Wrapping up

As the end of semester is slowly crawling in, I supposed everyone would be joyful as the semester seemed to be very long although it just lasted for around 6 weeks. 6 weeks is considered both long and short.

For me, it was just too long for a writing class as I am not really a good writer and frankly speaking, writing class had always been my nightmares. My timetable was always filled up fast with the reading assignments, the writing assignments, and the deadlines whenever I had a writing class in a semester. However, I consider myself lucky that I just took this one class during the summer and the workload was manageable. Most importantly, this class was just so different from the previous writing classes that I have taken so far. I was expecting to write 4 major essays, more like creative writing, in a first year writing class, as told by my friends. So I thought it would be good to take it in a short semester as I dislike creative writing. This is probably because I'm not really a imaginative person and I can't write imaginative essays. :( But this class turned out to be more like an analysis class. All we did were analyzing articles and scholarly papers, writing literature review and bibliography. All these are just very useful in other courses, not just in a writing class. :)

However, the semester was just too short to know everyone in class better in person. It was really a great summer class with people from all walks of life, from nursing to geology majors, from business to education majors. Also, the class has so much diversity with people from Indonesia, China, Singapore, South America (if I'm not all mistaken) and of course, the United States. This gave me more insights towards different cultures and different expectations/perceptions each person from different places has. This is just way too awesome!

Last but not least, thanks so much Ms. Griffiths for all the hard work done and thanks for all the feedbacks on assignments and etc. I know they will be really helpful in my future path, in either academic or life. It has always been my pleasure to know each and everyone of you. I hope to see you guys around campus in the near future. :)

Till then,

Justin :)

Financial market

I just had one of my actuarial exam hours ago and it was related to financial mathematics. I thought it would be useful for you to know some of the terms commonly used in the financial market since most of us will be dealing with the market in the future, even if you are not doing a finance or business-related major. So there you go:

There are many types of rates being used in the market.

1. Annual effective interest rate

It's a rate which is commonly used by banks or other financial institutions. An annual rate is, as it's named, the interest rate in yearly basis. The annual rate can be divided into a few rates too. The most commonly used ones are:

a) annual continuously compounded rate - an annual rate which credits interest to your account in a continuously rate, literally, like in every second.

b) nominal annual rate - an annual rate which credits interest to your account in a specific period of time within a year. The most common ones are nominal quarterly compounded annual rate (in which the account will be credited interest every 3 months) and semiannually compounded annual rate (in which the account will be credited interest every 6 months).

2. Spot rate

Bond is commonly used in the financial market, too. There are treasuries bonds, zero coupon bond and etc. These are the tools which are used as a way of lending or borrowing money. Spot rate is normally used to quote the price of zero coupon bond when it's settled on the spot or immediately (this suggests why it's called spot rate). You might be wondering what zero coupon bond is. It is a bond which does not give any payment in between the date of purchase and the expiration date.

3. Forward rate

It's the future yield rate of a commodity. For example, it can be used to determine the forward price of a forward contract. A forward contract is an agreement between two parties that one is obliged to sell/buy an underlying asset from the other party at the expiration/delivery date. The forward price is the amount that is paid at the expiration date. There is no cost on entering a forward contract but there is an obligation for both parties to exercise the contract.

4. Swap rate

As the name suggests, it is the rate at which financial institutions use when they are borrowing money from each other (ie. swap their funds). However, this might be more difficult to understand than you might have thought.

A picture speaks a thousand words

To me, pictures are always a tool to express my thoughts and my feeling which cannot be described in words. That's why I love to take photos, even photos of some trivial things. My friends always laugh at me that I could take a few same pictures of the same things, even just a cup. :P Nevertheless, they are not the same to me and every angle of the cup meant something to me. It depends on how you interpret/analyze it.

Here I inserted a few pictures that I found in National Geographic website, where life is described in four colors: orange, red, green, and yellow. The following are my own ways of interpreting the pictures. You may describe them in your own way.

(Source: nationalgeographic.com)

How would you interpret this picture?

My interpretation: A sailboat is floating freely on an ocean (not lake?) and it's near sunset (not sunrise?). Life is uncertain and we do not know where we would land on with the sailboat. The destination of life seems to be far away from sight.

