Go Lloyd. Go Blue.

Getting out of class at 10am today, I ran up to the lounge upstairs in the business school executive residence to witness the announcement. As I predicted, it was on TV. Coach Lloyd Carr was making his retirement announcement live on National TV. 13 years as head coach, 28 years in the program, he is finally stepping down from his position. As I stood and watched the telecast, I felt choked up and had to fight really hard to keep the tears from falling. Several quotes which struck me pretty deeply and I will always remember them.

"I think this game,... there's always this question about whether this game develops character. I don't think this game develops character, but I think it defines character. You play this game for long enough, you coach it, then it will define who you are. Did you quit when you got knocked down. Did you violate the rules in order to win. You know, all the things which you had to do in coaching and playing this game, ultimately will define who you are. And that is one of the real values of the game; and there is an incredible value to this game. And there are problems? Yes. And there are criticisms that are legitimate? Yes. But at it's essence, this game is valuable, like so many other games."

"I took as my guide, the words of Parkenham Beatty. He said 'By your own soul, you learn to live, if some men thwart, you take no heed; if some men hate you have no care. Sing your song, dream your dream, hope your hope and pray your prayer'. And that's what I've tried to do. So on this week of thanksgiving, no one has more to be thankful for, than I do."

Thank you Coach. Go Lloyd. And Go Blue.

Coach Carr Retirement Press Conference

Bleeding Maize and Blue

So, after a crazy night out on Friday, I went to bed at around 4am or so but got up early the next morning at 7:30am or so. Tried to stay in bed for a little longer but couldn't contain the excitement and got out. Drove out to a pharmacy to grab some hand warmers for the game later in the day.

Got back and grabbed a bagel before heading over to Simon's place (across the road) to pre-game. Actually, that was my first (and last) pre-game ever. In the freezing cold, we played beer pong (damn and we narrowly lost), flip cups, tossed a couple of balls, and basically just drank a ton of beer. It was good fun though.

I walked to the stadium with my housemates, as well as Ted and Jianwei. The stadium was packed by the time we reached. It was a miserably cold day and everyone was really fired up for the game. In the first quarter, we did decently, moving the ball somewhat and getting ahead with a field goal. However, it wasn't meant to be and our offense stalled drive after drive, going three and out almost on all our drives. We didn't even manage to put together a decent scoring drive. The defense played hard and battled it out against a potent OSU offense, but still, the offense ultimately cost us our game.

As I stood there, shivering while the heavens emptied cold rain down on the Michigan Stadium, the student section stood and watched as our team got torn apart. Time and again, we prayed and yelled. For the defense to make just another stop, to give our offense a chance to put together a miracle turnaround. That turnaround never came. Cold, drenched and miserable, we stood, silent and kicking the puddles on the benches, and staring in disbelief at the disaster out on the field. The seniors who lost the chance to win it. Coach Carr who will (later in the day) annouce to his players that he will be retiring after the last bowl game. A lump came to my throat and I didn't know what to make of the loss. As we filed out of the stadium in silence, with the OSU fans chanting O-H-I-O and celebrating on the field, my heart achced, and the coldness hit.

I may not agree with the coaching style Coach Carr uses since it's pretty draconian by modern college football standards, but the fact is, he is Michigan Football. A Michigan Man true and true. He loves his players, loves the game, loves Michigan, runs a clean program and plays a straight, gentleman's game. Never a word of abuse or talking down another team, never a single investigation for any malpractices. He visits children at Mott's Children's Hospital and actively tries to make the community a better place. He will definitely be someone whom I respect and remember for all the lessons which he has taught his players and the students of Michigan; not just by his actions on the field and his love of the program, but with his actions off the field as well. A true Michigan Man.

