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admiring salt in death valley, winter 2008















valley of fire, winter 2008















lunch break in hartford, winter 2008















niagara wine tasting, winter 2008




March 29, 2009

TheStar: Tang, who bills himself as "the Chinese Warren Buffett" and "the king of 1 per cent weekly returns," is a prominent figure in Toronto's mostly Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese community. He is believed to have at least 200 clients in Canada. In late February, Tang sent a letter to his clients, apologizing for "the sin that I had committed" but insisted that he did not steal investors’ funds.

My dad invested a chunk of money with Tang last year. He did not tell me until I moved back to Toronto. I was angry about not being informed earlier and told him to pull out immediately. He finally pulled the trigger in November but by then things had begun to unravel. I hope this serves as an expensive lesson learned for my dad but I also wonder if the government can do more to educate investors ...

March 28, 2009

Tuesday, caught a movie with Aaron and Joanna in Philly suburb. I love I love you man!

Saturday, it's warm enough for tennis. Yay! Evening, Banff film festival with Stephen after sharing a very un-cookie-like cookie at Green Beanery. The base jumping movie is out of this world.

March 27, 2009

NYTimes: Forgiving yourself takes time. You don’t do it just once. You do it over and over. Year in, year out. Within a couple of years I married a man, Leo, who was so far outside the Los Angeles scene that he looked like a caricature of a tourist when he showed up on my doorstep: socks, sandals and a 35-millimeter camera around his neck. And yet he was brilliant, optimistic, courageous and willing to travel beyond his own geographic and cultural barriers to marry the likes of me. // It doesn’t seem fair that we can look back and connect the dots in life, and see what led from that to this, but we cannot look forward and anticipate in any way what constellation today’s dots will form in the vast space ahead of us. I guess it’s just best to assume that heaven is right here, right now, and let the stars fall where they may.

March 24, 2009

Best's Insurance News: In China, the CIRC required banks to set up an aptness assessment system for customers buying investment-linked insurance products, which should be sold in designated areas with separate salespeople. Cross-selling of investment-linked insurance products in the banks' wealth management centers will not be allowed, in an effort to avoid misleading in product promotion. // Bancassurance proved an effective channel to penetrate India's large and diverse population, with its problems of connectivity in rural areas, which makes traditional tied-agent distribution difficult and expensive. Insurers usually form multi-banking partnerships with as many as 10 bancassurance partners. // The China Insurance Regulatory Commission said 29.77% of China's total premium income came through the bancassurance channel in 2008. Because China's regulator allowed banks to have multiple relationships with insurance companies in 2002, bancassurance grew dramatically in the next two years, said Wenli Yuan, senior analyst at Celent China. After that, the development slowed down because "severe commission competition" affected insurers' profit margin.

March 22, 2009

Wednesday, bowling with Aaron and Joanna in a Philly suburb. They then proceeded to teach me to drive in a Home Depot parking lot. I'm learning a lot on this project!

Saturday, New York botanical garden with Zoey. The orchid show is pretty crazy.

Sunday, grabbed a drink and bite at momofuku with Yijing. Friends move, jobs change but certain things stay the same.

March 22, 2009

Somebody is taking a different approach.

Des Moines Register: Principal Financial Group (PFG) said Friday that it is cutting pay by 2% to 10%, depending on each employee's pay level.

March 16, 2009

National Underwriter: Total annuity surrender rates declined in 2008. At year-end, 60% of book value/MVA assets were in contracts that had a surrender charge, whereas 95% of indexed assets were in contracts that had a surrender charge. For VAs, 55% of assets were in VA contracts that had a surrender charge. // For deferred annuities, nonqualified annuities generated more sales premium than either IRAs or qualified employer plans. Of the $250.4 billion in deferred annuity sales in 2008, $107.6 billion went into nonqualified annuities while IRA sales totaled $105.3 billion and sales in qualified employer plans slipped to $37.5 billion.

March 14, 2009

Met up with environmental engineer for a stroll through High Park. Making fun of each other. Making progress.

March 11, 2009

The next Hilary?

