I passed!!!

Yipee!! Passed both papers that I took for the last sitting, which means that I'm now only 3 steps to my Mini Cooper! :)

3 more to go and I'll be driving this little baby!! :)

10 reasons why life sucks!!

1) I'm falling ill.

2) I'm over-worked.

3) I'm under-paid.

4) My manager is passing on everything to me because he can't cope with his own work but I'm not getting any credit for doing his work.

5) My new grad is useless... he's not around when there's work, leaving me with all the shitty work.

6) I lost my one and only one pair of gloves.

7) My laptop is breaking down any moment.

8) My landlord is increasing the rent.

9) My prince-charming is being illusive.

10) And worse of all, I have no one to complain to!

Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh.... life SUCKS! :(

The little match stick girl...

It's freezing cold and my heating system is not working again... (Yes, I had the British Gas guy to come over to fix it but apparently he has not done so!!! And now, I'm too busy at work to get him to come again...) I'm catching a cold and falling ill... Brrrrr... it's cold cold cold cold!! I feel like the little match stick girl! (Okay, since this is the 20th century, instead of matches I have a small little heater and it is NOT making any difference!!)

I need warmth, DESPERATELY ...

Sigh, the joy of British weather... sigh... :(

A lacklustre Spanish affair

Having been to Barcelona to eat my heart out on the streets of La Ramblas, I have high expectations of Spanish food (especially the black squid ink paella! yum yum!). After all, both Spain's major contribution to world food, paella and tapas made it to the BBC's Top 50 Things to Eat Before You Die list! So, when Clare said that we're going for Spanish dinner at Soho, I nodded with enthusiasm. (I have been to one in Soho and their paella was wonderful! Unfortunately, I forgot the name of the restaurant and how to get there... sigh...)

Anyway, Drake booked a table at Meza for us through Toptable. The Toptable booking came with a special set menu offer of 5 different tapas and a desert for £14.99. Thought that the deal was pretty reasonable so it was a surprise to me when Meza turned out to be quite a posh place! It's actually a Spanish Lounge and Tapas Bar along Wardour Street– reckon we looked a bit out of place with our jeans when everyone else was all dressed up!! (However, according to Kar Teck, his football t-shirt was fine since it has a collar! DUH!)

The word tapas actually comes from the Spanish verb tapar, which means to cover. It was originally invented in winemaking regions of Andalusia, where a saucer was customarily placed over glasses of wine to stave off the fruit flies. Titbits of food were then placed on the dish. Traditional tapas include olives, seafood, meatballs, sautéed mushrooms, chorizo, vegetables and the tortilla, or Spanish omelette. Heehee... thought I'll give a little background on Spanish food!

Back to the dinner. From the set menu our selection of tapas included:

- Crispy Salt & Pepper Squid
- Warm Octopus & Waxy Potatoes
- Wind Dried Tuna & Scrambled Eggs
- Salt Cod & Spinach Fritters
- Peppered Chicken Livers with Sherry
- Deep Fried Pork Belly wrapped in Bacon
- Chorizo
- Goat's cheese
- Sheep's cheese
- Peppered Spiced Salami
- Spanish Omelette
- Marinated Grilled Vegetables
- Tomato Bread
- Chicken & Ham Croquette

We also ordered the seafood paella with mussels, squid, king prawns & cod and the paella valenciana with pork, chicken & rabbit.

Not sure whether this is the goat's or sheep's cheese...

The dessert that no one likes except for yours truly!

Tomato bread?? Can't remember what this is...

Cheers everyone!! LtR: Bin Bin, Ken, Kaiyuan, Kar Teck, Drake, Clare and me!

Desserts was not too bad I guess!!

Well, given the nice atmosphere of the restaurant, I thought the food would be of certain standards. However, the food was a disappointment. I only found the crispy salt & pepper squid and the Spanish omelette good. Even the seafood paella was bland. And the Sangria, it was nothing like those that I had in Barcelona. This one actually tasted like cough syrup!! (Yes, it was quite a disappointment - don't let the above pictures fool you!! I know we all looked happy!!)

And plus, the service was really bad. I know the place was packed but the service was overly sub-standard - one waitress came to tell us that we had to leave within the next 45 minutes as the table was reserved for someone else. Yet, they took ages to clear our table and took even longer to get our bill. When it finally came, they overcharged us! (Thanks to Kar Teck's sharp accountant's eyes! heeeheee...)

Probably wouldn't recommend this restaurant to anyone even though it has a really nice ambience and is probably a good place to hang out for drinks. Perhaps, this is a sign that I should visit Spain again? Hahaha... Barcelona or Madrid anyone?

A night out with actuaries!!!

Thought I'll put this post up before I forget about it... It's a week late because I have been REALLY REALLY busy at work! Anyway, I went for the SIAS annual dinner last Friday night. SIAS actually stands for Staple Inn Actuarial Society. It's basically a society for younger members of the actuarial professions - mostly students and some just-qualified actuaries. Okay, okay... I know you're probably sniggering away or rolling your eyes... you must be thinking, having to put up with one actuary is boring enough... but to have a whole bunch of actuaries at dinner?? How interesting and fun can that be??

Just look at the following cartoon:

It proves the conception that most people have - actuaries are emotionless and boring creatures!! And they are no fun at all. (I actually read this statistics somewhere, which says that the worst thing to say to someone when you're on speed dating is to tell him or her that you're an actuary!)

BUT, I beg to differ. Come on, I'm not THAT boring, am I?? :P

And a night out with a bunch of actuaries can be fun!