You may ask, why bother so much about Michigan Football? Well, I don't profess to be an expert at it. Nor am I affected in any way or benefitting from it. But it IS the Michigan Experience. The Big House, the fans, the tailgate parties, the pregames, the maize-outs; this is Michigan. I admit, when we lost the first two games of the season, I was pissed off. I pretty much lost faith in the program. Coach Carr didn't. He led the team out of the shadows into 8 straight wins. The team taught us what it meant by "Those who stay will be Champions", how to stay the course even when you're down at the bottom and never to give up hope. That is, something I'll remember and definitely an important life lesson which I have learnt from the team. Thank you team. Thank you Coach Carr.

Walking back from the game, I dropped by the business school to dry up a little and warm up. When I saw myself in the mirror, I was pretty shocked. Eyes were blood-shot and face was red, and I felt pretty feverish and cold. The effects of standing for 4 plus hours straight in the rain finally hit. Or maybe, just the lack of sleep and beer. I headed home and took a short rest before heading out again.

Dinner with Michelle, Roy, Ming and Jianwei at Chili's. Pretty good meal before we came back on campus to attend the event which I suggested: The Men's Glee Club concert at Hill Auditorium. That was my first time in the auditorium and it was really majestic and beautiful. The acoustics were really good and needless to say, the performance was stellar. I wanted to go watch it because my classmate (Michael Cromwell aka Crombomb) was the president of the club and I really enjoyed the performance which he put up when he was in the Friars (a selected subset of the club who formed the best acapella group on campus) last year. Great performance that helped brighten up the day a ton. Really glad I went.

Had a pretty early night and slept in on Sunday. Had a reunion with most of my Joshua Tree trip-mates at Pizza House (the chicken ranch chipati was totally awful) but company was good. Meeting in the b-school for my finance homework and did a good dinner with Anny and Ariel at Yotsuba. Good times.

A mixed and somewhat awesome weekend. Lots of new experiences and had good company throughout. Coach Lloyd Carr will be announcing his retirement tomorrow on a press conference at 10am tomorrow. No doubt, a loss to the program and the proud Michigan football tradition. Go Blue.

Those Who Stay Will Be Champions

Okay, so today is the rarest of rare days. Since I'm waiting for my hair to dry after a shower at 3:20am (more on this later), I'll write up a blog entry before heading to bed.

After classes ended on Thursday, the hype of THE GAME finally set in. It is finally here. The showdown, the final conference game of the year against our arch rivals, Ohio State University (OSU aka the Buckeyes). Whole line of activities lined up throughout the week but didn't really have the chance to see or participate in most of them. Thursday night, met up with John, Edwin and Lennard for a quick dinner at Qdoba then went home to catch my episode of Survivor: China. Didn't do much the rest of the night.

Friday morning, got up pretty late and read some awesome blogs and articles on the net to get into the mood for the game. Some of them stirred up feelings pretty good, such as the entry at Ronald Bellamy's underachieving All-Stars , speaks for the hearts of all true Michigan faithful who bleed maize and blue. Going into the game, we are clearly the underdogs. Statistics wise: defense versus offense comparisons, offence versus defense comparisons, special teams, in every aspect, we are out-gunned and out-matched, not to mention the soul of the team, Mike Hart and Chad Henne being badly injured, we are sorely out-done.

None of that matters now does it? Whatever ESPN says, whatever rational reasoning and arguments say, I have decided that there is nothing else left to do but just to believe, that come Saturday, when the players put their hearts and souls into the game, we will emerge victorious.

"Those who stay will be champions." Jake Long, Mike Hart, Chad Henne, Shawn Crable, Brandon Englemont, amongst many others, decided not to draft for the NFL last year, giving up millions of dollars to don the Maize and Blue, and winged helmet once again. This will be their final game at home, in the biggest college football stadium, in front of the biggest college football crowd and the greatest sports rivalry in America. They deserve the win. Also, this would probably be Coach Lloyd Carr's last game. The man has his flaws. I may not agree with some of his coaching strategies and play calling but above all that, he was a great man. A true Michigan man who led with honor, pride and integrity. He too, deserves the win. So, I will believe.