NYTimes: And while Mrs. Clinton seems likely to shy away from electoral politics as secretary of state, there is little doubt about where the Clintons' loyalty lies: On March 11, 2009, Mr. Clinton himself will headline an Upper East Side fund-raiser for Ms. Gillibrand. // Ms. Gillibrand is indisputably intense; a rising corporate lawyer before entering Congress, she worked until the day before she gave birth to her first son, Theodore, now 5 (and received a standing ovation on the floor of the House when she did the same before the birth of her second son, Henry, who is now 8 months old). But she can project a wide-eyed, from-the-farm belt style, one much on display at the news conference announcing her Senate appointment, where she alternated odes to motherhood with near-scholarly disquisitions on her opposition to the Wall Street bailout. // In Washington, Ms. Gillibrand has made a calling card of transparency, posting a “Sunlight Report” on her Congressional Web site that lists her meetings with lobbyists as well as the names of those seeking government grants known as earmarks.

March 7, 2009

Best's Insurance News: Aviva acknowledged in its results presentation that MCEV principles "were designed during a period of relatively stable market conditions," and that the CFO Forum in December agreed to conduct "a review of the impact of turbulent market conditions on the MCEV principles, the result of which may lead to changes" in those principles. Those areas under review include implied volatilities, cost of non-hedgeable risks, use of swap rates as a proxy for risk-free rates and the effect of liquidity premia.

March 7, 2009

Date #8 with intense Parisian with intense dislike for mainstream movies. He practically yelled at me for enjoying Children of Men.

March 5, 2009

WSJ: Hartford is in talks to sell most of the life-insurance unit to Canada's Sun Life Financial.

March 1, 2009

NYTimes: As such, she has invited attention — and in some cases, derision — in the last year for such actions as creating spreadsheets to find the perfect cupcake recipe, attending lavish ballet, art and fashion galas, paying $60,000 at a charity auction to have lunch with Oscar de la Renta, and hosting breezy, dying-to-get-invited-to parties at her $5 million penthouse atop the Four Seasons hotel in San Francisco.

What's wrong with creating spreadsheets to find the perfect cupcake recipe >.<

February 28, 2009

Date #7 with someone that cannot make up his mind about where to go on vacation. Note to self: do not agree to go on dates with indecisive people. On a side note, I bought some Gyokuro at All Things Tea. Now I just need some Tencha to begin studying the lifecycle of Matcha.

Creating a lavalife account because there is not enough people in my age group on match. On lava, you need a membership to initiate a conversation but it's free to respond. That is to say, it's free for girls. Life is not fair.

What I wrote on February 28, 2008, in Chicago: I love my life right now and it's hard to imagine having it anywhere else.

February 25, 2009

Latest adventures on match.com:
-Remembering that chatting online is really annoying
-Cursing at error messages e.g. "even dating has difficulties"

February 22, 2009

I'm starting a project in Philly next week, so I broke my rule and scheduled two dates in one day.

Date #5 with environmental engineer. We drank too much coffee, which is always a good thing.

Date #6 with wedding photographer that loves to complain about people that love to complain.

February 21, 2009

Thursday, partner/staff dinner + alcohol + dancing on a table = ?

Saturday, met up with Denise and Stephen at le pain quotidien. Oh no, we cannot make up our mind regarding dessert!

February 17, 2009

Two days of downhill and one day of cross country with Carl over the long weekend. Woo hoo!

Tuesday, met up with Benny. Apparently, if you work too long in industry you are not suitable for consulting, and if you work too long in consulting you are not suitable for industry.

February 11, 2009

Date #4 with outdoors aficionado, except his definition of outdoors is cottaging every weekend.

February 9, 2009

I have always known that aquarius is best.

February 8, 2009

Date #3 with pilot trainer. Update #3: He cancels second date because he is sick. He is out of touch for a week because of a family emergency. I think the result of the likelihood test is clear.

February 7, 2009

Kristof: Men are particularly likely to make high-risk bets when under financial pressure and surrounded by other males of similar status. As for women, their risk-taking was unaffected by this kind of peer pressure. The study’s authors point to an evolutionary hangover. Across cultures, women prefer high-status men, while a woman’s reproductive prospects depend much less on her social status. Thus, when men of similar status gather, they jockey for an edge and jostle for the alpha role — and try to get ahead with high-stakes gambles. On the plus side, boasting about these financial bets might make a great pickup line. On the downside, the bank goes bust.

