When the odds are not in your favour.

Studying for Graduate School

What is mastery?

The ability to:

1.  Rapidly recognize a problem's features and associate them with solution techniques that you have successfully applied to past problems with similar features;

2. Adapt and improvise techniques to the problems; and

3. Execute the techniques efficiently and flawlessly. 

This is mastery. 

GMAT diary entry 1

What's a GMAT? Edible? (lol.)

GMAT is the acronym for Graduate Management Admission Test. It is a standardised, three-part test delivered in English, designed to help admission officer to evaluate the suitability of an individual's application for his/her business and management programmes. 

It measures basic verbal, arithmetic and analytical writing skills that a candidate developed over a period of time through education and work.

GMAT is necessarily more difficult than GRE on the basis that GMAT requires solid arithmetic skills from candidates as compared to GRE. Nonetheless, both admission tests are considered highly by most business schools, 

GMAT gauge skills that are essential to study business and management at the graduate level, a GMAT scores will give you a good indication of how well prepared you are to succeed academically in a graduate management programme; how well you do on the test may also help you choose the business schools to which you apply. 

The percentile table you receive with your scores will tell you how your performance on the test compares to the performance of other test takes, giving you a way to gauge your competition for admission to business school. 

GMAT is not popular amongst Malaysians; many do not know of its existence as a test required for admissions to many top business schools around the globe. 

Its existence was only made known to me when I was researching about the various MBA programmes offered by top business schools.

For those of you who read my About page would know that I am a lawyer currently practising in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I took Law as a major for my undergraduate degree and went on to take my professional degree to do my pupillage in a middle size firm.

I was then admitted as an Advocates and Solicitors of the High Court of Malaysia as of March 2015 and have been practising as a lawyer specialising in general litigation since then. 

My education and work journey thus far: " Purely legal; nothing business.". This would mean that I'm an unconventional candidate. 

I went on to research the importance of a GMAT. To my surprise, it plays an important role in the admission of a candidate to an MBA programme in universities.

GMAT is taken as a benchmark for admission officers to determine the suitability of a candidate for business and managements programmes.

So, I decided in July 2015 to prepare my GMAT and to apply for business schools once I get my desired scores next year.

It is always my dream to do MBA in an Ivy League or a top university abroad. I'm going to realise this dream of mine into a reality. 

At first, I thought GMAT was a walk in the park. Oh, boy was I wrong. GMAT felt like rocket science to me. 

How to defeat this rocket science? Manhattan Prep books.

I downloaded the books a few days ago and they are extremely helpful if you're an independent candidate like me. The Prep books definitely helped increased my scores to 600++.

With the pace that I'm going, 760 marks aren't that far.

Wish me luck!

Financial Self Defence

I know how it feels like to stay in a shitty job with a boss who considers your boundaries mere suggestions and doesn't offer you job security; A long term (former) boyfriend who couldn't even be bothered about your situation and was only mindful of his own fun (and funds), and most times you had to foot the dinner bills. Repayment of student loan and vehicles on a monthly basis, household bills, and much more. 

With bleak situations like these, you want to take a break (emotionally and financially) from everyone and tell them to fuck off. And at those times, you ought to activate your Fuck-Off Fund. Or, as what Paulette Perhach terms it - "financial self-defense"; In other words,  financial foundation. 

When life hits you hard, you have to defend yourself emotionally and financially.The purpose, quoted Perhach:

"whether the system protects you or fails you, you will be able to take care of yourself,"

In summary, Fuck-Off Fund is thus the money you need to take care of yourself when you're in a fucked up situation or when you need a break from work, family or life. 

The importance of having it is never overrated or exaggerated. In fact, every financial expert would advise everyone to have a saving account with three to six months worth of expenses in case things go terribly wrong. It is fucking empowering to have such an amount in our savings account as it allows us to control our own destiny when we're winding down from many aspects of our lives. Perhaps, the importance of having it is to gain freedom from anyone else and not get financially restricted when you don't have a source of income. 

So, I built my Fuck-Off Fund by saving half of everything I earn. I consider myself lucky enough to be able to save half when I was more financially flushed. I was able to pick myself back up with what I had saved for years. 

The fund helped me to be courageous enough to decline my past employer's offer - I was able to get away from a toxic office environment. Despite so, a Fuck-Off Fund doesn't guarantee that you can march out triumphantly from a toxic situation. What it really does is leave doors unlocked should you choose to open and storm out of the situation when you're ready. More importantly, I can afford to wait for a job that really suited me, rather than grasping on what was available.

That financial foundation has saved my life over and over again. And, I guarantee you that iIt will most definitely protect you from real consequences that can, unfortunately, come from asserting your boundaries. 

Well, money doesn't buy happiness but it does provide stability and options, right? 

But, there are frustrating times when: 

A budget is a budget. Sometimes you want a goddamn latte. That has nothing to do with understanding the value of a dollar or recognizing your own self-worth.

We just have to know when to get that goddamn cup of latte. 

Tentatively

Here I go again

Reaching out again

Probably, gonna get hurt again

But at least I've got to try

For somehow it might be

That she (he) has a need for me

And God, I've got to see 

Or else I'll never know

So here I go again

Reaching out again

One more time again

But just a little more - 

Tentatively

Javan - Meet Me Halfway (1981)

Itinerary for Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Cairns

This itinerary was a lot harder to plan than I initially thought!

My friends and I had always wanted to skydive to strike that one thing off our bucket list. So we had all decided to choose Australia as the place-to-go.

To our surprise, it was a lot harder to plan a trip to Australia, especially a trip of 8 persons for a duration of 7 days, or 10 days depending on the selected location. After a month of planning and a meet-up to discuss and finalise details, we finally came up with the itinerary after 2 weeks of intensive research of each place in Australia. The best part at the end of all this is we are sharing our hard work with you! ;)

Here you go!