Anyways, on with the events of my day. I had lunch with Manch today. Haven't had a chance to catch up with her in the longest time, so that was pretty good. We went to Yotsuba along Washtenaw for some nice Japanese food. The original plan was to go get ice-cream from Cold Stone Creamery after lunch but she was way too stuffed to eat anymore, so we skipped that. I spent a good part of the afternoon idling around, reading stuff on the net and some notes. My entire household went grocery shopping at Kroger in the late afternoon to stock up on supplies.

By the time we got back, it was finally the time for the Pep Rally. I tried to layer up with a fleece jacket under my sweat shirt before putting on the maize t-shirt but that didn't work. So, with just a t-shirt, sweat shirt and maize t-shirt over the top, I trotted out of the house in the cold (hovering around zero degree celsius) towards the Diag. It was awesome. Speeches by team captains Mike Hart and Jake Long, and speeches to fire up the crowd by various speakers. The crowd was just in a frenzy. Shouting and cheering and singing The Victors along with the band while braving the cold night. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. No matter the outcome of the game, it truly is great to be a Michigan Wolverine. Despite the cold, tons of people squeezed into the Diag to show their support for the team. All I can say is that it was just overwhelming.

I got home and had a simple dinner. Was contemplating going to my classmate's house party and when I finally headed out, I couldn't find a parking spot near her house and gave up trying. Came home and mulled around a little before heading out again. This time, to Studio 4. Okay, here's the shocker. Since I don't ever club and never did that in my 2 years plus here, this was a first. The crowd at the club was pretty poor today but nonetheless, was a decently enjoyable time with friends from TWSA. Drove over to Bubble Island with Anny and met up with the rest of the group for some bubble tea and snacks. Didn't get home till after 3am. So, the countdown continues. It has been a different, but pleasantly enjoyable day.

Tomorrow: pre-gaming at Simon's house (classmate/fellow group mate) at 8am! Beer pong and what-not before heading to the Big House for THE GAME at noon. I'm psyched!

Those who stay will be champions. Believe. Go Blue!!!

Weekend Outings

It's early Sunday morning and since I don't really feel like reading my finance text at the moment, and also don't want to work on my financial model at the moment, here I am to capitalize on this moment of opportunity to blog.

It has been a pretty eventful weekend, with quite a couple of outings with my renewed push to get people to head out every weekend. The idea is to try out at least most of the famous eateries in Ann Arbor, which is so famous for these awesome dining places, before I graduate next year.

I got bored Thursday night after watching Survivor. After hanging around for some time and doing some work here and there, decided to look for kakis to go out for a drink. Met up with Jianwei around midnight and had the Volcanic Mojito at Cafe Habana. Awesome drink once again, though I think I still prefer the Classic. [Will upload photos on this when I get them from Jianwei]

I had my usual finance case meeting on Friday, and crunched some numbers as well as did some analysis on the AHP case. At least I got a good laugh at the meeting with the guys who were there. Haha, crazy kids. Rounded up a group of Singaporeans and headed to Main Street for the second week running. This time, we headed to Real Seafood Co. for dinner.


The set up of the place was really nice and with nice company, it was a really enjoyable night out. For myself, I got a Cesar's Salad and Blackened North Carolina Catfish with Potatoes for my entree. Excellent food, and the freshly baked bread before the meal was awesome too. The fish was juicy and fresh (despite me not being a big fan of fish) and the red-skin potatoes were baked to perfection.


After dinner, a couple of us headed to Showcase Cinemas to catch American Gangster. Danzel Washington and Russell Crowe in another classic flick. Should go watch it if you guys have a chance. The best part is that it was based on a true story. A strong cast and good story line; the almost 3 hour show didn't feel overtly long.

