So let's start with the present. Arrived last night in Singapore at 10:50pm, and I'm staying at my uncle's place. He's a cool guy. No joke. He's a reformed stock broker, has heaps of these random tycoon friends he tells me stories about. However, he also nearly went bankrupt some years back, but still picked himself up and got rich again. Now, he's semi-retired, and deals in Asian art as a past-time.
Last night, he was telling us all these stories about how the business world is fail. But, on story in particular was very much the definition of awesome. It was a story where the banks actually lose: this was of special interest to me, as I had been taught well by Mr Dunkerley: Banks = legalised mafia (think about it, you know he makes a good point). So, one of my uncle's friends is a Indonesian tycoon. From his businesses, he had roughly $10 milion USD debts with 5 banks. He rung up my uncle, and asked him to tell the banks that he was about to die. This is a technique called 'hair-cutting'. Essentially, if dead, all the debt becomes immaterial, and 'the papers become toilet paper', as my uncle put it. My uncle would tell the bank "He's about to die', and advise them to cut their losses: reduce the debt of $10 million USD to $1 million USD or thereabout, payable immediately. It's hilarious, cos the bank does panic, and does comply with this agreement. Take that banks; evil doesn't pay. It actually costs you roughly $9 million USD each. However, this sends a bad moral lesson, that one should pay back evil with evil. Sadness.
Anyway, Singapore has just been a delightful combination of stories from my uncle, and lots of food. Lots and lots and lots of food. The resemblence between my body and a beach ball will be uncanny.
Now some stories from the past! Hurray
Year 8: Hanjoo and Friends Happy Hour.
It was a lunch time, and Hanjoo had broken his pinky finger from messing up a catch on a rugby ball bombed up into the air. So we crowded around him after he hit the ground, not knowing the extent of the injury at the time. However, a smile crept on Howard’s face, and he announced “Haha, Hanjoooooooooooooooooooo! Get up, you’re not hurt!” In Howard’s defence, many of us started to doubt whether Hanjoo was indeed telling the truth. Nevertheless, we should all learn a lesson from the moment which followed: Whether or not you believe the person, if a person claims to have injured his foot, don’t grab at his foot; if he claims his neck is injured, don’t touch his neck. Similarly, if a person claims he has seriously injured his pinky finger, don’t attempt to pull him off the ground by forcefully grabbing his hands. A deafening roar of pain was unleashed and next thing you know, Howard is running for his life from Hanjoo, with Howard shouting “SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, SORRY!” I was just amazed at Howard’s quick reaction time to commence his bolt prior to the primal roar, but right after Hanjoo’s face scrunched up and eyes screamed in pain.
Year 8: The ‘I Love School’ program.
The school supplied us with a whole heap of bumper stickers about slowing down for kids in school zones. In our science classroom, a whole bunch of discarded stickers were on the tables in the back row. Bored and tired from a gruelling day at school, Fatty and Michael decided to make a game out of putting these stickers on Mr Ballantyne’s back. In their defence (I feel like such a law student), Mr Ballantyne was well-renowned as a lazy guy with an indifference towards pretty much everything, save for Diablo II (which is an AWESOME game, mind you). Well, Mr Bal did not take this well at all; we postulated that he took this stunt as a shot at his weight, because we think there may have been mention of ‘wide load’ on the bumper sticker. Mr Bal asked for the people to own up; it’s especially funny ‘cos I'm pretty sure Michael didn’t own up, making Jit take the fall for him. Jit, you are a good man. Whilst venting his anger, to the extent Mr Ball can actually vent anger (he didn’t even change his tone of voice), I’m pretty sure he said something along the lines of ‘One or two stickers is just having fun; three stickers is taking it too far’. lol and lol. Anyway, Jit and Fatty had to undertake the ‘I Love School’ program, which involved school service, signatures from parents acknowledging their 'enrollment' into the program, and getting teacher's signatures on a weekly basis to monitor their behaviour in the class. Though my memory is a bit hazy, I recall Ashton Kutcher coming into the classroom, just to say 'You just got ILoveSchool'ed!' Stupid celebrities and their excessive time and money to come to our humble land just to attack Fats and Jit.
Hurray for the powers of past and present combining! Is that Captain Planet? Oh, it's actually Chi. How does he keep up his travelling exploits whilst being such an active environmentalist? I don't know. I just don't know.
Anyway, sorry about the lateness of this post. I've been out since the last post unfortunately; however, I did promise a double post. This is as close as I could manage. Seeya later!
Josh
P.S. My cousin took me to see the match between Federer and Murray. lol and lol at Murray, I thought he had a chance in the 3rd set. Epic tie-break, loved every minute of it. Thanks for taking me Shawn!
No comments:
Post a Comment