Saturday, December 02, 2017

Personal Update - Just Finished the Bar Exams

Wow ! I am finally free ! For the next one month, I have no obligatory readings that I have to do and papers I need to prepare for. Beyond some projects which I have promised myself that I would do, I am practically free to game role-playing games the entire month. 

A) Bar Exams

Completing the Part B exams is not as euphoric as I thought it would be. This was a tough but enjoyable series of papers because it was set by pretty cool geeks. I had to crack cases inspired by characters in Futurama, Rick and Morty and even Wonder Woman. It made doing a tough paper much more enjoyable. My regret is that my answer could have contained pop culture references of its own. One answer should have said “In contravention of ethical guidelines, Rick could have gotten himself into a Pickle” But 16 hours of exam over 4 days is stressful. I hope I will pass.

I made my contacts with the LLB folks and really enjoyed engaging with them. The young and upcoming lawyers to be have one thing we Gen X folks lack - a future life that is full of possibilities. While they will be entering a hyper-competitive marketplace that has, in my opinion, has too much talent, there is at least a possilbility that they will become industry leaders one day. For us Gen X folks in our 40s we’re more likely to be stuck at our current life circumstances. 

This closing of possibilities is one of the reasons why many of us get a mid-life crisis. I will not say anymore because...

B) Bloggers Moot 

BIGSCribe is still arranging a closed-door affair for the creme de la creme of the financial blogosphere. If you are not in the know, you are not likely to receive an invitation. For this event, I proposed the idea of a TED like conference for us to speak for about 5-10 minutes on any topic we think bloggers would like to hear. I will be sharing some the latest on mid-life on mid-life crisis and will working out with the expert crowd what this means for our personal finances.

For those who are not invited, rest assured that I will share as much I can about the event when I do an AAR here.

C) Special Projects

Just because I no longer exams does not mean that I no longer have projects. My first priority is to get put some SEO magic into this blog and try to push for more book sales. More will come later. 

Beyond serious stuff, I expect to be doing as much gaming as possible.

D) Travel and Leisure

This exam season has been psychologically draining. For some strange reason stretching exams to early December is painful because a lot of folks are travelling and putting smiling pictures on Facebook while I am trying to figure out how to help a hypothetical guy ensure that his mistress can get something in the event that he dies. 

This year it’s particularly bad because we had a good 2017 and folks have some disposable cash to burn. I will be going to Johor Legoland next Monday with my family but so far, it’s only to Malaysia for me. 

E) Financial Markets

My portfolios are not doing all that well because of the correction in local Tech counters. Fortunately I have built my margin account to minimise the damage as hospitality trusts are still doing ok. There will not be too many market movements in December.

F) Books

I will be shifting my focus to fictional works. During Part B, I completely missed out Dan Brown’s Origin and Brandon Sanderson has released his next book in the Words of Radiance series called Oathbringer.

As the year comes to a close, in another personal update, I will talk about leaving retirement. On January I will begin my training contract and will likely find ways to survive in the legal industry moving forward while keeping my mind open to any interesting offers from the IT industry. 






 

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