You're the Power

Title: You're the Power 自己就是力量
Author: Chen Xian-ming 陈显明
Call #: 158CXM

This book is another book that may change your life, or at least your view on life. It tackles the problem of low self-esteem.

We have been taught in school, at home some 'noble' virtues such as putting society before self, family before self, others before self. These are all noble virtues, and there is no question about their correctness and nobleness. However, such noble ideas, more often than not, will subsequently lead to low self-esteem. We surpess our own feelings. We dare not to speak out. Why? Because we are afraid other people will be unhappy, have bad impressions on us, etc, etc. Over time, we get more and more timid. We lose ourselves to become one total uncharacteristic Dick, Joe & Henry. This book teaches us to live your life your own way, the way you want it to be, the way you like, the way you feel happy. There is no contradiction between living our life our way and putting society before self.

The second point this book advocates is we are the source of own happiness, nobody but ourselves. Our mentality determines whether we are happy, we are sad, we are successful, we are victimized. Lord Buddha said everything is made up by your heart. (万法唯心造). The author's advocate basically is the real life application of Lord Buddha's teaching.

The third point is to get closer to mother nature to purify yourself, to seek your true self. Nature's many great and little wonders will become your inspiration, your motivation.

This book is definitely worth reading, many many times.

Precious Metal Investment in Singapore

Gold has just reached a record high of the year, and historical record high ever. People may start looking around for ways to invest in precious metals such as gold and silver in Singapore. Such investors may be disappointed. There are, frankly speaking, very limited options in investing in physical precious metals here.

For gold investment, other than buying gold jewellery from your friendly goldsmith, the only other way is to buy from the Gold Department of UOB. You have choices of buying American Eagle, Canadian maple leaf, and 3 other less common choices. Even that will not guarantee you will get what you want. Since the gold price skyrocketed, there has been reports saying UOB is constantly out of stock of certain types of gold bullions that they sell. The 1 oz version was even sold out for some time.

For silver, the choices is even more limited if you want to buy from a 'reputable' institution such as a bank. UOB only offers silver certificates, but not physical silver. To get physical silver such as Canadian silver maple leaf, or American silver eagle, you may have to buy from overseas, such as eBay, or Kitco, and a pay the cost of shipping. There is one private company in Singapore selling those silver bullions and bars too, but I have not purchased from them before, so I am not sure about them. Ok, that's about all the options you have in Singapore to invest in physical precious metals.

Other means of investing precious metals will involves financial instruments such as options, futures, which are all paper.

Precious metal investment vehicles may be one of the many areas that the Singapore government can look into for opportunities. I am sure many from our neighbours would like to have their golds and silvers in Singapore for safe keeping.

Close Shop for the Year

Yesterday I sold off my last significant open position and come to an end of trading for this year. I have missed 3 recessions and the subsequent exponential recovery, this time I must keep studying and keep an eye on the market. I must not miss the 4th one. When will the 4th one come? Nobody knows.

Anyway, ending the year with a tiny profit. Tiny it is, at least I spent time and effort to improve myself. Most importantly, I finally realised the reason why I had kept losing. I am working on my psychology and improving. Bright future ahead...

Guardians 20% Discount

Walked past the Guardian store in Funan yesterday, noticed there is a 20% storewide discount on-going. Out of curiosity, I went to the Guardian store near my place to take a look. So it is a 20% discount storewide for purchases S$30 and above, except those items for babies.

Hohoho...I had wanted to buy some stuff from Guardians for my Nepal trip for quite some time. I kept pushing the purchase back because I don't want to buy unnecessary stuff and stock them up in my home. They take up space and collect lots of dust :P And I was thinking whether I should buy those items from Watson's as there is a 3% rebate if you pay by POSB Everyday Card.

Anyway, today is a good time then. I quickly snapped up all those 'essential' items I will need, including 3 packets of medical paste just in case my back makes noise during the trip.

The 20% discount ends tonight, so you still have a few hours to make your last minute purchase :)

BP511A: Original vs 3rd Party

I got myself a third party BP511 camera battery from Cathay Photos. This is the first time I realised how big the difference in price is between the original Canon battery and the 3rd party battery.

A 3rd party BP511 is S$28, an original Canon BP511A is is S$138!!! With the price of 1 original battery, you can get almost 10 3rd party batteries!!! OMG! In terms of quality, 3rd party batteries are about the same as the original. In the past, I bought a 3rd party battery, and it works just fine, the cost was only S$30. The new 3rd party battery has a capacity of 2800mAh, while the old one has a capacity of 1800mAh.

你可以做得更好

作者： Lynda Field
译者： 田婉芹
Search Number: 158.1

This is a book about how to build up your self-esteem. In this book, a lot of the past concepts/beliefs we learnt in the family, in school are all wrong. We learnt to supress our own feeling, put others first, self behind. All these 'noble' virtues are nontheless causing all our grieves. Another world view changing book.

Pilate

I don't know what is the difference between Pilate & Yoga. The two of them look like the same to me. They both do some strange funny poses and supposed to train your flexibility.

Out of curiousity, I started my 1st Pilate lesson today. The poses are simple and easy to understand, but not easy to do! It is the very first lesson, and my hands, arms, legs, everything is already trembling like some resonance. The simple and slow movements are pushing me. OMG, it is kind of torture.

Luckily the lesson is only one hour, and that is before lunch. If I do it after lunch, I think whatever I eat during lunch will all come out :P

Length & Width

My friend told me today she has no control of the length of her life, so she can only try her best to increase the width of life. It reminds me of this song the long distance run of life. I only found the Mandarin Chinese version in YouTube, but I know there is a Cantonese version too. The video quality is not very good because it is a really old song. Easily more than 20 years old. Anyway, I would like to share it here with you.

The lyric says everybody has the same starting point. When you were born, you are at your starting point, no matter whether you like it or not, no matter how difficult life and situations are, you have to start your journey of life. Everybody has the same ending point too. When you come to the end of your life, you have to stop, no matter how beautiful the scenary is, no matter how attached you are to this material world.

Our life is limited, but our capability is unlimited. Time has been wasted in self doubt, hesitation, worries, and fear. It is high time I gone out to experience to the full of life.