Friday, August 27, 2010

Tuition nation no more?

There's recently a lot of forum letters on the subject of tuition in Singapore. Tuition is so pervasive here that it's a shadow education, as opposed to the more formal educational institutions. I think the phenomenon is quite common in asian countries, with taiwan, HK and korea being many more times more pervasive than here in Singapore. I heard that in Korea, where the kids are sitting for their entrance exams, even airplanes have to stop flying...

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Random thoughts

Once a while, I gathered all the thoughts that I had in my mind - those that are worthy enough to blog but not long enough to write on a post by itself. For me, it's therapeutic to blog down these random thoughts. I love blogging, it converts formless thoughts in my head into concrete words. The act of converting them into forms that others can react to is itself a joy to me. Sometimes, when I write along, more thoughts will form to give framework...

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Security

** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me." I was quite frustrated on last Sunday when I was out for work. As a result of this, I was particularly skeptical and thoughtful about things. In hokkien, this is called guai lan. On that particular day, I was going to a condo. Actually there are two sorts of...

Monday, August 16, 2010

Old people don't need life insurance?

I was browsing through some of the blogs when I saw Mr Tan's post on insurance. It's his usual style to advice people to buy term and invest the rest. But that doesn't attract me - it's this line: "There is no need for people to have life insurance when they are old." By 'life insurance', I take it that he means the whole life variety - those plans that gives a lump sum pay out in the event of death and total permanent disability of the insured...

Friday, August 13, 2010

Marriage is NOT wedding

** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me." Wedding is such a sham! I've been having a rather bad week because I can't sleep well as my mind is still very active at night. I attribute it entirely to the stress of settling matters pertaining to the wedding preparation. There's a thousand and one thing to...

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Living simply

I was quite intrigued by Bro8888's article on living with 100 things only. It's not so much about the number 100 that matters, it could easily be 200 or 1000 articles. Rather, it's those type of questions that when asked, will lead to more questions that will shine light on what really matters to you. It's something like one of the question that Mr WB had asked - if you only have 10 stocks that you can buy in your entire life, which one would it be? Something like that lah :) This kind of question forces one to think about what is really important. When...

Friday, August 06, 2010

My experience on using credit card

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that I've trouble applying for credit cards. It's a miracle that I got the POSB credit card when I applied a few months ago. Miracle because all the other cards have rejected me, despite the aggressive sales person pushing the cards, touting them as free. After a few months of purchasing things on credit, I have very positive comments about it. I'm sure everyone knows about the dangers of bursting your own credit limits and going into debt blah blah. There are very good things to say about credit...