Bee and the Walking Derivatives Dictionary

Just found out that my grade school friend Bee has moved to Darwin, Australia middle of this year. Glad for her because she already has a job in a field she likes ... managing restaurants. Sad because I won't have a chance to see her unless I myself go to Australia.

On a side note, while adding a comment on her Friendster site, I realized I was commenting right after Ian ... someone I met while I was with the IAS 39 conversion team. He was plugging the band Zelle in that comment. Come to think of it, I haven't heard of Zelle in mainstream music yet ... but then again, I don't listen to the radio that much.

Decided to add Ian to my contacts. Had a good laugh reading a comment on his site left by his co-worker who called him a walking derivative. I'd rather call him the walking derivatives dictionary... taking apart structured products and measuring market values of embedded derivatives was a pain during the IAS 39 project, but his inputs were a lot of help on settling what methods to use. Read the last entry on his blog too ... and had to chuckle ... it was an ode to the credit derivatives ... which recently have taken a beating because some were backed by defaulting subprime mortgages - which everyone with an inkling on what's happening in the financial market nowadays will know - is causing this year's crisis.

Multiply

Jeng and Dennis kept mentioning Multiply so I decided to check it out. Hilarious how a lot of people in the dealing room have signed up. Unfortunately, not everyone has really made use of the site.

My Rockin' Girl Blogger award

Got this message in my cbox last July 23:

23 Jul 07, 10:09
Rach: Please come by my blog to pick up your award.

So I went to Rachel's "Rewards of the Heart" blog of July 22 where she gave me (and four others) this award:

This is what Rach has to say about me: :-)

Mary Jane of Vineyard - One of my closest friends since grade school. She was into blogging before I even knew what a blog was. She has always been the smart one, always topping exams with minimum effort. I'm thankful for the many times she has helped me in school (from grade school to graduate studies). Imagine that! We've certainly come a long way. Miss you MJ! Hope to see you soon.

My So-called 2007 10-day Forced Leave

From: Sally reyes
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:09:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: MJFReyes is on Leave until 22-Aug-2007

that's about 2 weeks off!!! are you going out of the country like asian tour?? dapat ginagawa mo na yan at this time in your life.... have fun kung saan ka man papunta...

reyesmf@pnb.com.ph wrote:

I will be out of the office starting 08/08/2007 and will not return until
08/23/2007.

For USD/PHP queries, please contact Reynante Infante.

For Web Standardization queries, please contact Lourdes Garcia.

For urgent personal matters, please e-mail my Yahoo address or send me a
text message.

Thanks.

Jing's Reply:

Well, I just spent those days at home because:

1. Can't find anyone to take a vacation with me out of town (Prime candidate No. 1 - Sampa - is now busy teaching grade school kids)
2. Haven't gotten round to getting a visa to Australia or the US ... so can't visit folks there (Honestly, I find it annoying to have to pay money for a VISA application, spend time filling out pages of the form, taking time to prepare loads of "supporting documents", be probably treated like shit during an interview by someone who won't take my word for it that I just want a vacation, and still not be sure I'll get my time and money's worth for it because "terrorism" threats and illegal alien problems make it highly probable that my application will be rejected)
3. Hard to go malling when two typhoons have hit Luzon, Phililppines and rains have flooded Metro Manila streets
4. Ma broke an arm slipping on wet kitchen floor so I do most of the cooking at home now
5. Playing Sims2 ain't so bad