Tuesday 17 January 2017

Personal Statements

Recently someone had asked me how I had done my personal statement when I applied to do my Masters in London. I vaguely remembered I started one of it with something about numbers.

Like..."why is anything divided by zero undefined?". Think about it, you have 10 apples, but you divided it by no one - still got 10 la. No one touched it what. LOL!!!

I totally loved numbers can't for the life of me read long sentences or ever do Law when I was younger so my personal statements to universities were always about numbers. I applied for Masters twice in my life - first one was right after my Undergraduate days and another time was after I had started working.

First-time application: I had applied to a few universities in London (as I was studying in London at that time so it all felt very familiar) whilst at the same time looking out for jobs. At that time, market was rather bleak and the financial industry had just crashed which meant that it was more difficult to get a job in the UK. But heck, I applied nonetheless for jobs in the UK (what was I thinking, so many OxBridge students I had to compete with!), KL and Singapore. After a few months of late-night applications I received my first acceptance letter from King's College London to do Financial Mathematics and was so thrilled!!! And right after that job interviews came in and I received a few offers from a few companies. What do you do at that age right? I wanted to take that KCL offer but at the same time the idea of working sounded pretty cool!

Requested for a deferment from KCL and took one of the job offers in KL (Yup! I'm still here at the first job I had chosen to pick). King's College was nice enough to defer it for 1 year but at the end of the 1 year I had to decide - to continue with the management trainee programme or to take that KCL offer. I stayed back in KL to finish up my training and had to let go of KCL's offer for good.

Second-time application: another year later upon completing my training, I decided to give it another go. Applied to a few universities in London and Melbourne (Only cause Shura's there!). Got rejected by some, got accepted into some but my favourite was Imperial College London! Was shocked and excited at the same time, but I was loving my job at that time (and I have a huge fear of failing which means going back to being a student I would have exams!) which was a difficult decision to make. Spoke to a few people and I decided that I wanted to graduate from Imperial College and get a Masters degree from there - priorities in life haha! Had this unnecessary fear that I might not be as lucky third time round if I don't take this offer now! So much fear ah in my life? :P

But the funniest part was when it came to personal statements. During my first time application I had passionately written about numbers in my personal statement and wrote in there that "...my dream is to be able to work in a financial institution in the future" and I totally ended up in a financial institution. In my second-time application I had again passionately written about numbers and a little bit about my experience in the financial institution but again I had used that line..."my dream is to be able to work in Corporate Finance when I graduate"....and I did get into Corporate Finance during a restructuring in the firm.

DREAMS DO COME TRUE GUYS WHEN YOU WRITE THEM IN YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT!!! Mannnn good times :)))

Monday 9 January 2017

Joined the Marathon

Now that we have closed down Double A to allow for more exciting things to happen (Ok, this so deserves a dedicated post!), Aiman and I suddenly had extra time when the new year started. So as what a normal human being with extra time would usually do- we had a Netflix marathon (did you really think I joined a running Marathon?) and oh my god it FELT SO D*** GOOD!

I guess the both of us have been working two jobs ever since we got married 2 years ago and never had that little extra time to really enjoy the extra time, if you get what I mean. I'm even watching Gilmore Girls back from Season 1! With a lot of visits to the pantry for snacks and coke and vitagen and then super ring and lays. Is this what weekend feels like? Hahaha so jakun!

But...I guess God knew us too well though, first weekend into the new year I had to go back to the office to work. The best part though was because we now have that little extra time, so Aiman waited for me to finish work so we could head for tea time after at a nearby cafe :)

Oh little blessings in life. Alhamdulillah for everything! Imma happy girl :)))))

Friday 6 January 2017

Around this time


...3 years ago, I was busy stuffing as much as I can into a suitcase, sitting on it and trying to zip it up alltogether because I was physically exhausted! and I wanted so badly to go and have a big breakfast before I had to get on that flight back home to Malaysia, for good. It wasn't an annual leave or a compulsory leave. I was in transitioning from London office to KL's.

Time has definitely flown by so quickly, because that means I've been in my current department for 3 whole years now! Longest department I've served so far in my time in CIMB (minus the short secondment to CEO's office I had in between). Longest I've served before that was about nearly 2 before CIMB sent me to do Masters at Imperial College London.