Saturday, was kinda a forgettable day. We got (disgustingly) killed by Wisconsin due to a no-effort by freaking Lloyd Carr, who kept Hart out of the game and pulled Henne off 5 minutes into the game. All the evasive reasons about "didn't look good at warm-ups"; at least have the guts to just say that we're throwing this game because you want to rest the players for the season finale against archrivals Ohio State next week. I call bs. At least let me know that you guys are not going to give a shit about this game and I'll just sleep in on a Saturday morning. Someone go fire his damn ass. The only saving grace is that national number 1, our archrivale Ohio State, lost to the pathetic Illinois, lost to freaking Ron Zook, can you believe that? So, with their title hopes now dashed, Michigan and OSU are (once again) heading into the final game of the season, with everything on the line: the Big Ten Conference Title and a shot at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2008. Still, I was (am still) pissed. Play to win, moron.

After feeling slightly better with OSU to share our misery, headed out for a drink with Roy and Ted (typo here, incorrectly put Roy and Jianwei instead of Ted. Apologies!). This time round, Grizzly Peak Brewing Company. The Pale Ale there was good. Sat around and chatted for a bit. Haven't really been out with Roy before so meeting up was nice. I had an early (okay earlier) night after the semi-terrible day.

Roy's Fried Calamari


So, it has been an eventful and awesome weekend (less the disgusting loss to the Badgers). On another note, not sure if it was a dream or whether I was half-awake and thinking, but woke up with my mind full of someone. Not very enjoyable feeling to get out of bed and realize it was just my imagination.

Awesome huh.

P.S. Thanks Ted for providing the excellent photos from his newly acquired Canon Digital Rebel.

Thursdays (The Not-So-New Fridays)

So, after another hectic week at school and turning in yet another one of Jess Beltz's impossible-to-finish exams, it's the weekend again. Thursday nights are just awesome.

I had my finance exam today, which was surprisingly easy (at least, I thought it was), just that I didn't have the time to finish it because it was so riduculously long. Argh, should have just moved on from the short essay questions to the numerical problems instead of writing a good one page on my views on swaps, futures and options and how to use them to hedge risks. I assure you, it's one of the best "mind-bending" exercises to do these risk hedging with derivatives exercises.

Since I'm still on a high from finally truly understanding this stuff, let me just give you a (not so) short spill on it (skip this section if you're just not interested since you probably won't understand it anyways). So... For a typical Western banking financial institution (FI), their assets, which are their loans, are usually funded using savings deposits, which are liabilities that have an effectively almost-immediate maturity. This results in a negative interest rate sensitivity of the bank, and also a positive duration gap, which also means that there is a maturity mismatch between the assets and liabilities of the FI. Thus, in this situation, the FI would be exposed to a potential loss in income (and equity value, which is important to the FI since it is highly leveraged), if the rates move against them. For a given interest rate increase, the liabilities side of the balance sheet, which is funded predominantly with short-term money, will increase more than the increase in the interest income which they earn from their loans (think 30-year fixed-rate home mortagages).

In order to offset this potential loss in income and to avoid a hit to equity value for the FI, it can hedge it's risks in several ways. Conceptually, the FI will take on a position in the hedge market (hedge market position or HMP) such that it will (exactly) offset the potential losses from an increase in interest rates. Now, think about it for a second. An increase in interest rates would result in a decrease in value of the underlying assets / commodities in the HMP. In order to benefit from a fall in value of the underlying asset in the HMP, you should short (otherwise known as sell) futures contracts. The way this works: if interest rates rise, the value of the underlying will fall, and since you have a futures contract in the HMP, you can buy the underlying and sell the same asset at the pre-determined price as agreed upon in the futures contract, to make a net gain. However, also remember that since you have negative interest rate gap (and positive maturity gap), your cash market position (CMP) will take an almost equivalent hit (if you did a near perfect hedge), resulting in the CMP position losses being offset by your HMP. Aww... the beauty of hedging.