In previous years, we had themes for the dinner. Last year, the theme was something to do with celebrities and my my, there were actuaries turning up in Spiderman, Batman, Spice Girls (which were all guys cross-dressing, by the way!!), Marilyn Monroe and Austin Power costumes!!! See, actuaries can let down their hair - it's not all just about mortality tables, triangles and spreadsheets!!

Anyway, this year, the theme was Fire and Ice and it's a black tie event (yes,I know it's stated that black tie is optional, but everyone was going to turn up with their penguin suits!!)

I must say I was impressed by the organising committee's effort to create the atmosphere. The dinner was held at The Brewery and where we greeted with falling snowflakes on arrival! (Haha... of course, it's fake snowflakes - even though it's freezing now in London, it's not snowing YET!)

The night kicked off with a champagne and wine reception, well, we may be boring people, but we know how to appreciate the finer things in life (Yes, it's true... most qualified actuaries I know travel to other countries just for wine-tasting and they have a wine cellar or at least a decent wine collection at home!!)

To go with the theme, there were ice-sculptors everywhere and each table had a snow-like chandelier. It was indeed a pretty sight.

Nice huh? Thought it looked lovely!! And you can see all the bottles of wine on the table...

Before we were treated to a scrumptious 3-course meal, there was an acrobatic performance. (okay, I have no idea where this fits into the picture but they were good!)

Oooh... Aaaah... Wow!! I'll never be that flexible!!

And dinner was fabulous... the starters was a lightly marinated chicken salad with asparagus and fine beans... yum yum... and for mains, I had the succulent lamb with wine-infused sauce... desert was crème brulee with poached pears. All in all, it was probably one of the better British cooking that I've tasted. No offence, but I think British food sucks! My idea of fine cuisine is NOT fish and chips or kidney pie!

After dinner, the whole place was transformed from the Ice theme to the Fire theme. And there was a live band, which was surprisingly quite good! And having had a bet with someone, I was the first person to hit the dance floor! (Okay, it should be we were the first two people as I went to the dance floor with my French colleague. Well, how could I lose a bet? I'm an aspiring actuary after all and risk taking is in my blood! :P Fine.. fine, not a very good analogy here as there's no risk involve apart from embarrassing myself in front of everyone else... but hey, I got a drink for it!).

In no time, everyone was up on their feet and joining us on the dance floor, dancing to the live band! Who would have thought that actuaries could morph into party animals!

Some guy in a Scottish kilt and his two dates joining my French colleague (Thomas) and I on the dance floor

All I can say is that C'était une nuit à se rappeler!

Well, have I managed to change your mind about actuaries? Let me know if you're convinced and would like to date one!

The name game - what do you call your blog??

Fresh with my enthusiasm to create a blog of my own, the first hurdle was to come up with a title for the blog. Phew... it was difficult!! (okay, I have to admit that I AM quite uncreative when it comes to writing!) Anyway, throwing in the towel at this stage would be unacceptable(How am I supposed to maintain the blog if I give up even before creating one!!!), so I turn to good old Google for some inspiration...



Well, I did come across a few very interesting websites:



The first one... some blogger designed a programme in C plus to actually tokenize the blog names by whitespace and punctuation, and place the resulting words in a hashmap for counting purposes. This gave him a list of words used in blog titles and their frequency. And surprise!surprise! the most popular word is blog, (okay, I may not be on the creative side.. but how original can one be if the title of their blog is 's blog??) which is followed by words such as life, weblog, world, from, journal, news, thoughts, with and daily. That's the top 10 list, which doesn't really give me much inspiration.. as the author of the blog aptly put it and I quote from him - This leads me to conclude that any blog named, “My blog/journal/weblog with daily world news and thoughts from life!” will be a smash hit - DUH!!! (and rolling my eyes!)



The next site that caught my eye... Random title generator for blogs... aha... this might be just what a lazy and unimaginative person like me needs! There's two options, whether you want a funky or formal name... sounds good so far... a funky title is just what I need :P so happily, I clicked on the generator button with great anticipation... but, er... the 1st one that came up was violet office... and the 2nd one green group... 3rd one empty images.... tsk tsk... I don't think I need to elaborate anymore... the rest of the not-funky-at-all names that came up included bushy diary, geeky notebook, crumpled chronicles, dramaking's news etc.. okay, I don't think I want to name my blog with any of these titles!! Perhaps a random generator is not such a good idea after all... I guess the title of my blog should really reflect something about me (though one of the random titles that came up was shopaholic's addictions - okay, that may be true but that's another story.. perhaps I'll share some of my retail therapy trips some other time!!)



Anyway, back to my search... after browsing a dozens of webpages... I gave up! For once, I couldn't find an answer on Google... so, it's back to picking at my brains.... and I FINALLY decided on a quote that I've read in Sophie's World (interesting book by the way... anyone read it?) So, the title of my blog is now officially "... such stuff as dreams are made on... "

Well, we all need dreams in life - they are there to keep us going and to give us hopes that one day our dreams will come true! I always see myself as someone who is practical, but I do have my share of dreams and I do secretly hope that they will come true... I guess it's my motivation to change my life for the better!!



So... to all who's reading this, never stop dreaming! And may all your dreams come true!! :)



(Sophie's World - Thanks to Mr Jostein Gaarder for the inspiration on my blog title)

The first post...

Okay.. I'm usually not very good at writing but having read my lil' sis blog.. I have this inspiration to create my own blog.. so here goes! Feedback and comments from anyone who happens to read this blog would be great!! :)