(Source: nationalgeographic.com)

What about this?

My interpretation: This seems to be the beginning of Spring season and the maple leaves are starting to grow. This represents another stage of life is coming after a harsh one (Winter) and a new hope is rising.

(Source: nationalgeographic.com)

What can you say about this picture?

My interpretation: The worker is collecting tea leaves under the rain. (I assume the white dots on the pictures as raindrops and the plant is tealeaf because I know of a place back in my home where the tea leaf is planted in this way.) Life is never easy as what the saying goes, "No pain no gain." We have to work and pay effort in gaining what we want.

(Source: nationalgeographic.com)

My interpretation: Leaves are falling and it symbolizes the beginning of Fall season. It also symbolizes a brand new life is coming and we should be prepared for any obstacle in front of us.

Somehow, I think these interpretations on photos are related to the genre analysis in writing as we will have different opinions on different genres, depending on how we look at it. Sometimes, we tend to be biased towards one side and we never think in the shoes of someone else. However, bias is not a bad thing, as said by the instructor in class. In fact, bias is necessary in writing a paper.

Mickey Mouse and Cinderella in hospitals?

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."

-Walt Disney-

Disney cartoons are always my childhood favorite and they never fade from my memories of my childhood! I still remember that when I was small, my parents always bought me the videotape (when there was no CD or VCD yet) of Disney cartoons, like Mickey Mouse, Lion King, Cinderella, Jungle Book and etc. I always watched it with my brother over and over again that we never got bored. Until today, I think my parents are still keeping them even though all the tapes are spoiled and obsolete. That's my childhood.

But have you ever imagined that Mickey Mouse and Cinderella are coming to hospitals?

Well, I came across an article from the actuarial blog that I'm following and I thought it would be interesting to share with the readers out there. The article is about the hiring of Disney consultants by hospital management teams.

I was surprised that Walt Disney Co. has been providing consulting services to hospitals and other industries for around 20 years. Undoubtedly, guest service and their customers' satisfaction are always the top emphasis of Disney company. That is probably why the hospital managements are willing to spend thousands of money to send their employees to Disney just for training on how to best serve their customers, which are the patients.

According to the article, the employees of hospitals are trained to think creatively, to behave appropriately at different situations and to understand the need of a patient. In fact, what the patients want is not just good clinical care, but also they need attention from the doctors and nurses.

As said in the article, the visits of Disney consultants to hospitals have made huge changes: from the appearance of the hospitals to the outlook of their employees, to the policies in management and hiring process. All these changes in management are said to be important in shaping excellent customer service because customers are always in their top priority and their customers should be taken care of even at the parking lots.

However, this was criticized by the public that the hiring of Disney consultants is a waste of money as the training for hospital employees from a company which is well known of theme parks seems to be inappropriate and the money from taxpayers should be invested wisely in other facilities, like the clinical care or the research in new medicine.

In regards to this article, I personally think that hiring Disney consultants could be advantageous to the hospital management since this could help to increase the quality of customer service in hospitals. I had bad experience in clinics here that the receptionist was just not very friendly to me. That was my first time visiting the clinics and I did not know the procedure of making appointments. So I asked the receptionist but she just seemed to ignore me. When I asked for a few times, she literally shouted at me. This was really terrible. Since Disney has good management in customer service, I think it's best to spend some money to have the hospital employees to learn the ways on how to best serve their customers. However, it might seem inappropriate to send the hospital employees for training at Disney theme parks since the setting and the customers are totally different from the hospitals. There will also be a limited number of employees being sent for training since the cost will be very high. But having consultants at the hospitals could be more helpful since they could provide consulting service to the management at anytime whenever it's needed and more employees could be trained.

Language and Identity

Do you know?

1. Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers in the world, followed by Spanish and English.

2. There are 41806 spoken languages in the world today.

3. More people in China speak English than in the United States. (Regardless of whether they are native speakers or not)

4. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch procejt at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter.

5. There was no punctuation until the 15th century.

5. The word taxi is spelled the same in English, German, French, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese. (It’s spelled the same in Malay, too!)

6. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle (not title).

7. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"!

