2008

It seems like it has whizzed by. Yet certain memories are stuck in slow motion, some happy, some not. 2008 has been nothing like I ever thought it could be. I have been tagged by the cynical one. And that! Strangely, one thing yours truly is sure than a Long Island Iced Tea is that she has become more cynical over the past year, if not anything else. And no Sach, that's not coz you have been rubbing off on me. :P

During 2008,

- Lost hope on the one thing that I truly ever believed in, in my life. Though I am glad of how things turned out, I still don't know how deep the scar is. Found myself coming out, jaded than ever.

-constantly keep finding myself looking into my life from outside the fishbowl. Not sure whether I truly feel anything anymore. Not sure whether things I thought I felt are even real.

-made a few new quite colourful friends. All younger than me, yet the perfect package. :) And I am grateful, since I don't click easily and I know I wouldn't have been able to get by without the distractions I had thanks to them.

-said goodbye to another few good friends, who has been taken away by the marriage movement. They are all faraway. Too far. I now know that it's very difficult to be maintain a similar bonding after they get married, despite everything said.

-got to a level of *hick* borderline alcoholism I think. *hick* Nay, I can control myself. :P But it doesn't help that all the new friends you are making are hardcore into the happy portion.

-had a couple of younger men, who showed interest in me. I find men in my own age very immature still, thus the idea of a younger brain was a huge no-no, even though the hot browned bodies were tempting. I want to write this fact down, so that I can smirk at myself 20-30 years from now when I am a old crazy gadget lady ( vs. becoming a crazy cat lady). If only you gave up on finding a mature, funny AND intelligent alien, you would be a happy grandma spice now, you silly old cow.

-earned up for all the immature things I compromised on, for the last 3-4 years. I let go this year. And was happy doing things my way, on my own morals and not trying so hard to stand with one leg skewered on that high pedestal. Proud of myself for learning to call it quits.

-contrary to what the above point might suggest, inside I grew up far more than what I let anyone else in on.

-actually started writing on the blog I created more than a year ago, which in turn was on the coming for more than 2 years. lol. maara procras eh?

-lost all hope on finding a job I think I deserve. 2009 is not getting any left over hope.

-the year has been one of extreme highs and lows, and tough decisions. I thought nothing could top 2004 , but 2008 proved me wrong. Wonder whether it comes with the Olympics always.

This was tough to write. Took far longer than I wanted to spend on it, nostalgia has a funny way of taking over. I just hope that everything will turn out for the better if not the best. I am scared to have any expectations at all now. So fickle! this life.


postscript: In my emo state I actually forgot to tag anyone yesterday. DarksideDaily and MiddleChild you are it. I believe the original tag went something like "So this is christmas..and what have you done.."

One more thing I forgot.. I left a city and people I grew to love over the past few years and returned to SL. For good I think. :S I might not return there soon enough, and I think I am still blissfully ignorant about it.

A for..?

A for - Annoying
- Airbag
- Agly
- Anarkali...

Other than politicians and OrbiTracks and failures at TV stints, doesn't she have anything else to do other than strut around in Odel, impairing the hearing and eyesight of shoppers? She doesn't seem to be shopping either, just yapping. and more yapping. Everytime I have been at this particular store, she's always there. Every TIME!
WHY?

Shoppers: Beware of the blondi with the sagging chest in a shiny bag of a dress. She seems to have got the hair colour matched correctly with her brain type atleast.

MaskMeMerry

Effing thing of an year
fears, twist into exact
dreams chuffed out
wants incarcerated
a different mask
a brand new year

Question

Why do people have to pose with the 'V-sign' (peace symbol) in each and every photo they take ?
One or two, I can understand. But all?

Same goes to the 'rock-on sign' too.. ---->> \m/
hmm.. It is called the rock on symbol yea?
I have been spotting this on every photo of all the wannabe heavymetal headbangers, weeders, stoners, you name it. Again, it's not in one or two, but every photo. repetitive and unrelated.

Oh yeah, it's on those facebook walls and photo comments too!

This reminds me of another thing most Sri Lankans seem to overdo. Their sense of fashion. Let some piece of clothing come into fashion, lo and behold, within one months time you see every damn shop out there selling it by bulks and every woman and child wearing the same foresaken style! I know it's called fashion but you really don't have to overdo it or wear what everyone else seems fashionable! For some reason collectively they overwear a certain item and run it to the grave, that you'd not want to be even caught dead in it.

Some such items-
I remember elephant pants was a rave when I was kid.
As of recent - Babydolls, leggings?, those boldly printed tops, the chunky belts, hotpants..

