About a week ago, a dear friend introduced some of those PTC (pay-to-click) sites. Of course, I had my level of skeptism (and still do), but I figured that since I’m now mainly studying/doing questions on my computer anyway (and that dear friend already did the researched and streamlined the potential sites down to me so I won’t really have to spend time surfing around), a couple of mouse/keystrokes after each question doesn’t really require too much marginal effort/time.

So, after 1 week, with minimal efforts and absolutely zero monetary investment, I’ve “earned” a little under 4$. (I’m using “earned” with quotations, since I have actually not seen the actual money “earned” yet) Of course, I knew from the outset that this won’t be a significant source of income. (Heck, 4$ doesn’t even pay for my daily starbucks! But then again, at least it might pay for my flickr and domain name and all that.

At this rate, it’s still better than the earnings from my adsense though. *laughs* Now THAT’s something I have not seen the actualy payment or anything yet, although the earning has been accrued for years!!! >.<

So, these are the 2 PTC sites that my friend suggested. I'm just toing to post them (with my referal, of course) here.

• Take the Globe - The main one here. About 3$ in earning. However, I’m a tiny bit skeptic about the whole non-instant payout (you have to “request” the payout and wait WEEKS to actually be paid. >.<
• NewBux - about 0.5$ so far. But of course, I hardly did anything to this one.

And of course, I’m most most skeptic about using AlertPay as a form of payment. I mean, sure . . . it might be similar to PayPal and all, but at least I’m familiar with PayPal. Additionally, the fact that this AlertPay does NOT have direct transfer to banks here and charges the fee of 3$ for each check issued (+ I’ll have to pay extra fee to get those check depositted) is making me a bit unsure about the whole PTC revenue model for me.

But then again, I’ll just stick to it until after the exam is over (once I don’t have to spend this much time in front of computers doing questions, I might not have the time/inclination to try this experiement out.) Until then, we’ll see how this thing goes. . .

To be honest, I had forgotten how to really really study. You know, not just to read read, but to read in order to remember what it was that I had read. You see, I have a big problems with “memorization” aspect of EVERYTHING. I’m the type that needs to “understand” instead of being able to commit what I had read into my memory and being able to retrieve it in entirety later.

So, instead of being able to remember, say for a very simple example, what happens to cash flow from operations when account payable decreases, I have to picture the level of AP before and after and go through the whole reasoning before getting to the conclusions.

Heck! I can’t even tell you from memory whether price & quantity would increase or decrease if the demand curves shifts. I have to picture the two-lined supply and demand curve (sometimes with my two index fingers), move them around before I can tell you what happens to the P & Q. And this is the type of questions what I had done probably a thousand times in my bachelor’s and master’s degree!!!!

In many ways, I’m okay with this though. I mean. It’s always better to understand something than it is to just be a parrot and repeat everything from memory. But on the other hand . . . because I never really had to exercise my memory that much, I ended up being EXTREMELY bad with things that I have no choice but to remember.

For example . . . this ethics section of the CFA . . . Seriously! My getting only 30-50% correct in this section does not reflect that I’m an unethical person! It just reflects my lack of memory to actually remember the details of the codes and standards!!! (Honestly!!!!)

Yesterday, when I walked into the canteen (well, canteen-ish type of restaurant… ร้านข้าวแกงข้างๆบริษัท, if you know what I mean), I was quite impressed with the sight of every single table completely black & white. Unfortunately, I was determined to quickly finish my lunch in order to go on to quickly finishing up my Friday afternoon work, so I forgot to whip out my camera and take a shot.

So, today and tomorrow will likely continue to be very monotonously black & white. I had never lived anywhere long enough to witness anything else like this, so I may not be able to compare. However, I just happen to feel that the color of the clothings here can be so expressive of an ideas/standpoint.

While I don’t mind wearing B&W for these 3 days (primarily because I do believe it’s a respectful way to mourn for a nationally important person, and also because my wardrobe is primarily black anyway (remember the 14 black jackets (of varying design and sizes) that I used to have??))

However, it really, really, REALLY bugs me when some colors now just have to have political implications behind them.

Heck, I mean, I don’t even think about this in the morning when I pick out my clothes, but I hate hate it when people ask (even jokingly) about why I choose to wear a certain color on a certain day.

Don’t they get it? the thing is, I didn’t choose to wear something because of some meaning behind it. It was probably just on top of the laundry pile or something. >.<

There are a few things that I tend to pick up when I get busy or stressed out. Some are quite unhealthy (eating), some are social (chatting with friends), and some are quite individual and neither-very-unhealthy-nor-very-unproductive.

One of the latter category is blogging (as evidenced by the recent increase in my blogging frequency).

The other is photo taking/editing/sharing.

I used to feel that I can only enjoy doing so with my good digital cameras (my Maxxum 5D or my Panasonic FX-07) with a long hours of trying editing the photo.

The quality of the photo may be better on those real cameras, but, you know what, in the end, I still get as much enjoyment for a mere 5MP no-optical-zoom noikia n82 plus just a few minutes on photoshop.

:)

So, I think I’ll be restarting the photo blog again . . . Hopefully soon.

So, I got COMPLETELY bored out of my mind during the terrible traffic jam on this loy kratong night.

It was too dark for me to get out my book and effectively study. I wasn’t exactly in the mood of getting my phone out and get online…

So, instead of silently complaining about the unfortunate traffic jam (which no one else would hear except me), I decided to have a little loy kratong with myself, using the little kratong I made from a recycled A4 paper with the other cars’ back lights as the background.

Yah, a bit of a little loy kratong alone… but well, i have to come back home to study tonight, and there’s no one I’d like to go loy kratong with right now anyway.