8. The spoken language has four tones and a neutral tone.

9. What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.

10. According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."

Language is one of the "tools" to identify our own identity. I am always proud to be a Malaysian due to the fact that I was born and grown in a multiracial country which offers lots of diversity in term of food, culture and even languages that makes me feel so lucky.

Here, we were taught multiple languages since young. Hence, all Malaysians know at least 2 languages. Since small, I was taught to read and write in 3 languages (Chinese, Malay and English) and I spoke one dialect language in Chinese (Cantonese) with my parents, too. That's why I am always grateful that I am equipped with multiple languages since young, although I'm not fluent and proficient in all the languages, especially the Malay language. This is because I seldom use it since I graduated from my high school and the medium of teaching in college is English.

Knowing two out of the top three languages with most native speakers is always one of my greatest achievements in my life so far. This is also my identity and this makes me who I am today.

p/s: just as you might have noticed, the number 5 is repeated twice in the list above. :)

Music vs Writing (Part II)

So why is music related to writing?

In analyzing a music piece, the tempo of the piece, its genre, the instruments used and etc. are analyzed. Those are the characteristics or what I called the "social expectations" earlier on of a music piece. In analyzing a music piece, I used to ask myself a few questions. What makes me think that the genre of a piece of music, for example, is an orchestra? It's because an orchestra usually consists of string, brass, percussion, and woodwind instruments. What makes it different from a chamber orchestra? It's the number of members in the orchestra. A chamber orchestra usually has less than 40 members while orchestra has more than that. What makes it different from a concerto? Concerto is a solo piece for an instrument accompanied by an orchestra. In other words, a concerto is designed for a specific instrument, let's say the piano, and most of the time, the piano will be played in most parts of the performance with an orchestra as the background music.

As for "sub-genre" in music, there are ways to identify them, too. The tempo can be determined by clapping your hands or stepping your feet according to the rhythm of the music. By that way, you could determine if that is in slow or fast tempo. For the musical instruments used in the music piece, you have to be very sensitive to the sound produced by a specific instrument. This can be pretty hard for novices in music. In the music class, I was also struggling to identify the sound produced by the instruments. I always had a hard time in differentiating the sound produced by violin and cello as they just sounded the same to me. However, definitely there are some differences in the sound produced by these two instruments.

Analyzing academic writing can be done in the similar way as analyzing music pieces. In the analysis papers that I did, I always asked myself the similar set of questions. However, the item to be analyzed in that assignment is an academic writing, instead of a music piece. Let's take an abstract as an example. What is an abstract? Abstract summarizes a research paper to give an overview to the readers and let them decide if they want to continue reading the whole paper. What are the specific criteria to be identified as an abstract? An abstract is a short yet detailed summary of the purpose of a research, problems related to the research and solutions to them, definition of key terms, and results. What makes an abstract different from the scholarly peer-reviewed paper? Abstract is part of a scholarly peer-reviewed paper and it's usually put at the very first section of the paper. By doing this way, it helps me in doing my analysis paper.

Music vs Writing (Part I)

We have been doing genre analysis all these while in class. So I guess we are pretty sure what a genre is by now. Just in case you are still confused, let me define it once again. According to dictionary.com, genre is defined as "a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like" or "style". To me, genre is about the social expectation of what an "item" is supposed to look like. At the beginning of this semester, I always got so confused by the word "genre" in the context of writing. So I have my own little secret of trying to remember it (not really a secret though). :)

I took a class called "Music Appreciation" in my former college before I got transferred here. Just to clarify, I'm not really a "musical" person (not sure if this is the right word) and I don't play any musical instrument. Although I always wanted to learn how to play at least one instrument, I failed all the time. :( The music notes are just so hard for me although I was taught how to recognize the notes in the music class. So why was I still taking the class? The reason is simple: to fulfill the distribution. :) But today, I'm glad that I took the class as it was really a fun class and the lecturer was just very interactive with students. I love the class also because I started to appreciate music more since then and I could apply the knowledge that I learned in that class even in a writing class.

So without digressing too much, what's genre in music and how is it related to the assignment that we did on analyzing some scholarly papers and short academic writing?

