Wednesday...

Merry Christmas everyone!

You have no idea how many times I had previously contemplated blogging; even logging in to blogspot, coming to this exact window before I logged out without leaving even a word.
I came close to blogging about a fortnight ago. I typed a couple of sentences and stopped.

There has been a rather wide disconnect between my last blog post and now. So much has gone through my mind. More experiences, more lessons, more knowledge, more of what I would consider value-adding stuff.

I aim not to fill in this gap and bridge the disconnect entirely but rather, provide a brief summary of whatever I can think of at this early hour of the morning.

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The last few months after I had returned from US was not the best of months I have had in NUS. It was pretty tough.

Why tough?

It was tough because while I had all the respect in the world for engineers and the engineering profession, I had not much of interest left in being an engineer or engineering student anymore. Rather, to put it more fairly and in a clearer perspective, I had not much interest to be at student anymore. I didn't and I still don't really see the need to although it is important (i certainly agree) to finish up responsibly what one has started.

It was tough because my mind had always been somewhere else; in entrepreneurship opportunities, in business ideas, in business-related thoughts and actions. I recall during one of my engineering lectures that I suddenly thought of a business idea (which till today I think is worth exploring especially after having run it through some ppl) 30mins into the 2hr lecture. As you may oredi have guessed, I got real excited, almost jumping up and down and continuously fidgeting in my seat for the rest of the 1.5hrs. Apparently, I wasn't paying attention to the lecture at all.

It was oso tough because I was way behind my peers from the perspective of engineering education as an undergraduate. Note: only in this regard. While I spent the entire year 3 in US exploring and learning about entrepreneurship at a pace of 300% of what I would have done in my usual fast paced schedule in Singapore, I was fast forgetting my engineering knowledge. While this was recoverable, it took time. And it did take awhile for me to get some of it back this semester.
In comparison, my peers had been accelerating in the engineering studies aspect in year 3. Guided by this huge disparity (solely in this regard), I took 5 technical modules + FYP. The most common workload in year 4 sem 1 was 3 modules + FYP. I was playing with fire? Probably. It made my life tough, especially when combined with the other two factors above.
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I could grumble further. Hahaz, friends who know me know that I can.

To my own credit, I have achieved quite a bit since my return. Some friends might know. I have also blogged about some of them in the last few months. So I won't go through this part.

I have gained a lot of new knowledge. Talk to me about how I expect the global economy to react to a possible US economy slowdown or recession and I will have my analysis for you. Talk to me about the consequences of higher oil prices for the exporters and importers and the other indirect repercussions on economies, on developed nations, on developing countries, on individuals. The list of topics can go on endlessly. Trading, investing, monetary policies, the intricate links between all these chains.

I have been a little surprised at the pretty fast rate of learning. I guess this has been attributed to my interest in generally the business area. The converse has also been true of my slow learning speed in my engineering modules this semester. =p

I got my results this afternoon. Theoretically speaking, I think I'm still on course for a 1st class honors though it will be marginal and chances are comparably remote with perhaps a global recession due to the low probability of US's possible recession adversely sinking other markets worldwide. Given all that I had done the last few months, I think i deserve a pat on my back and that the results were much better than I had anticipated although slightly lacklustre compared to my first years in NUS.

Then again, as I was speaking to my mum just now, one gains some and loses others.
I am glad that I have gained a lot in the areas of interest and my own strengths over the last 1.5yrs.

It made me realize that I am definitely more suited to be a business major and that I will almost certainly do much better there than I even am now in engineering.
Nevertheless, I still stand by my belief that it is highly beneficial that I have an undergraduate degree (a good one at that) in engineering and in future, highly possible that I will get a MBA from one of the top business colleges in the world (Wharton would be my dream college along with HBS and University of Chicago Business School).

I will be more aggressive in the months ahead in terms of my pursuit of my passion, interests and knowledge acquisition.

I will also be more aggressive in my (secret) area of focus.

I will allocate more time for exercise and leisure to fully recharge myself before allowing myself the maximum opportunity to unleash my power in the corporate world.

I am raring to go, extremely driven and wanting to prove myself further.

Confidence, motivation, self-awareness and my drive are again back to extremely high levels.

Let's rest and fully rejuvenate during this festive season. I need the rest to regain my eagle-eyed focus to its full level.

Merry Christmas
&
A Happy New Year! =)