting!) by going to different places in Chinatown and Central shopping mall, ate the food and went to Harbourfront interchange for our last food, Chicken Rice.  Had our lunch and left for Sentosa where I finally bought my new pairs of slippers at $8 and watched the freshies play the games.  Watching them smile and having fun just makes me feel much younger at times =)  Witness several seniors got thrown down into the sea and lucky for me, I told them I was holding to my camera and gadgets so they should not try to throw me!  Went back to Citybeach resort and settled down but room got really alot of people already, don’t know what they are thinking la, how to squeeze 14 seniors into 1 room?  Besides, some of the seniors don’t even interact with the freshies -_-‘  More like going there to have their own fun than to help out..

Day 4:

Meet up with their SP.  The guys get tekan to look for their own SP while the girls have wait for their SP to come to them.  They must guess whos the girl with that special ‘nickname’ assigned to them on their first SP night.  Tekan includes different kind of forfeits such as dancing with strangers, singing, strip half naked, etc.  Can have worse than you had imagined but you get the point!  Went to change for their clubbing attire after that,  had buffet dinner catered by the committee (I didnt eat at all!  By the time I reached there, the food all looks so ….)  Nevertheless, I went to drink with an empty stomach! =(

My group was quite good at clubbing with afew good dancers and some drinkers.  Played some games and performed their skit.  Left the place around 12.30am and 1 of the freshie lost her wallet & handphone.  My sympathies for her but there was nothing much we could do either =(  Here comes the funny part:  Joanne drank too much and she got too drunk, she told everyone around her to fuck off and go and die!  LOL!  Unforgettable indeed!

Day 5:

Break camp.  And all of us were so reluctant to leave the place =(

At the end of the day! Our very own ‘where is Matt Harding‘ spoof!

Please take a look at my facebook if you’re looking for more photos/videos, I cant possibly show them all here!

I already miss the camp so much!  I want to go for more!