In the music class, I learned about the musical periods since 1100s (Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic) and some histories about the prominent figures in music during those days (eg: Mozart, Beethoven, J.S. Bach and etc). Also, I learned a variety of genres in music, such as opera, concerto, orchestra, sonata, symphony, and etc. In some parts of the exams in this class, I was actually asked to identity the genre, the texture, the tempo, the mood, the period it was produced, and the musical instrument used in the music by just listening to some classical pieces. This was really challenging. In order to prepare for the exams, I had listened to the same piece of music over and over again. Imagine, there was not just one piece, but more than 30 pieces of music that we were required to sort of "memorize" their elements (ie. genre, texture, etc). What made it worse is that they are not some modern music pieces, but they are pieces from those ancient periods! This was once my nightmare when I was still not used to them.

However, not all pieces that I learned are dull. The following piece is one of my favorites:

Just in case you are interested to know the elements of this piece of music. (Was trying very hard to remember what I learned in the class)

Genre: Sonata

Texture: Polyphonic (multiple voices at one time)

Tempo: Fast

Period: Baroque period

Instrument: Organ

Mood: Eerie

Another piece of my favorite:

So now you might have known a little bit of genre in music. I will discuss more about the relationship between music and writing in the next post.

Till then.

Confession of an Actuary

My love for you is like a perpetuity;

it goes on forever.

Are you short on derivatives?

I’d like to give you a call later.

What is P(you ∩ me)?

Since the first time I saw you,

my interest in you have compounded continuously.

You know, the corr(me, A good time) = 1.

Would you like to simulate stock prices

and take a random walk with me?

For my job, I analyze lots of numbers.

What’s yours?

If I were a scatterplot,

you’d be my best-fit line.

(quoted from the Actuarial Club of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Income Inequality

Few days ago, I came across the blog post about the income inequality in the U.S. on Freakonomics. This issue has always been the concern of the society. One of my economics classes last semester touched on this issue, too. This seems to be a big deal to some groups of people, while it's does not really matter to the other groups.

Before moving further to the views of different groups of people on this issue, let's us look at some statistics on this. Since 1970s, income inequality has been increasing and the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger and bigger. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." This truly reflects the current situation of income inequality that is long existed in the history of the U.S. According to an article from the National Public Radio's website titled "Haves and Have-Nots: Income Inequality in America", the author points out that 8% of the nation's total income went to the richest 1% Americans, like Bill Gates, in year 1980. In year 2004, the statistics went up to 16%, which was double the percentage within 2 decades. He also argues that while the poor or the middle class are getting better in their standard of living over the 2 decades, the rich are just getting much much better.

This might seem to be a bad sign for the nation. Nonetheless, according to James PethoKoukis in his article published on U.S. News website, income inequality is a good sign for a nation. He argues that one of the major causes for wage inequality (which is part of the scenario of income inequality) is education. As the rise of new and advanced technology causes many jobs to be obsolete, people who are less educated and have little knowledge on technology will slowly be "kicked" out of the job world. For people in the computer-based or technology field, their role is getting significant to the market and hence, the unemployment rate of people in that field is decreasing over the years. Also, the demand for educated people is increasing. This indirectly shows that increasing income inequality is just a sign of better education for the nation.

On the other hand, Tyler Cowen claims in his article that many economists are still debating on whether there is any growth in inequality for people below the top-earning 1%. According to Cowen, "poorer people are more likely to shop at discount outlets like Wal-Mart" and this leaves us a question mark on whether the real income gaps between the poor and the middle class people has widen by any percentage at all. Robert J. Gordon from Northwestern University also shows that since 1993, there is no increase of inequality among people below the top 1% and this implies that the widening of the nation's income inequality is purely due to the changes in the income of top 1%.

So does income inequality matter to you? Something to ponder on.

Spoonfeeding?

Other than culture, the major thing that I realized even before I got transferred here is the difference between the education system in Malaysia and that in the U.S.

In Malaysia, “spoonfeeding” is a common scenario, or at least this exists since my elementary schools. To some of you who might not know what exactly “spoonfeeding” education system in Malaysia is, let me define it with my own personal experience. In the context of education, “spoonfeeding” means that the students will be provided most, if not all, of the materials to study for the examinations. Sometimes, the teachers will spot on some of the potential exam questions so that the students could just focus on those questions. The students are even asked to memorize the materials and literally “vomit out” what they have memorized on the examinations.