February 6, 2009

Sunday, Denise cooks lots of yummy food for my birthday. Wah. Green tea cake. Wah.

Friday, dinner with Wei, Hong & Steven. Pondering over the bad investments and the good life that we are lucky to have.

January 31, 2009

Date #2 with intense intellectual over afternoon tea at Park Hyatt. Tea was fragrant. Conversation was intense.

January 28, 2009

Date #1 with jazz piano player. Update #1: He emails to say that he does not want a serious relationship. Did I ask for a serious relationship? Confused >.<

January 25, 2009

Latest adventures on match.com:
-Realizing that chat does not permit "<" i.e. no flirting in xml
-Smiling at error messages e.g. "even dating has difficulties"

January 23, 2009

Inspired by Feicheng Wurao, I got an account at match.com under esperant0. One section of your profile is supposed to describe what you are looking for. I thought about it for ten minutes and this is all I could come up with.

- enjoys thinking for himself
- not overly concerned with how others perceive him
- believes that a relationship is a conversation

Not knowing what I want made me a little sad. But then, as I browsed through different profiles, I realized that over the last few years I have learnt a great deal about what I don't want.

This is beginning to sound like the coop program.

January 21, 2009

Sunday, climbing with Stephen followed by piano concert at TSO. The improvisation was impressive.

Wednesday, attended branding seminar at MARS with Stephen and Ah-Dur.

TorontoLife: Ontario is now experiencing what the U.K. went through under Margaret Thatcher: a final, massive shift from manufacturing jobs to service jobs. In the new economy, Ontario doesn’t make stuff anymore. Our new job is to lend, invest, and manage people’s money. // Planning to hoard cash? TD can help. // South of the border, Canadians are seen as polite, risk-averse and boring——just what the whole world suddenly wants from banks. // Last fall, Mayor David Miller—who, like Dwight Duncan, believes Toronto could become a top-10 city—created a similar agency, Invest Toronto. It is perhaps most closely modelled on World Business Chicago, a non-profit corporation chaired by Mayor Richard Daly. // Does Toronto want to play in the big leagues or not? Do we all want Bay Street to conquer the world? Many Torontonians like the city as it is: a big player but not a high roller, fast-paced but not hectic, vibrant but not chaotic, important but unnoticed. That’s a portrait of Toronto as a shrinking violet.

January 14, 2009

Tuesday, visited Stephen/Imran/Estelle's new place downtown. We played Malarky. I did such a good job bluffing at the beginning that nobody believed me when I had the actual answer later on in the game. Thank goodness that I suck at bluffing in real life.

Saturday, skiing with Carl. I was a bit apprehensive since I did not ski last season. But Carl says that I am making progress and upgraded me from bunny level to bear level. Yay!

Adventurer of the Year Rob Gauntlett Dies in the French Alps.

Wednesday, lunch with Iris at Marche.

January 8, 2009

Economist: Government bonds may be offering “return-free risk”, in the neat phrase of Jim Grant.

Economist: People’s eventual appetite for risk is affected by the economic environment during their childhood. Be careful what you say when you tell the children about today’s crisis.

Wendy's next project: Create a picture book for children retelling the financial crisis.

January 3, 2009

I received a mass mailing from Patni, a company that "helped a Fortune 500 HR consulting company set up and manage a shared services center and provided end-to-end actuarial valuations services." Patni offers "robust training engine for quick scale up of actuarial capabilities", "up to 125 actuarial resources in 18 months." Actuarial outsourcing has arrived?

January 2, 2009

"Have you ever wondered how actuaries became the leading risk experts?" Not really but SOA's interactive timeline is pretty cool.

January 1, 2009

Celebrating the first day of 2009 by reading manga: Eensy Weensy Monster by Masami Tsuda. Yes, she is also the author of Kare Kano. This time, the boy is super vain ("shiny princy") and the girl has an explosive temper ("eesy weensy monster"). I love Masami Tsuda's stories because the relationships are very much about helping each other becoming better versions of ourselves.

Also found a really good podcast: EconTalk. I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed by Taleb's interview. Long-winded writing is better than long-winded talking.