I must say though I still love my job and find it as exciting as I did when I first joined. Department I am in is always evolving, why? Because we face clients and we get the opportunities to create conversations and do presentations (heck trying to sell a deal!) to C Suites and I still get the jitters sometimes. You know those butterflies in the stomach when you walk into a CEO's office and go "I sooo wnat this deal!!" -  it's crazy adrenaline rush dude! and it's fun! In the midst of all that you get to learn new products rather so often.

Or those deals that take more than a year to complete because it gets complicated as days and months passes by? Sometimes pressing for time which means you need to do a few sit visits in a short period of time and you're required to take odd-hours flights? Tiring, but fulfiling indeed coz depending on which industry you were covering at that time, you'll get to learn something new like when I first stepped foot in a fertilizer plant and nearly puked from the very very VERY strong ammonium nitrate smell.

No doubts there are ups and downs and that's only normal in any job. Nobody's job is easier than anybody else's, but I sure do have an awesome team and colleagues who never let a day passes by without cracking jokes! hashtagawesomecolleagues!

Sometimes it's not about winning the deal, but getting to know people out there - and my job allows me to do that and I'm grateful for that! :)))


Wednesday 4 January 2017

Be Kind Always

Some people feel the rain, others just get wet. Struggles. Appreciate your struggles, it will only make you stronger if you can get through it. Everyone has their own sets of struggles and often or most times, no one else will understand your struggles unless they are in your shoes. 

Case in point: Children who are disobedient to their parents would be the same people who would tell their own kids to be kind to them in the future. Why? Because they now understand that mums weren't lying when they said labour pain is enough for them to earn her kids respect for the rest of her life!

Same goes for different types of struggles. People may look happy, strong and jovial on the outside but we will never know what battles they're fighting within. Being kind would help a great lot for you know not if the people you help would be the people you run to for help in the future. Elderly is by far my greatest weakness today. I cannot see  them begging by the roadside or even see them eating alone - I feel so so sad I can cry! Like where are their children? I cannot even see elderly guards on duty. They should be enjoying some time off doing things at their own sweet time instead of guarding a jewelry shop shouldering a huge responsibility throughout the night whist eating biskut kering to stay awake :' ((((((  I always make an effort to smile and say hi to the guards at my condo and get them pizzas when we order delivery for ourselves. Sometimes I forget that they stay up night and day making rounds and sitting on that chair and escort guests to our unit just to make sure our safety is taken care off. And yet we sometimes forget to smile and say thank you even when we walk pass and sees him sitting there happily drinking his teh ais in that half tied plastic. Bless them for working so hard!!

I cannot even see people stranded by the roadside these days, I'd tell Aiman to stop so that we can help them repair their cars or at least give them a ride to the nearest safe point. Setback is we no longer can freely stop in the middle of the road at night to help, we don't know if it's safe and that stresses me out. Once I saw a dog so lost and hungry, I gave him Aiman's dinner coz I can't stop tearing thinking this dog is really stress and he needs food to have energy to go wherever he needs to go. We made a huge turn to find the dog again after that and fed him. Even dogs have struggles guys :(

One of my resolutions this year is to be kinder and to help anyone I can as much as possible. Kinder to anyone and anything as long as it doesn't cause me problems :))

Tuesday 3 January 2017

Goodbye 2016

Not sure about you guys, but I felt like 2016 was one of the longest years I've had...and yet I've not been able to blog as much as I would like to! Hardest year too I must say.

So many significant things had taken place in 2016 and I'm thankful for all the good, the not so good and the in betweens because I believe that things happen for a reason. Sometimes I think that there are no problems at all to begin with because Allah has decided for you to go through that event on that particular day for a purpose, at that time, and you are supposed to find a solution out of it after which you rely fully on Him! It's amazing that when you accept it all, things feel a lot easier to go through :)

There were big decisions that were made in 2016 that would shape what our 2017 and beyond would be like and I must say that some were really tough decisions to make - but very glad we made it.

This 2017, I vow to be a better person, be kind to others no matter what and to be true to my intentions at all times. It doesn't quite matter what others may think/assume you're doing (it for) but at the end of the day, only God sees the unseen and if your intention was good, then good it is in the eyes of God InsyaAllah.

Happy 2017 everyone! :)