Alrighty, back to my lazy lazy sunday evening.. :)

Of busses,men and trickle trickle merry-pees

Went in the bus yesterday after years, and well, I realised my memory has faded a bit on the compliments of busrides in good ol' Sri Lanka (other than the thrill of a high speed deathride ofcourse).
To the knowledge of inexperienced females out there, SL busrides include the complimentary attributes like: the sexy sweaty musk of unhygienic commuters, a blabbering dirty conductor, a whale-ish woman who needs the seat next to her to rest her minuscule excuse of a handbag as if taking up half of the other seat with her ass is not enough, and of course the mentally disarrayed male population. The woman even had the nerve to glare at me for asking her to move her bag from the only seat in the bus!

I was perplexed at how to react to a certain incident on the bus ride. The bus was quite empty, and three 19-something men(kids?) got in and I really didn't see them behind my seat or even knew they were there until I felt something brush against my hair lightly. My hair is very short but as someone was standing next to the seat right behind me I thought it was unintended. But this alerted me to the conversation of these three. Realization hit they were actually talking about my hair. It went something along the lines of maara kondey ne, maara chic, wonder where you got the hairstyle from, etc etc. It was a combination of english and sinhala and an attempt to get attention. Was slightly annoying since they were right behind and quite loud. Now the pissing off point came when I felt that same brush of hand again. This time I knew it was intentional, instinctly turned around to give a peice of my mind and and and.. I could only manage a pissed off frown and a glare. Reason? I was stuck. Well what could I have said?
"What the fuck do you think you are doing trying to feel up my hair?? (intial-reaction which I didn't voice)"
"Malli salon ekata yana paara kiyannada? (after-after-thought)"

I realised I couldn't really communicate in sinhala and sound as annoyed as I was. Also realised I really didn't want to say anything in english thought they were speaking in singlish on and off.
But I think my dirtylook was enough and they chickened out from there on. OR they finally realised I was much older than them. This was what I naturally expected them to think, and was the reason at me been a bit taken back when I turned around and saw how young they looked. Okay, I am not thaat old (still reaching my mid twenties ;) ) but still!!! I was dressed like a professional after a very professional day at a business meeting at the super professional WTC !
Or am I getting a bit ahead of myself wanting respect from some immature kids? Sigh, I think my adult-genes are developing. Anyway, I still can't think of a response in sinhala I could have uttered that would have really taken my message across!


On a totally different note, RD I'd like know whether you know a method of doing a stealth-pee? Please do share, if you do. Going into the loo,unintentionally with a senior professional whom you are trying to impress, and listening to her pee in the cubicle next to you while you try to control the volume of your thunderous pee that seems to echo off the cubicle walls IS.NOT.PLEASANT. Especially when your bladder is loaded up with mugs and mugs of coffee. Each and every noise, of a zipper and pants going down, to the initial trickle and the sudden control to reduce the volume, it's so damn loud. To top it off you get very light and merry, christmassy music in the background (courtsey of the WTC loos sound system).
And the acting comes when you both pretend nothing uncomfortable just happened and wash your hands and walk out making pleasant conversation. Ahh, joy!

Of Recession and Sub-prime crisis

So with the USA officially declaring today that it has been in a recession since December 2007, and the global meltdown in the process, I thought of writing a few words on certain roots of this crisis. Say a slight technical informative view.

It all began with sub-prime loans. Before you scratch your head, let me explain. Sub-prime loans can be described as loans that are given to borrowers who are perceived to have high credit risk, mainly coz they lack a strong credit history or have other characteristics that are associated with high probabilities of default. They are a lower class of loans compared to prime loans.

This was an underserved market in the US more than two decades ago, but it gained interest of many lenders in the mid 1990s, due to market innovations that reduced costs for lenders of assessing and pricing risks. Basically, technological advances facilitated credit scoring by making it easier for lenders to collect and disseminate information on the creditworthiness of prospective borrowers. Another factor for the splurge in sub-prime lending was due to regulatory changes. New regulations made it easier for lenders (banks) to sell of their mortgages to other investors on the secondary mortgage market. This is what securitization is. Very simply, a bank would give mortgage loans to homeowners. Thus the homeowner will be paying a certain monthly interest to the bank. Now to give out the initial loan the bank should have money. How does the bank get this money? They pool all the mortgage loans into one security (imagine a stock that reflects the pricing of the loan pool) and sell it to investors (like selling stocks). In return, these investors receive a certain return from the repayments bank receives from the homeowners. The risk here is that the investors take on the high returns as well as the risk of defaulted pay by the homeowners. The higher risk you take the higher the return. The bank is a mere broker earning commission in the transaction.

