Extraordinary Selections from the Mundane Collection

As the title implies, this post is dedicated to the day-to-day activities of Beer in Asia, not the infinitely exciting adventure that I've been chronicling. And not because the mundane is particularly (contradictory) exciting, but because I'm not leaving for another trip until this weekend. Woe. Is. Me.

As the digital clock reminiscent of a scoreboard counts the seconds to 10:10 am, I am seated behind a curved lecture table that frames the seminar rooms (or networked seminar rooms, or classrooms, all of which are numbered #.#, ensuring exchange students' tardiness for weeks) in my Portfolio Management course. Today is presentation day, during which 7 groups will present their strategies for replicating the S & P 500 using 5 stocks as dictated by our prof for the StockTrak trading simulation project. This presentation markets the commencement of active trading on StockTrak, and is a relatively short (10 minute) explanation of our technique used to produce a market-tracking portfolio. But being Singapore, we are all in at least business-casual attire with gorgeous Powerpoints and pages upon pages of complex Excel spreaksheets.

Our group did rather well in terms of working smart, not hard: we chose a simple technique that required minimal work for our results. Our presentation was simple but concise, and as it happens, our portfolio correlates well with the S & P compared to those of other groups. Not the best, but we're content. And the prof abstained from cut-ya'll-down questions, or instructing certain spreadsheet alterations that disclose enormous calculation errors to the class, all of our mouths watering, hungry for the fresh meat of public incompetence. Schadenfreude, anyone?

Portfolio Management is a particularly fun class because the prof is sarcastic, no-bullshit, and openly derisive when necessary. I find great pleasure in watching/being the target of such roasting, and it mixes up The Reading of the Powerpoint, a national holiday celebrated semi-weekly by my Equities Analysis prof.

Other daily filler: I am a regular at Starbucks. They know my drink, my name, and have taken my picture. It is somewhat embarrassing, but (not so) secretly I love it. What's really embarrassing though is that I average 2 trips to the restroom per visit, which involves exiting Starbucks, walking down outdoor stairs into a seafood buffet restaurant, turning into a dirty cooridoor occupied by the same dirty restaurant staff, and using the loo in what seems to double as teenage girl bathroom smokers headquarters. When I return to Starbucks, I request a brief but invasive full-body scrub with hot water and espresso-machine cleaning agent to remove the scum film that has laminated me. Tasty.

Oh, what else? Ah yes, my most recent pleasurable activity was taking a nice hot walk in the sun to a friend's ritzy flat, about a 50-minute stroll away (speed-walk if you know me). He happens to have a lovely pool and some fellow int'l students and I enjoyed it for a while, went to the supermarket, and enjoyed a pool-side barbeque with more friends. What was going to be yet another night at the venerable Cafe Iguana (happy hour after midnight, half-priced margs and tequila!) resulted in The March of the Penguins with a side of vodka-cran. Nice touch. The night after, we went to watch the 6 Nations Tournament, France v. Ireland rugby match, at Muddy Murphy's pub. France pulled it off in the last few seconds, which is great because they're better looking anyway. I definitely prefer rugby to American football any day. And if they start fighting, better yet. Regardless, the Irish are a rowdy crew, and pubs with cultural leanings overcharge on the beer.

Class is over, so I'm out. Cheers to sunshine and raw food, besos y pesos.