I still remember since my 3^rd grade (it’s called Standard 3 in Malaysia), I started to learn composition writing, which was part of the syllabus. That time, all of the students are required to buy a composition book with sample essays in different genres: narrative, argumentative, letter, news report and etc, for every new school year. On the first day of class, I was asked to memorize the first essay in the book and rewrite it like exactly what it is on the book during a small quiz a few days later. This is terrible, I know. What made it worse is that this kind of scenario happened in all my three language classes: Malay, Chinese and English. Well, looking from the bright side, the students could learn the way of writing a good essay from other good authors. Nonetheless, they will be so lack of creativity by practicing this way of learning because the students seldom think of how to write in our own way and always stick to the way like the composition book. This might be one of the causes of writer’s block that happened on me.

education = future?

Moreover, in my opinion, it’s the education system that causes most of the students in my country to be kind of grade-minded. In other words, they care more about their grades than the process of learning. However, it’s always the case that the process of learning is what benefits the students the most. From the process, the students could learn the effective way of studying; from the process, the students could learn from the mistakes that they made; from the process, they could improve themselves by learning some more effective ways of studying. On the other hand, grades indicate only the level of their understanding on some concepts. It does not necessarily show how academically good or bad they are. I think this is what the education system in the U.S. always emphasizes on.

Revolution on the education system in Malaysia is what I’m hoping for now. As the saying by Will Durant goes, “Education is the transmission of civilization.”

p/s: The above statements are just my two cents with no intention to offend to anyone out there. =)

Food as part of the Culture

Other than its dramatic politics (as you may have known) or its diverse cultures, Malaysia is also well-known for FOOD! Yes, food!

Warning: It's advised to have some napkins in hands just in case your saliva drips on your keyboard.

1. Asam Laksa

It's a sour and spicy dish with noodles in fish broth. It's my all time favorite dish since small. I still remember when I was like 5 years old, I started to love this dish. I just didn't care how spicy it was. There was this stall which sold good asam laksa in the market at my hometown. Whenever my mom brought me to the market, I would definitely nag her to have our breakfast there. Speaking of this dish, it made me flash back all the memories with my mom back at home. I'm homesick now! :/

2. Nasi Lemak

This is one of the traditional dishes in Malay culture. However, it's famous among all races in Malaysia. Nasi lemak literally means fatty rice. In fact, the rice is cooked with coconut milk (it’s called santan in Malay) or screwpines leaves to make up its fragrance. Normally, this dish is eaten with some side dishes like fried peanuts, cucumber, hard-boiled eggs, dried anchovies and the most important accompaniment for the dish, the sambal (a kind of special spicy sauce which can be made by garlic, dried chilies and ginger). This is starting to trigger all my taste buds.

3. Char kuey teow (also known by char kway teow)

It literally means fried noodles. You might be wondering what's so special about fried noodles. But this is definitely something different from what you have here in the U.S. This dish can be easily found at any hawker stalls in Malaysia. There are many variations in this dish. Most people like to have it with prawns, eggs and cockles. Bean sprouts are usually put into the noodles while frying. Of course, there is this sauce that makes it so delicious, which is known as belacan or shrimp paste, a spicy sauce made from fermented ground shrimps. However, the belacan is optional and the dish is still tasty without the sauce!

These are all the food I am craving right now! Wait, are these enough for you to have your saliva dripped on your keyboard? No? There are more to come!

Onde-onde – coconut poppers

Roti canai – flatbread made from dough with flour, water and egg.

Satay – grilled meat with some spicy peanut sauce.

Claypot chicken rice – chicken rice cooked in claypot with the indescribable taste that you have to taste it yourself!

Popiah – steamed spring rolls

Ais Kacang – shaved ice with some dressings like red beans, coconut milk, grass jelly, corn or even ice cream! Best food in the summer!

Since independence in year 1957, the three main races – the Malay, the Chinese and the Indian, and some minorities have been living together on one land for 54 years, neither too short nor too long for a country to build up its own culture. If I were asked to use three words to describe Malaysia, I would say “Weather, culture and food!”

p/s: It's a bad idea to blog about food to make myself hungry.