Okay, so now I'm losing steam in explaining this stuff but this is only the easy stuff. I'll just list the other ways to hedge risks for a savings institution with the above-mentioned balance sheet structure. You can also hedge against an increase in rates by buying a put option on the futures contracts. This gives you the right (but not the obligation) to sell the underlying asset (in this case, the futures contract, which in turn is drive in value by the Treasury bonds which underlies it) at a predetermined price at an agreed upon date in the future. So, if rates rise, values fall, you bought a put, so you can sell it for high, when the price has fallen, you once again, earn a profit. However, recall that you lose on the CMP so, this offsets the gains in the HMP, again. You can now probably see the trend: derivative contracts taken in the HMP enable the FI to protect themselves against potential losses due to movements in rates, but in return for this protection, they sacrifice any potential upside which they can gain from a rate movement in their favor. Flip the logic around and the converse will hold for a fall in rates; you gain in your CMP and lose in your HMP. Other methods to hedge include buying a cap and selling a floor to finance it (also known as a collar), or entering a swap contract to make fixed payments and receiving variable. Fun stuff eh? And then you can go ahead and think of an European FI which typically have negative duration gap and positive interest rate gaps. Bend it like Jess Beltz guys. This class rocks.

Okay, so that was pretty exciting. Hmm... it's Thursday night, what should I do tonight? Watch Survivor, go grab some hopefully decent dinner, and... read my finance case?

A little... *ponders*



Always.

It's Great To Be A Michigan Wolverine!

Wolverines 28 Spartans 24. That was a close shit victory. Totally nail-biting, shit-in-your-pants close football match. We were initially up 14-3 before blowing our lead in the third quarter to trail 14-24 in a seemingly impossible situation, with less than 8 minutes on the clock.

Two biggest performances: When trailing 14-24, what happens?

1) An injured Mike Hart dons his helmet once again and coming back on for another saving run from a Mallet fumble. Playing with a high ankle injury which took him out of the previous two games and getting injured once again today, he kept our drive alive.

2) A truly heroic performance(I can't find a more extreme word to describe his heroics) by Chad Henne who just returned from a shoulder AND an injured knee. which got injured once again this game, he rallied the team and brought them on 2 successful storming drives down the Spartan field, kick their ugly butts into orbit.

4) Mario Manningham (aka Super Mario) who makes the most insane catches when the balls are seemingly impossible to catch. Thank you once again, for saving the day.

3) Defense, which botched up in the third quarter after spectacular first and second quarters, found their fire once again and stopped the Spartan drive late in the final quarter to seal our win.

Big props to heroes Henne and Hart, and the team. You guys make all of us bleed Maize and Blue.

The pride. It's truely great, to be a Michigan Wolverine.

Thursdays Are The New Fridays

After a semi-decent week, it's finally the weekend again. Boy, don't I love the weekends. Thursday night, headed out to Cafe Habana with a few guys and Lucy 姐 to celebrate her birthday for her. Had a Classico Mojito, which was surprisingly potent. It was a really nice place to chill out though; got home around 2am that night.

Had a 2 hour meeting with my finance group this morning (Friday morning) and got some calculations ironed out. Semi-productive for a meeting, which is pretty surprising. Had pho for lunch at Saigon and took a nap in the afternoon before waking up to get some readings done. Decided to head out to Main Street (again!) and headed to Amadeus with John and Xingtai for dinner. It was a really pretty and quaint European / Polish style restaurant. Had a really nice warm feel to the place, with all the old paintings and deco around, coupled with a guitarist who was churning out nice songs all night. The food was pretty great; a little pricey but a worthwhile indulgence for the night.

Also, some pictures from the past 2 weeks or so from the Minnesota game (27 October 2007), as well as the Singapore Food Fest 2007.

Singapore Food Fest 2007 with help from Ariel and Anny

From L-to-R: Kelvin, Alan, Maggie, Jeff

The Pre-Game March to the Stadium

In the Big House

Kick-off... Kill the Golden Gophers!

Celebration! The Rout on Minnesota Complete! 34-10!


Tomorrow, we're going to face off the Spartans (Michigan State University) tomorrow in an away game. Take their heads off!!! Go Blue!