Homeowners ---interest + monthly repayments--- > Lender/Broker ---bond payments(returns)------> Investor (Mortgage bond market)

Homeowners < ---Loan to buy house----- Lender/Broker <---buy mortgage security (bond)----- Investor (Mortgage bond market)

The important thing is that the interest rates that are paid by the homeowners are not fixed. It’s related to US Federal Fund rate and adjustable accordingly. At the time of the sub-prime boom, these rates were low. Thus, the low credit rated homebuyers could buy their dream houses, the banks (lenders) got their commission and investors were taking on high returns from the high risk they were taking. There was no sign of the property market going down, no sigh of recession, everybody was happy.

So how did this happy bubble burst?
The housing market from what I know. The house-builders built too many houses and prices slowly went down as many houses remained unsold. annnd BOOM! The sub-prime crisis hit the housing market in US in 2007, with high inflation, increasing interest rates and declining real-estate prices. In short, the crisis refers to various credit problems faced by the sub-prime lenders and other market participants.

The adjustable sub-prime lending rates increased with rising Federal Fund rates, and the homeowners found it difficult to repay the suddenly higher monthly interest. Defaulting began. As the houses (that were bought on the loan) were the collateral for default the banks/lenders ended up having a lot of properties in their hands. What's more, they couldn’t sell it back at profit to the market, since the property market was on a downward trend. With increased borrowing rates, people became more cautious in buying real estate thereby slowing down money flow and resulting in holding of assets by the lending companies.

With the declining housing prices, the value of their mortgage backed securities started declining in the secondary securities market and the investing companies (such as CityGroup, Merrill Lynch and, HSBC) with their high uncovered exposure to the crisis started losing in on their investments.

With the news of the market downturn spreading, these companies’ stock prices and revenue took a negative turn, largely affecting stock markets all over the world. Some of these mortgage backed securities prices went down to zero, absolutely no worth, and several big investors lost billions (imagine a stock you invested in at USD40 come down to zero). For example, Merrill Lynch, still plagued by declines in the value of assets such as mortgages, reports an estimated net loss of $1.96 billion for its 2008 first quarter and Citigroup reports similar loses due to sub-prime exposures ( off topic, I can't find the references right now, can I get sued by this? ).

Thus, here we are, an economic crisis all around, and poor me jobless at home trying to enlighten atleast one reader. I did try to make it less technical yet informative as possible.
A more elaborate and expert account can be found here.

Hmm. I should be grateful I haven’t suddenly lost my home, or left wondering how I am going to pay for the next meal.
But still. damn it.

BUT I need to vent

Solving the puzzle by Spice

So I have been in a very lousy mood for the past week. Job hunting has become a truly depressing task. I am never one to easily give up on something I have set my mind on, but I might have to settle for less from the way things are going right now. I have always been good at what I do, studies or previous part time jobs. It came naturally, the work hard, party hard attitude. Thus for any employer I am a good investment since I can easily become a happy workaholic corporate whore. So Why am I still jobless!! :( I am slowly loosing my ambitions, my dreams. No, let's not go there. I blame it on the crisis. I don't know what these senior bankers are talking about when they say the US crisis wont affect Sri Lanka. It's affecting every damn private/blue-chip/BPO/financial company in the island. All of them are laying off or restructuring. And definitely not hiring. Have you seen the vacancy pages on sunday papers these days? No? Coz there is none. Or there is a mere 2 paged scrap of paper looking for fit-models for lingerie. I have been considering that, but not sure what the pay is for letting some woman touch you up on the upper field. And can I get some free VS goodies with that to go please? Can? Then I am in. Anyone know what the pay is like for a fit-model?

So yes, I am trying to figure out which way to go these days. While ambitions/career plan A and plan B are slowly getting fucked my head is all messed up. It's going in a rampage of crazy yearnings (of the alcholic kind) and man hunts.

I've been asking good friends to accompany me to a lonely beach plus bonfire, boombox and some ethanol. To watch the sunset and sip a nice mojito with waves lapping at your feet. Orrrr I could do with one of those susbstance induced kiddies rides at excel world. Anything!!
As for the manhunt, it seems a better yielding one than the job hunt. Suddenly there seems to be a lot of attractive bodies around ;) I have lost touch with this whole flirting thing and now I am not sure how it's done. The sublte art of flirting that is. Not the lame overcooked one!
I've EVEN been thinking about getting hitched fashionably young as the trend seems to be these days. Any single rich dudes out there who is willing to take care of my maintenance bills in return for me letting him do whatever he want in thw world?* Tall, dark, slightly built characteristics are preferred but not neccesary.

Sigh. I need to figure out the rest of the jigsaw pieces soon, or I am going to end up the exact opposite of the Ms. Independent I am trying to be, with a rich manwhore.

* - Certain conditions apply.