How time flies. This is post no. 208, which makes it the 4th birthday for this weekly blog. This is a time for celebrations and reflections. Today's story is about my studies in the Singapore Management University (SMU)'s Masters in Applied Finance (MAF) programme. I enrolled in the programme in Jul 2004. The stock market had just recovered from a 3-year slump due to the dot.com crash in 2000, Sep 11 terrorist attack in 2001, accounting scandals in 2002 and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. After a prolonged slump, the market staged a strong recovery in 2004 and I made my first (small) pot of gold. I decided to reinvest the profits, not in stocks, but in a formal education in investment. Through good fortune, I heard of the MAF programme in SMU and decided to enrol in it in Jul 2004. The MAF programme catered ......